Patriotic Alliance (PA) leader Gayton McKenzie blasted Liam Jacobs, who defected from the PA to the Democratic Alliance (DA) with great fanfare earlier this week.

Jacobs had been a Member of Parliament for the DA before defecting to the PA in June last year, claiming that he had been “used” by the DA, and that in the PA “I am finally home”. He claimed at the time not to have been promised anything for the move, but media speculation had him in line for a prominent local government position, perhaps as a PA mayoral candidate. This proved to be correct as Jacobs was at various times, the PA’s mayoral candidate for Tshwane and Cape Town.

McKenzie took to social media to issue a stinging rebuke in a livestream that lasted more than half an hour, telling Jacobs “Los die PA se naam uit jou mond uit!” (Leave the PA’s name out of your mouth).

He reminded Jacobs that he had told the PA that the DA was racist, and that the PA had been there to take Jacobs in “after they spat you out and told you to shut up. We protected you,” he said.

He said that Jacobs had an inflated ego and sense of entitlement. He did not fit in with the PA’s approach to politics, nor with its culture. The PA, McKenzie said, was a party of the poor, “not an upper-middle-class party”. The PA was also not a “culture of coconuts”. Jacobs did not “work the ground”, and he had no rapport with the PA’s voters. “He cannot speak to them, and he’s never spoken to them,” said McKenzie.

Jacobs was for these reasons never trusted by the PA. “Ons het hom lankal gesien kom (we saw him coming a long way off),” McKenzie said.

McKenzie said he had warned other party colleagues that “this boy is not who we think he is”.

Jacobs was, however, a “very talented young man”, who had made his choice. McKenzie said that nevertheless, “coloured [people] don’t rise in the DA”.

McKenzie also alluded to the distinction between a “plantation slave” and a “house slave”, the former enduring the harshest oppression, the other receiving a small measure of comfort from his master. He implied Jacobs to be the latter. He also remarked that some people were not used to seeing coloured people getting opportunities.

Claiming that he had a “soft spot” for Jacobs, he cautioned that Jacobs should not provoke the PA. “You are not our enemy. You cannot be our enemy. Don’t try to be our enemy.” PA members would not tolerate or sit idly by if their party was denigrated. “These people are very disciplined but don’t play with their party.”

McKenzie repeatedly told Jacobs to “bamba (restrain) yourself.”