Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is a fascinating character. He’s clearly a very able marketing man, being the driving force behind Kettle Chips, Loyd Grossman’s sauces and, of course, Black Farmer sausages. The latter is a fascinating case study. A black man who bemoans people playing the “race card” yet who has carefully crafted a brand out of his ethnicity. He isn’t, by his own admission, actually a farmer (he prefers the euphemism “gentleman farmer“) and it appears doesn’t even breed the pigs for his products on his estate. Nothing especially wrong with that per se, but it does make him an unlikely champion to drive the spin merchants out of politics.
Emmanuel-Jones the political brand is, superficially at least, a lot like the Black Farmer. Over the last few years the Conservatives have frequently encouraged coverage in leftwing newspapers on the basis that he represents the living embodiment of the modern Cameronian Conservative brand, yet in those articles the candidate himself is at pains to talk his ethnicity down. Yet the stories persist. Last year, the Independent got terribly excited about the idea of the BNP “targeting” Chippenham because Emmanuel Jones was standing. Nonsense of course – the BNP are no hopers there – but it did press all the right buttons, all but making the moral case for all progressively minded voters in Chippenham to vote Tory out of principle.
It took a couple of months before the real target of these articles emerged. The Telegraph covered the same story from a somewhat different angle. In this, Emmanuel-Jones is quoted as saying:
“The Lib Dems have been very sly,” he told Mandrake at The Spectator’s 180th anniversary party, at the Hyatt Regency hotel, in Marylebone. “They have sent out leaflets saying: ‘Don’t vote for the Devon farmer.’ They clearly want to portray me as an outsider and are planting the seed in people’s minds that I am not local. Yes, I have a smallholding in Devon, but I’m no less of a local than their candidate.”
The Tory, who has launched a successful range of sausages and sauces under the name “The Black Farmer”, adds: “I haven’t had any trouble from the BNP. They put up a candidate, but, unlike the Lib Dems, he hasn’t made an issue of where I am from.”
This is echoed in The Observer’s interview with him this weekend:
“The Liberal Democrats have been very clever. Their favourite slag-off is to say I live 200 miles away. Their strategy is: foreigner, outsider. It’s not exactly racist, but ….”
(as an aside, it does annoy me how interviewers can sometimes be co-conspirators in spin, wittingly or not. In a real conversation you wouldn’t be able to get away with trailing off like that and not having the person you are speaking to ask for clarification – so why the sudden incuriosity of Rachel Cooke here? It’s a serious allegation which she lets just hang)
We’ve been here before. For a long time after his victory in Cheltenham in 1997 I recall Nigel Jones frequently being accused of running a racist campaign against John Taylor. The allegation is familiar: by emphasising that our candidate is local and their candidate is from outside the area we are making a dog whistle signal about their ethnicity and “foreignness.” For such a tactic to work of course, Chippenham voters would have to be racist themselves.
There are four tests however we should apply. Firstly, is the “not local” claim true or not? Secondly, is it a reasonable criticism? Thirdly, would a white rival candidate get the same treatment? Fourthly, is this tactic unique to the Lib Dems?
In the case of the latter two the answer is, respectively, yes and no. Over the past year or so we have had three Parliamentary by-elections and on each occasion the Tories have made an issue out of the Lib Dems’ candidate’s lack of local credentials. This was true for Steven Kearney, a Southampton councillor standing in Henley, and for April Pond, Norwich resident standing in, um, a different bit of Norwich (and it was true for Tory candidate Chloe Smith one of whose opponents – long time Uzbekistan resident Craig Murray – went to the extreme of employing birther tactics to imply her non-Norwich ethnicity).
But is it a fair criticism? I’ve repeatedly said that I think the parochialism of modern politics is pernicious and that the Lib Dems must accept their share of responsibility for the current state of affairs, but while it is not the be-all and end-all there is no question that being local is a positive trait for an MP and while UK politics is as centralised as it is, it will be a bigger factor than it need be for the foreseeable future. Politicians who are rooted in the area they live in – regardless of where they originally came from – pick up local issues every time they walk outside of their front door; politicians rooted elsewhere are dependent on their surgeries and mail sacks. For the typical voter who doesn’t want to have to constantly engage with their MP about every little issue, that is a positive boon.
If I were a Chippenham resident, my key concerns about Emmanuel-Jones would be twofold. Firstly, not only is he not based in Chippenham but when it comes to describing Devon he responds with “I suppose you could say it’s my soul.” That doesn’t exactly suggest that the welfare of Chippenham will be at the top of his priorities, does it? Secondly, there is the question of how much he actually really wants to job.
I follow both of Emmanuel-Jones’ twitter accounts, theblackfarmer and wilfred4change. The former is a highly personal, friendly stream, clearly written by Wilfred himself and broadcasting someone who really loves his job. The latter might as well be churned out by a robot. The former has been updated 703 times and has 317 followers; the latter has been updated 151 times and has 94 followers. There’s no question that Emmanuel-Jones is a British success story, but that doesn’t automatically make him a good MP or the right man for Chippenham. In an ideal world he’d be standing in Devon and have a chance of winning even over and above sitting Tory MPs. But that would involve a different electoral system, something the Conservatives have set themselves against.
But my biggest concern is that in many respects this squalid innuendo about the Lib Dems running a squalid innuendo-laden racist campaign against Emmanuel-Jones is getting their excuses in first. Is Emmanuel-Jones being used by CCHQ as a patsy? They’ve done a great job at convincing journalists that, all things being equal, he is a shoe-in for the job, but all the evidence suggests otherwise. Chippenham, a new constituency, does in fact have a notional Lib Dem majority. Of course, four years on, you could argue that the Cameron effect changes all that. Yet in a year where the Lib Dems did badly overall in the South West, we won both the most councillors and the largest share of the vote in June. Last week we won two by-elections there.
None of these Conservative defeats had anything whatsoever to do with the colour of their parliamentary candidates’ skin. The worry is that an unthinking media, steeped in churnalism, is going to end up being complicit in branding a blameless Lib Dem MP a racist for years to come simply for committing the heinous crime of doing a better job.
Great post James. It seems very strange indeed to have innuendo about racism based on decsribing someone as a “Devon farmer”.
The guy also promoted himself and his race via a TV show which sought to identify talent and provide opportunity exclusively for Black ‘youths.’ Aren’t these kinds of double-standards by definition racist — and doesn’t this kind of racism become more glaring and more grating day by day?
I think Emmanuel-Jones is a positive role model and there is nothing wrong with him encouraging black youths to set their sights higher.
Supposedly the “thing that’s wrong with the BNP” is that they would consider the interests of Whites qua Whites — makes ’em racist and beyond the pale, apparently. James Graham says the same characteristics in Emmanuel Jones are admirable — and presumably the Conservative party agrees.
Remind me again what racism is…
What’s the difference here between “the Devon Farmer” and the Tories’ numerous attempts since (and including) 1987 to smear Ming Campbell as “the Edinburgh lawyer” in North East Fife’s campaigns?
Oh, that’s right. It’s OK when they do it but not when we do it to them. “They don’t like it up ’em,” as Jones used to say….
Philip,
There is nothing racist about Emmanuel-Jones using his own money to encourage inner city kids to set their horizons higher and it wouldn’t be racist for a white entrepreneur to do so as well.
The idea that it is comparable to the BNP is ludicrous. The BNP aren’t role models. They are, to a large extent, convicted criminals and weirdos.
He is a lot “less local” than Duncan Hames, the Lib Dem candidate.
Duncan lives and works in the constituency. I think he is a councillor there too.
The black farmer has his farm in Devon and a home in London, both 100s of miles from the constituency in opposite directions.
Antony,
I’m not disagreeing. But Duncan has many other qualities in addition to his ‘localness’. If the only thing he had going for himself was his postcode then he wouldn’t deserve to win.
James, would it be racist for a White entrepreneur to use his money to advance the interests of White kids in particular? If the answer’s no, fine, but that’s the parallel – not that he merely helps kids____ (surely you knew that, surely you evaded the point because it’s awkward for ya?)
Not necessarily, no. It would all depend on whether they were providing kids with a leg up or using them to make some kind of political point about the countryside being swamped by foreigners and our VERY WAY OF LIFE being at risk.
So if Gordon Brown announced a new program to ensure that every White child in Britian – and only the White children – were going top get free tertiary education you wouldn’t call it racist? Bull…
Nobody thinks that racism is the ‘use’ of members of one’s race to make ‘political points’? Who ‘uses’ people that way?
Racism is the disprivileging of people because on their race. It’s what the Black Farmer did when he said non-Black kids couldn’t enjoy the advantages and opportunities he was offering on that racist TV show he made. And you my friend would admit that and not seek to excuse his behaviour if Mr Emmanuel was White – that double standard makes you racist in my eyes.
That clearly would be a racist policy. Emmanuel-Jones is not the government and what he does with his money is up to him. You don’t seem to understand the difference between national policy and private action.
The idea that Emmanuel-Jone is a racist is laughable. I’ve given you more than enough rope to hang yourself with. Consider yourself banned from here on. Bye!
James – Phillip is right, you are being ridiculously obtuse. You now appear to be arguing that only governments can be racist! Is it so difficult to admit that if Emmanuel-Jones created a TV show and offered opportunities in the way Phillip claims then, yes, Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is quite simply racist.
Making a single television programme about young black people being introduced to farming does not make you a racist. The idea that a man who has generally rejected black culture, works closely on a daily basis in a white-dominated industry and in a white-dominated political party is some kind of living exponent of black supremacy is ridiculous.
End of debate. You desperate BNP arseholes can keep trying to troll this as much as you like but you will be deleted.