Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
I dispute your notion that Farage has achieved "historical greatness" - what has he done exactly? Brexit has been an entirely Conservative party creation in that there have been people in that party who have been agitating for us to come out of the EU for as long as Farage has. For example, I can remember someone like Bill Cash (who I have never heard talk about else but the EU in a very long career as an MP) being derided as one of a bunch of MPs who were portrayed as loons for their objections to the Maastricht Treaty a quarter of a century ago, but, because he was working on the inside, he was more influential than Farage in bringing about David Cameron's bizarre decision to hold a straight yes or no referendum.

I'd also say various newspaper proprietors had more to do with Leave winning than Farage did with the constant drip, drip of anti EU and/or anti immigration stories over a period of decades being instrumental in changing enough people's opinions to create a situation where Leave could win.

Farage was influential to the extent that he became the public face of a one issue party which did well enough to win an occasional election on a protest vote, but Brexit didn't come about because of one man - claiming that it did is just rewriting history while pandering to an already enormous ego.


Well of course you may dispute it, and you may disagree . You might very well be right because only time will tell.
As I said to the previous poster, History is neutral so it takes no political or personal view, and it's often somewhat selective.

William Wilberforce didn't single handedly abolish slavery but he's the one that's remembered for it because he was the figurehead of the movement.

I'ts only a bit of fun, and I'm merely responding to the OP by suggesting a present day character who ticks all the boxes to be recorded in History as a great man. As it happens I'd probably disagree with you about his merits or otherwise , but that's entirely beside the point.
You mention Bill Cash, but you answer your own question by saying that no one talks about him in the present day, and most of the members of this particular board wouldn't have even heard of him.
I mentioned Oliver Cromwell ,and half the country felt so negative toward him that they went to war over it, yet I doubt that many here haven't heard of him all these centuries later.

I don't know why we're finding it so hard to separate the question of someone's significance in history , ( which is as near as we can get to defining greatness), from whether or not we like them .