[News] Nigel Farage and Reform

[Deportivo Seagull]

I feel like tackling the issues that cause migration should be the main starting point in stopping it, not just simply denying boats.

The starting point is making it extremely difficult for people smugglers to use small boats. Making people smuggling on par with smuggling class A.

 

[TomandJerry]

Brilliant.

One of the industries with most need of workers is agriculture. Lincolnshire is hugely agricultural. It's also incredibly Brexity and Reform voting.

How do you suggest we fill vacancies where there is a real national need, in this case the UK's food and agriculture security, when the locals don't want the only obvious solution.

Turkeys and Christmas anyone?

I suppose that's Reform's position though, no non essential but for industries that need workers, bring them in. Social care and building being another area where more is needed

I'm assuming the government would have the data to know which industries need more workers that would have to be bought in

 

[TomandJerry]

The starting point is making it extremely difficult for people smugglers to use small boats. Making people smuggling on par with smuggling class A.

People smuggling should be seen as a serious crime. So yes start with that but the root causes of the migration should be also addressed in a two prong solution.

 

[Guinness Boy]

I'm assuming the government would have the data to know which industries need more workers that would have to be bought in

I'm assuming Reform do if that's their policy, otherwise it's just back of a fag packet populism.

 

[BBassic]

I suppose that's Reform's position though, no non essential but for industries that need workers, bring them in. Social care and building being another area where more is needed

I'm assuming the government would have the data to know which industries need more workers that would have to be bought in

See I find this interesting. Across this post and the post you're replying to we've got three pretty crucial industries:

Farming
Social Care
Building

And we need to bring people in to do these jobs, right? Which speaks to me of an inherent laziness in, well, us Brits.

We need food but seemingly don't want to farm it. We need people looked after but can't be f***ed to do it. Building? Pah, nah thanks mate.

I'm being quite facetious and generalising a lot here but there's some kernel of truth in it.

If Reform, or any other party come to think of it, actually gave a toss about the amount of people coming here surely one solution would be to get Lazy Johnny English off his fat arse and into the fields / nursing home / building sites. Get the locals doing the work so we don't need immigrants, right?

But they won't. Why? Because if we don't have immigrants then we don't have anyone to scapegoat and sensationalise and weaponise to win votes to keep rich people in power to continue this absolutely pointless pissing contest that we're all embroiled in.

f*** it's all so tedious.

/rant.

 

[TomandJerry]

It's exactly this sort of nonsense that shifts the whole conversation and policy rightwards unfortunately. The idea that there are a couple of Labour MPs considering this (though I'd take a Telegraph report that doesn't attribute names as dodgy in the extreme) is everything that is wrong with social media algo era politics.

Labour should be moving to the left. They should be asking basic questions like 'so do YOU want YOUR human rights to be unprotected?' or 'do you want LESS rights in the workplace?'. I suspect the answer would be 'no' from almost everyone.

But, hey, maybe it's better to have no rights at all just so long as it means we can sling a few Kurds back home?

"Blackley and Middleton South MP Graham Stringer told The Telegraph: “If the results are as bad as predicted on Thursday, the Labour Party mustn’t come out and say it’s a question of just communicating our policies better. Most of all, we need to take control of the borders. If that means renegotiating or changing our international obligations, then we need to do that. But we cannot continue to have open borders because of laws passed in the early 1950s.”"

 

[rogersix]

One practical difficulty is that we would need somewhere for all these making bogus claim to live while their case wends though the courts. It's surely easier to find places in the UK than it is abroad.

But primarily I believe your system wouldn't work because it misreads the motivation of these people. Joe Bloggs does not get into his little boat at Calais because he thinks the asylum system should be set up differently; he gets in because he thinks he wouldn't be allowed into the UK by legal channels. If Joe Bloggs is going to fail by legal channels, then he will still get in his little boat.

What are these legal channels you speak of?

 

[TomandJerry]

See I find this interesting. Across this post and the post you're replying to we've got three pretty crucial industries:

Farming
Social Care
Building

And we need to bring people in to do these jobs, right? Which speaks to me of an inherent laziness in, well, us Brits.

We need food but seemingly don't want to farm it. We need people looked after but can't be f***ed to do it. Building? Pah, nah thanks mate.

I'm being quite facetious and generalising a lot here but there's some kernel of truth in it.

If Reform, or any other party come to think of it, actually gave a toss about the amount of people coming here surely one solution would be to get Lazy Johnny English off his fat arse and into the fields / nursing home / building sites. Get the locals doing the work so we don't need immigrants, right?

But they won't. Why? Because if we don't have immigrants then we don't have anyone to scapegoat and sensationalise and weaponise to win votes to keep rich people in power to continue this absolutely pointless pissing contest that we're all embroiled in.

f*** it's all so tedious.

/rant.

"In March 2025, 1.77 million people in the UK were claiming unemployment benefits, according to the UK Parliament."

So yes more can be done.

 

[Guinness Boy]

"Blackley and Middleton South MP Graham Stringer told The Telegraph: “If the results are as bad as predicted on Thursday, the Labour Party mustn’t come out and say it’s a question of just communicating our policies better. Most of all, we need to take control of the borders. If that means renegotiating or changing our international obligations, then we need to do that. But we cannot continue to have open borders because of laws passed in the early 1950s.”"

We don't have open borders* based on laws passed in the 1950s**, nor do many in the Labour Party agree with Stringer. Sounds like he should defect. Labour needs to be the party of the poor and underprivileged again, not the party of dog whistle. Time to force the conversation leftwards again.

* Brexit closed any idea of open borders. Which is why asylum seekers are trying to get over the closed ones.
** which is interestingly the decade @dsr-burnley wants to return to

 

[TomandJerry]

We don't have open borders* based on laws passed in the 1950s**, nor do many in the Labour Party agree with Stringer. Sounds like he should defect. Labour needs to be the party of the poor and underprivileged again, not the party of dog whistle. Time to force the conversation leftwards again.

* Brexit closed any idea of open borders. Which is why asylum seekers are trying to get over the closed ones.
** which is interestingly the decade @dsr-burnley wants to return to

It's not just Stringer though:

"Jonathan Brash, the MP for Hartlepool, said the Government should exercise its “perfectly legitimate” right to deport criminals by saying ECHR Article 8 rights to a family life do not apply in such cases.

He is thought to be the first Labour MP to publicly declare that the Government should ignore the ECHR in order to return convicted foreign criminals back to their home countries."

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

People smuggling should be seen as a serious crime. So yes start with that but the root causes of the migration should be also addressed in a two prong solution.

Third word persecution of minorities, war and famine are not easy nuts to crack.

 

[Berty23]

I suppose that's Reform's position though, no non essential but for industries that need workers, bring them in. Social care and building being another area where more is needed

I'm assuming the government would have the data to know which industries need more workers that would have to be bought in

T

See I find this interesting. Across this post and the post you're replying to we've got three pretty crucial industries:

Farming
Social Care
Building

And we need to bring people in to do these jobs, right? Which speaks to me of an inherent laziness in, well, us Brits.

We need food but seemingly don't want to farm it. We need people looked after but can't be f***ed to do it. Building? Pah, nah thanks mate.

I'm being quite facetious and generalising a lot here but there's some kernel of truth in it.

If Reform, or any other party come to think of it, actually gave a toss about the amount of people coming here surely one solution would be to get Lazy Johnny English off his fat arse and into the fields / nursing home / building sites. Get the locals doing the work so we don't need immigrants, right?

But they won't. Why? Because if we don't have immigrants then we don't have anyone to scapegoat and sensationalise and weaponise to win votes to keep rich people in power to continue this absolutely pointless pissing contest that we're all embroiled in.

f*** it's all so tedious.

/rant.

Don’t overlook the fact that the data show the lower skilled and more likely to be unemployed are more likely to be reform voters so they can’t be upsetting those who vote for them.

If they stopped immigrants coming and taking low skilled job then who can they blame for the people choosing not to work but want to pretend something else is the issue?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

"Blackley and Middleton South MP Graham Stringer told The Telegraph: “If the results are as bad as predicted on Thursday, the Labour Party mustn’t come out and say it’s a question of just communicating our policies better. Most of all, we need to take control of the borders. If that means renegotiating or changing our international obligations, then we need to do that. But we cannot continue to have open borders because of laws passed in the early 1950s.”"

Stringer sounds like an idiot.
We don't have legally enshrined open borders any more than we have legally enshrined shoplifting.

 

[Berty23]

Third word persecution of minorities, war and famine are not easy nuts to crack.

Maybe that’s the plan. Reform come in. Scrap ECHR and have a nice bit of persecution of our own meaning people leave here and people stop wanting to come here. Genius.

 

[Guinness Boy]

It's not just Stringer though:

"Jonathan Brash, the MP for Hartlepool, said the Government should exercise its “perfectly legitimate” right to deport criminals by saying ECHR Article 8 rights to a family life do not apply in such cases.

He is thought to be the first Labour MP to publicly declare that the Government should ignore the ECHR in order to return convicted foreign criminals back to their home countries."

There are 408 other MPs in the Labour Party not saying that, and most of the members agree with the majority. Now, have a little think about why the MP for Hartlepool might be saying it (I'll give you a clue - if you add up the Reform and Tory votes there from 2024 they almost exactly equal the number of votes Brash got).

Labour won't take this country out of the ECHR. Simple as that.

 

[WATFORD zero]

"Blackley and Middleton South MP Graham Stringer told The Telegraph: “If the results are as bad as predicted on Thursday, the Labour Party mustn’t come out and say it’s a question of just communicating our policies better. Most of all, we need to take control of the borders. If that means renegotiating or changing our international obligations, then we need to do that. But we cannot continue to have open borders because of laws passed in the early 1950s.”"

Yes that's twice you've quoted that same article about that same MP from the Daily Telegraph today. I would suggest that the reason the Daily Telegraph are all over it is because the other 400 odd Labour MP's don't agree with him, as I'm willing to bet the 70 odd LIb Dems, and a fair number of the 120 Tory MP's aren't.

It's really only the 5 reform MP's (if they can stop arguing amongst themselves), Him and a few far right Tory MP's who would even entertain the idea

You've now had over 50 posts in two days on what Reform policies you think appear good answered with lots of detail, facts and reasons why they may not be the good ideas that you think they are

 

[Barnet Seagull]

See I find this interesting. Across this post and the post you're replying to we've got three pretty crucial industries:

Farming
Social Care
Building

And we need to bring people in to do these jobs, right? Which speaks to me of an inherent laziness in, well, us Brits.

We need food but seemingly don't want to farm it. We need people looked after but can't be f***ed to do it. Building? Pah, nah thanks mate.

I'm being quite facetious and generalising a lot here but there's some kernel of truth in it.

If Reform, or any other party come to think of it, actually gave a toss about the amount of people coming here surely one solution would be to get Lazy Johnny English off his fat arse and into the fields / nursing home / building sites. Get the locals doing the work so we don't need immigrants, right?

But they won't. Why? Because if we don't have immigrants then we don't have anyone to scapegoat and sensationalise and weaponise to win votes to keep rich people in power to continue this absolutely pointless pissing contest that we're all embroiled in.

f*** it's all so tedious.

/rant.

Maybe people don't want to do it because the pay in all cases is shit. Isn't economics supposed to fix this?

 

[Chicken Run]

Maybe that’s the plan. Reform come in. Scrap ECHR and have a nice bit of persecution of our own meaning people leave here and people stop wanting to come here. Genius.

Housing Crisis solved I’m joking btw before you start getting aggy

 

[TomandJerry]

Yes that's twice you've quoted that same article about that same MP from the Daily Telegraph today. I would suggest that the reason the Daily Telegraph are all over it is because the other 400 odd Labour MP's don't agree with him, as I'm willing to bet the 70 odd LIb Dems, and a fair number of the 120 Tory MP's aren't.

It's really only the 5 reform MP's (if they can stop arguing amongst themselves), Him and a few far right Tory MP's who would even entertain the idea

You've now had over 50 posts in two days on what Reform policies you think appear good answered with lots of detail, facts and reasons why they may not be the good ideas that you think they are

How many MP's entertained the idea of Brexit after years of political infighting before it was put to a referendum?

 

[TomandJerry]

There are 408 other MPs in the Labour Party not saying that, and most of the members agree with the majority. Now, have a little think about why the MP for Hartlepool might be saying it (I'll give you a clue - if you add up the Reform and Tory votes there from 2024 they almost exactly equal the number of votes Brash got).

Labour won't take this country out of the ECHR. Simple as that.

I take your point absolutely, but doesn't it seem at odds of Labour's overall view point of the ECHR to have two Mp's coming out saying such things?

Perhaps as you suggested they should defect