No, it isn’t OK to ‘milkshake’ Nigel Farage — or anybody else
(Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)
There is no surer way of appearing a fool than attempting to engage in political punditry. Just weeks ago I was convinced the question of whether airborne milkshakes are an acceptable part of political discourse had been settled to the negative. I hope my youth excuses my naivety. On Monday Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage became the latest, and highest profile, European election candidate to fall victim to a high-cholesterol missile. He was splatted while campaigning in Newcastle. But it wasn’t so much the attack as the gleeful reaction, including from some who really should know better, that truly shocked me.
It started, as many terrible things do, with Tommy Robinson. On May 2 Britain’s answer to what would happen if a Breitbart comment section became sentient was out plying his dubious trade in Warrington. A man approached him, remonstrated for a while then threw a milkshake in his face. Within hours ‘Tommy Robinson’ was trending nationwide on Twitter. For a man who has been banned from virtually every social media platform, and who relies on publicity to remain relevant, this was a not inconsiderable gift from his opponent.
Soon the bad takes began flooding in. The Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire, usually a sensible commentator, offered to buy the assailant “a replacement drink”. Conservative MP Johnny Mercer retweeted video of the incident with the hashtag ‘#lovebritain’. Milkshaking, as a political act, had become a meme. Next to be targeted was Carl Benjamin, a UKIP candidate for the European Parliament in the south-west of England. He was doused by milkshake while campaigning four separate times in one week, most recently in Salisbury.
Now of course it is hard to summon up much sympathy for Robinson or Benjamin. The former, having taken his pseudonym from a former Luton Town football hooligan, in 2011 threatened the “Islamic community” with the “full force of the English Defence League if we see any of our British citizens killed, maimed or hurt on British soil ever again”. Meanwhile, Benjamin, a man who styles himself ‘Sargon of Akkad’ online while demanding we take his arguments seriously, is probably best known for joking about whether he would or wouldn’t rape Labour MP Jess Phillips.
Invariably though, the attacks continued and the pool of targets widened. On May 17, when the Brexit Party held a rally in Edinburgh, police asked a McDonalds to stop selling milkshake, presumably in a bid to protect Farage. In Twitter, the official Burger King UK account reacted by posting “Dear people of Scotland. We’re selling milkshakes all weekend. Have fun”. A major corporation mocking, or perhaps even inciting, attacks on a leading politician ahead of an election he looks set to win. It’s enough to send even the most fervent Thatcherite into a raging Marxist.
A few days later, though there is no suggestion of a link, Farage was struck by a banana and caramel shake in Newcastle. This provoked unconcealed joy from a certain type of left-winger. The Independent published an article from Tom Peck, its political sketch writer, titled ‘Nigel Farage getting hit by a milkshake isn’t funny, it’s absolutely hilarious’. Left-wing websites began selling ‘Milkshake anti-racists – lactose the intolerant’ pin badges. On Tuesday I covered the Brexit Party’s final pre-election rally at London’s Kensington Olympia. Outside was a small group of anti-Brexit ultras, one of whom taunted attendees from behind police lines by waving a milkshake. Yesterday, on European election day itself, a young thug threw a milkshake over an 81-year-old Brexit Party teller at a polling station in Aldershot. The victim, a Parachute Regiment veteran, laughed it off: “It was my favourite flavour.” But such an assault is no joke.
People throw eggs, milkshakes and other objects at politicians for one primary reason. To make their activities, in particular campaigning, as unpleasant as possible and thus discourage them. It is, and always has been, a low key form of intimidation. An attempt to restrict the activities of those you disagree with by, for example, making it impossible for them to interact with voters in the street without being covered in sugary liquid.
The only possible justification, unless you believe political debate should be conducted as a street-based free for all, is that some arguments are so intrinsically dangerous, suppressing them by force is justified. This isn’t a totally ludicrous position, indeed it’s broadly the Government’s view. Try making a speech in a city centre backing ISIS, for example – or attacking racial minorities, and you can expect to have your collar felt. Free speech in the UK is not, and never has been, absolute. But limits to free speech, while occasionally necessary as in the case of incitement to violence, should only be placed with the greatest reluctance. And, if we must have them, they should be enforced by law, not mobs of freelancers with their own individual opinions on what should and shouldn’t be allowed, and what level of violence is acceptable to shut ‘bad’ people up.
The whole milkshaking saga has shown just how hollow the liberalism of some on the left truly is. You can have free speech, for sure, just as long as you use it to call Nigel Farage a prick. Deviate too far though, and there will be consequences. Now of course a milkshake is hardly a rock or bottle but the intention, to shut down those you disagree with by making them uncomfortable, remains the same. And all incidents of intimidation, no matter how slight, should be rejected in a free society. If the future of Britain is a strawberry milkshake stamped on a human face, forever, then I want no part in it.
