We Can’t Allow Debate Surrounding Death of Sarah Everard to ‘Turn into Attacks on Men’, Says Farage

Protesters calling for greater public safety for women after the death of Sarah Everard, a
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP via Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

Brexit leader Nigel Farage has drawn a “parallel” between the Black Lives Matter protests and the discussions related to the apparent murder of Sarah Everard, in that while the former brands all white people as beneficiaries of “white privilege”, the latter is in danger of leading to the stigmatisation of all men as dangerous.

Mr Farage told supporters on Sunday: “Following that BLM uprising, we’ve now had month after month of white people being told they are guilty. Those of us that are white, we have ‘white privilege’, and some of this nonsense is being taught in our schools. It isn’t healing any racial divides. All it is actually doing is dividing black and white people, and [it is] hugely counterproductive.

“There is a danger that in the debate about this abduction and murder — and more broadly, how safe women are on the streets, all of which is a valid debate — there’s a danger that we go way too far in our criticism of men and broaden this out from bad people to men as a group.”

Farage gave examples of how Miss Everard’s death, the aftermath of which has seen London Metropolitan Police constable Wayne Couzens being charged with her kidnapping and murder, prompted several left-wing politicians to propose curfews for men.

On Thursday, the Green Party’s Jenny Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb, proposed in the House of Lords an amendment to the next appropriate bill “to create a curfew for men on the streets after 6 pm”. The following day, Labour’s regional leader in Wales, First Minister Mark Drakeford, said he would consider the “temporary intervention” of a curfew on men in his nation in the event of a “crisis”.

Meanwhile Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Hannah Bardell, frontbencher and spokeswoman for the left-separatist party in Westminster, said that such a move was “definitely worth considering”, saying that “we may well be at the stage where we need to discuss all the options, even the ones that sound a bit wacky”.

Sadiq Khan, London’s Labour mayor, wrote in the i newspaper on Friday — in an opinion piece entitled “After Sarah Everard’s death, the onus is on men to change” — that “men and boys” need to be “educate[d]” about “the sexism and misogyny that’s still widespread”.

On Khan’s comments last week in support of the proposal to “recognise misogyny as a hate crime”, Mr Farage remarked: “I can feel another hate crime, speech crime, thought crime, perhaps, coming down the track.”

Farage continued that “all of this is in danger of alienating men and say that men, as a group, are dangerous.

“That’s rather like saying: ‘teenagers are dangerous because they might be carrying a knife. They might stab you.’ Or say, ‘Muslims are dangerous because they’re all going to be jihadi terrorists.’ Well, it’s not true in the case of teenagers, it’s not true in the case of Muslims, and it certainly isn’t true in the case of all men.

“Yes, there are some who behave terribly, but we need to get a sense of perspective of this before we start rushing to legislation and teaching kids at school that it’s wrong it be male.

“Because that, I fear, is where this debate is beginning to go.”

“We must not allow the tragic murder of a young woman turn into attacks on men and attacks on the police,” Mr Farage warned.

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