An obscure political pressure group – Blacking Up Britain – has claimed responsibility for UKIP leader Nigel Farage’s appearance in black face for the launch of his party’s election manifesto. Farage’s attempt to present UKIP’s policies for the forthcoming general election whilst blacked up caused outrage, despite attempts to present it some kind of ironic joke. “He was just trying to uphold the old English folk traditions of blacking up – everyone knows that the wearing of black face has nothing to do with racism,” Italian shipping tycoon Mario Pudenda – one of the anti-European party’s biggest financial backers – told the Daily Norks. “He was demonstrating that it is simply political correctness gone mad that people have been indoctrinated into believing that it is racially offensive – these are exactly the kind of attitudes which got the Black and White Minstrel Show taken off of TV!” Nevertheless, public and press reaction was entirely negative, with thousands taking to social media to condemn the UKIP leader. However, in an entirely unexpected development, the Blacking Up Britain group, a little known organisation dedicated to fighting racial prejudice, contacted Sky News to claim responsibility for the incident. Denying that they were attempting to sabotage UKIP’s campaign, their leader – known only as ‘Captain Black’ – claimed in a recorded message that they were simply attempting to draw attention to racial discrimination.
“By breaking into Mr Farage’s house in dead of night and blacking him up as he slept, we weren’t trying to humiliate him, but rather to make him consider what it’s like to be part of an ethnic minority and thereby face his subconscious prejudices,” ‘Captain Black’ claimed in the recording. “We wanted to see what his reaction would be when he looked in the mirror in the morning and saw a black face staring back at him – would he be filled with self loathing? Or would it give him an insight into how it felt to be one of immigrants he wants to deport?” ‘Captain Black’ conceded that it was unfortunate that the make up that Blacking Up Britain had used on Farage had proven to be far more difficult to remove than they had envisaged. “After seeing his initial reaction – which we were filming with a concealed camera – we just assumed that he’d be able to wipe it off,” ‘Captain Black’ claimed. “Whilst it is unfortunate that his inability to do this has exposed to him to public hate and ridicule, on the positive side, it has hopefully given Mr Farage some insight into what real people of colour have to suffer on a daily basis.” ‘Captain Black’ claimed to have provided Sky News with a copy of the secret video recording of Farage’s reaction, but the station has so far not screened it, allegedly for legal reasons.
Nonetheless, a Sky News insider has told The Sleaze that he has seen the footage and it paints the UKIP leader in a poor light. “He just goes ape shit when he looks in the mirror – screaming in terror, then shouting for his wife to call the police because there’s a burglar in the house,” the source claimed. “Then we see his German wife come into the bathroom – she starts screaming ‘Ach, ein schwartzer!’ before pleading ‘please don’t rape me!’ It’s all pretty damning stuff – he might claim that he and UKIP aren’t racist, but he clearly equates black men with criminality!” Both Sky News and UKIP have denied the existence of the video, with UKIP backer Pudenda condemning the Sky source’s allegations. “It’s clearly all part of a concerted plot to smear our leader, making him out to be some kind of racist,” he told the Daily Norks. “I challenge anyone to come up with a single instance of Nigel Farage saying anything racist or treating any member of an ethnic minority with anything other than courtesy. Sure, he might be a buffoon and an ill informed Little Englander, but he isn’t a racist. OK, some of our candidates might have said derogatory and bigoted things about the Chinese and black people, for instance, but our leader most certainly isn’t racist himself.”
Pudenda has questioned why the UKIP leader has been singled out by Blacking Up Britain for this treatment, arguing that it is clear evidence that, far from being interested in fighting racial prejudice, the organisation is obviously some kind of front for UKIP’s rivals. “Why aren’t they targeting the other party leaders? Surely it would be more relevant to see the Prime Minister’s reaction to turning black?” he asked in the Daily Norks. “And I’d be fascinated to see Alex Salmond’s reaction to waking up to find he was a Pakistani, or that sanctimonious bastard Nick Clegg’s to being Chinese, but I very much doubt we’ll see such things.” In a statement issued to the Press Association, ‘Captain Black’ stated that the blacking up of Farage was only the first stage of their campaign and that he had been selected for the first attack simply because his personal security was slacker than that of the other party leaders, making it easier to gain entry to his house. The statement went on to claim that Blacking Up Britain would use a variety of tactics against Britain’s politicians, pointing to its previous deployment of protesters in black face at English Defence League (EDL) demonstrations. “We challenged the EDL to face the fallacy of their prejudices – would they still hate black faces when they merely hid the white faces they claim to represent?” the statement asked. “The fact that a riot ensued at one demonstration, during which several buildings were firebombed and several people injured, merely served to highlight the inherent idiocy of the EDL’s position.”
However, doubts have been raised as to Blacking Up Britain’s true nature by top conspiracy theorist Guy Libnatz, who, in the latest edition of Conspiracy Digest, accuses the organisation of actually being a right-wing front organisation, dedicated to discrediting the UK’s immigration laws. “They might claim that they are putting white people in black face onto the streets of Britain in an attempt to challenge people’s perceptions of race, but the reality is far more sinister,” he writes. “In fact, they are putting all these blacked up people out there to try and create the impression that the UK is awash with foreigners! Their aim is to create a public backlash against immigrants so as to force the main political parties into ever harder lines on immigration!” The blacking up of Nigel Farage, he contends, was merely a diversionary tactic, to deflect attention from their main mission. “It also reinforces the impression that Britain’s leading anti-immigration politician is the victim of a left-wing smear campaign, thereby enhancing his standing on the right,” Libnatz wrote. “But despite all his rhetoric, the reality is that most of the supposed foreigners and immigrants he and his supporters rail against are actually blacked up white people!”
