The truth behind Nigel Farage’s sinister attacks on George Soros

Nigel Farage’s attacks on George Soros and the latter’s support for the EU and liberal democracy conceal his ignorance as well as something much more sinister.

Soros’ initial role was to encourage countries in central Europe to move away from the authoritarianism that Soviet communism had brought. It is interesting to note that Hungary’s Viktor Orban fully supported Soros’ ideas until personal ambition and the corruption of power led him to revive authoritarian rule.

In 1993 Soros established the Open Society Foundations movement. Recipients of OSF funding include black American organisations fighting racist discrimination (fuelling Farage’s pal Trump’s hostility towards Soros) and human rights groups in Africa and Palestine amongst many other causes.

But it is his role in Europe in promoting liberal democratic ideals that gets up Nigel’s nose. Earlier, in 1991, more than a decade before Hungary’s accession to the EU, Soros founded the Central European University in Budapest, part of his plan to expand opportunities for higher education and research in post-communist central and eastern Europe. Subsequently, Soros has never hidden his support for the European Union as a bastion of democracy in a continent that had witnessed the impact of 20th century Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism.

Farage’s shameful/shameless scapegoating of George Soros – seen by many as playing to anti-Semitic tropes – is further proof that he and Steve Bannon will stoop to any depths to destabilise the status quo in Europe.

Anthony West, Folkestone

Nigel Farage claims to be a “working” man and suggests that other MEPs – former farmers, doctors, nurses, teachers, builders, scientists etc – have “never done a day’s work” in their lives.

His own working life was that of a commodity and currency speculator/broker. An activity severely restricted by the arrival of the euro. I recall a quotation from Andrew Carnegie: “Speculation is a parasite feeding upon the values and efforts of others and creating nothing.”

Farage is the most corrosive individual in British society since Oswald Mosley.

Martin Deighton, Woodbridge

How can Nigel Farage comment that it is his duty to stop career politicians when he has served as an MEP for nearly 20 years and expects to draw a taxpayer-funded pension for the rest of his days?

Tony Howarth, London SW3

Shouldn’t TNE stop calling Nigel Farage a “nicotine-stained man frog”? All it does is show that Remainers, like Leavers, can be abusive too.

Anyway, he’s more like Kaa, the python in The Jungle Book whose coiling and looping and hypnotic stare drew the monkeys to him while soothing them with the words: “Trust in me. Just in me. Close your eyes and trust in me.”

And we know what happened to them.

Roger Hinds, Surrey

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