Opinions / Farage visit exposes uncomfortable divide and toxic social media abuse
Reporter Ryan Nicolson reflects on a tumultuous Tuesday in Shetland politics
AS NIGEL Farage hurried out of BBC Radio Shetland on Tuesday, Alex Armitage delivered a message of optimism.
He told me that the Green Party’s politics of “hope and kindness” were beating Farage, and Reform UK’s, far-right rhetoric.
It turns out that was just half-time. A quick glimpse at the social media scoreboard after a bruising second half of the day, and it appeared Farage had secured a 5-1 thrashing over “hope and kindness”.
Whether you believe that the Greens approach represented “kindness” on Tuesday morning is a matter of personal opinion.
The protestors were severely criticised online for their approach to Farage, which was undoubtedly confrontational.
They were also criticised on social media for their choice of footwear, their hair colour and whether they should even have been there. People seem to see the Green party as fair game for these kinds of insults online, day in, day out.
Farage, by his own nature, is confrontational himself. In the sanctity of the Radio Shetland studio, he took turns to label the Green protestors as “moronic” Marxists, and “extreme left wing” disruptors who had ruined his day trip.
That is among the kinder comments he has delivered over the years, so perhaps those campaigners should count themselves lucky.
I can almost guarantee he delivered a different description of them in the car back down to Sumburgh Airport.
Having been in the centre of the scrum on Tuesday morning, it very quickly escalated from a silent protest into one in which barbs were being thrown – that Farage was a “millionaire” and “scrounger” – and then back at them by Farage himself.
Such was the strength of ill-feeling against him, the Reform team quickly abandoned a plan to stop in a Lerwick café for a coffee.
Part of me wondered if Farage would have been refused service anyway.
Whatever your political persuasion, Tuesday became a depressing indictment of the faultlines in the divide between parties, and the staggering frequency in which social media abuse has become the accepted norm.
Alex Armitage, and the Green party at large, have spent the campaign enduring constantly hurtful and personal attacks online. On more than one occasion, it’s reached the point where Shetland News has had to turn the comments off under articles in which he’s featured.
He is not alone in this. SNP’s Hannah Mary Goodlad and the Liberal Democrats’ Emma Macdonald also generate a fair amount of online hate, so much so that Macdonald recently told Shetland News she had been unable to look at her personal Facebook page during the election campaign.
While Farage received a large amount of heat on Tuesday, it was Armitage and the Green party who bore the brunt of the backlash in the aftermath.
It was striking how quickly the narrative changed from concern about Farage’s visit to anger about the Greens’ intervention.
A widely shared post on Facebook on Tuesday night piously claimed that some Shetlanders had “let themselves down” for failing to roll out the red carpet for Farage.
It was claimed that the Green Party and its supporters “fell well short” of the standards of respect, and for not taking the time to stop and listen to Farage.
Or perhaps they have listened to him, and have heard enough?
The dividing lines seem to be over oil and gas and fishing – Shetland’s core industries – both of which Farage gave his huge backing to when I interviewed him yesterday morning.
Farage is not the first politician to come here and say that Shetland’s fishermen are getting a raw deal, and that he is the person to sort it.
He won’t be the last, either, although he may be the quickest – his three-hour stopover must be a new record.
What Farage’s visit did expose, however, was the strength of support that both he and his party have in Shetland – particularly among the younger generation.
For so long this election campaign, Reform has been something of a sideshow – a ‘will they, won’t they’ story about whether candidate Vic Currie was ever going to show up, or if he was even a real person.
After Tuesday, it seems clear that even if he had been a cardboard cut-out then some people would have put their X next to his name on the ballot paper.
Currie and the party were on show in microcosm at Tuesday night’s BBC Radio Shetland hustings. He would prefer people a “little closer to home” working in health and social care, rather than migrants or asylum seekers.
It says a lot about the political divide in the isles that he was met by both a smattering of applause, and gasps.
We keep hearing this phrase – repeated at the hustings – that Shetland is a welcoming place for all.
But constantly in the comment sections on Facebook came the same line, that these Green protestors were simply “incomers” who did not speak for the people of Shetland.
Which is it? Is Shetland a welcoming place that embraces everyone that arrives here, or a closed-off island community for those born and bred alone?
Tuesday was a bruising day for Shetland, whether you stand with Farage and Reform or against him. It’s opened up some uncomfortable conversations, which will continue from now until 7 May and onwards.
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