A Brexit-inspired campaign for one of South Africa’s richest provinces to declare independence from the Rainbow Nation is gaining traction – and it’s thanks to a Nigel Farage-loving Briton. The Cape independence movement seeks the secession of Western Cape province, the area including Cape Town and the winelands where the first Dutch settlers arrived in the 17th century, beginning hundreds of years of colonialism. Looking to imitate
Brexit is the newly launched
referendum Party, which will be competing in the country’s upcoming national
election on a one-issue ticket – the independence of Western Cape from
South Africa . The party is led by
British national Phil Craig, who moved from the
UK 20 years ago but feels his chosen country no longer resembles the one he came to, describing it as “if not a failed state, then a failing one”, and adding that it is “fundamentally different from 2004 [as] South Africa lurched to the left”. Unsurprisingly, a Briton attempting to draw lines of sovereignty on the map of Africa – with
immigration control for those from the country’s other provinces as Mr Craig proposes – has come in for heavy criticism. A petition has been launched to deport Mr Craig for attempting to divide South Africa. It has more than 27,000 signatures, and he has been called a racist yearning for the days of empire. “Phil Craig and his white supremacist obnoxious racist lot are the running dog of imperialism,” said a spokesperson for the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the third largest political party. “We reject any European imperialist utopia that seeks to replicate itself on the continent and in South Africa with an intention to extend the colonial empire.” Mr Craig says he thrives on the controversy, describing himself as a “deliberately divisive figure” in a not-too-dissimilar
fashion to the Reform UK party founder and former Ukip leader Mr Farage , a comparison he welcomes. He says he shared the petition with
Friends and is glad the EFF don’t like him, because they’re ideologically the opposite of what he stands for. Like Mr Farage’s previous outfit Ukip, Mr Craig believes his goal of independence will be achieved not by an outright election victory in May’s election, but by pushing the country’s main centre-right party, the
Democratic Alliance (DA), further right, and to hold a referendum. The DA themselves are less keen, however. The party leader, John Steenhuisen, has dismissed any ambitions for his party to lead an independent Western Cape. “No, I don’t want to be President of Western Cape… because I don’t think a little corner of Africa is going to be able to sustain itself when collapse happens in the rest of the country and people migrate there in even greater numbers.” He added that “the Referendum Party are lying” to claim that he went back on his word to offer an independence referendum. Read Next Inside Orania, South Africa's controversial 'whites only' town Despite this, Mr Craig is not deterred and claims many people in the DA want independence, they just can’t admit it publicly. He hopes that garnering more support can bring them out of their shell, much like when
Boris Johnson came out for Brexit, as he still envisions them leading an independent Cape. Nationally, the DA are the opposition ,but they have controlled Western Cape with an outright majority since 2009 and got 55 per cent of the vote at the last election. It is the only province in South Africa where the ruling African National
Congress (ANC) does not have a majority. Western Cape is also ethnically unique as it is the sole province, of nine, where black South Africans are not the majority nor the largest racial group, which is “coloureds” – defined as people with mixed white and black or Asian ancestry – who make up 42 per cent of the population. The province also has the largest white population share, at 16 per cent, and is the second richest in South Africa. For Mr Craig there are far deeper ideological differences as well. “Western Cape has a much more Western outlook than the rest of South Africa, it’s always been our justification for partition,” he claimed, citing decentralisation, free markets and more growth as the key differences. Despite his desire for closed borders, he sees an independent Western Cape as an “ideological homeland for people who think like us. Western-leaning ideological minorities in the rest of South Africa will migrate towards us” – though he insists the movement is committed to non-racialism, arguing it is more so than the ANC, which he sees as now a black nationalist party. Many South Africans see his idea as wanting to separate of the wealthiest from the rest. “We vehemently reject the Cape Independence idea pushed by white supremacists who are suffering from white nostalgia [and only] harbour malice to set our country decades back under Apartheid when black people were treated as pariahs in the land of their birth,” argued the EFF spokesperson. At the DA, Mr Steenhuisen insists: “It’s foolhardy and shortsighted for the DA to just retreat to the Western Cape. I want to unite and lead the whole of South Africa… I certainly wouldn’t want to lead the Western Cape because I like the Springbok rugby team.”