[News] Nigel Farage and Reform

[pocketseagull]

It's all too predictable that Labour will waste their majority trying to court voters who will never vote for them and in the process alienate those who would but will just not bother. Starmer's Labour is perhaps the biggest missed opportunity I can recall.

 

[Mackenzie]

So you've tried the Tories and Labour and didn't get what you wanted, so you're going to give Facism a try this time ?

What could possibly go wrong

To be fair Facism is quite trendy these days.

 

[nicko31]

I have to congratulate all who have excelled themselves this morning. The response to last night has been exceptional. Its like a greatest hits of cliches which I've thoroughly enjoyed.
1. Its like the start of Nazi Germany in the 30's
2. Its because of the "right wing media" (apart from the Daily Mail & Express which hardly anyone reads theses days I'm not sure who that is)
3. Those Reform voters are thick / brainwashed (or any of several sneering insults that suggest inferior intellect to those on the left)
4. Brexit is the cause of everything negative to the economy (while totally ignoring the COVID lockdown & the Ukraine war & the state of other European economies)
5. Liberal use of the word racist
Maybe just maybe the fact that Labour have proved to be even worse than the last shower might have something to do with why people have voted Reform? Throwing insults at everyone you disagree with isn't a good look. Try debating without the condescending attitude perhaps?

What are your top 5 favourite Reform policies?

 

[The Clamp]

The Tories trashed the country aided by Farage contracting the economy by 5% and making people pay shit loads more tax.

Labour fail to clean up their mess in 9 months

Solution - Vote Trump fanboy and Putin appeaser Farage

Never underestimate the degree to which the UK population can be gaslit.

It’s not so much the not fixing the economy in 9 months really, I don’t think. I thinks it’s more the sectors of society they targeted.

There are billion pound corporations paying zero tax in the U.K.

There are millionaires avoiding all sorts of tax.

But they are never going to go after their own, are they.

Reform are most definitely not the answer. Farage specialises in feathering his own nest.

But Farage is good at fooling the Northerners with his flat cap and pint of mild.

In a world where you need to be able to convey your message in one Instagram post, Labour are failing miserably.

 

[mwrpoole]

I hope you're right.
Whatever happens everyone will claim it a victory.
From what I see of Putin, he has bought into Orwell's phenomenon of continuous war in someone else's territory as a focus of propaganda back home.
I can't see him agreeing to anything other than something grossly disfavourable to Ukraine.
And the fighting would soon begin again.
There was some talk of US being peacekeeper while they exploit Ukraine's resources.
Troops actually on the ground.
That would be interesting...but I don't see it myself. Time will tell.

The way I see it, the US putting companies/resources into Ukraine to extract the various minerals etc must guarantee some sort of peace. Are Russia going to continue the war against Ukraine when the US have these companies there?. I assume those companies won't go anywhere near Ukraine unless they have some sort of peacekeeping guarantee from Trump. If the US businesses won't go to Ukraine for fear of war then the whole agreement is a sham, which Trump won't take lightly.

 

[The Clamp]

Farmers
Pensioners
People on the sick
Dole moles

That’s pretty much 90% of Northerners, isn’t it.

 

[peterward]

We will soon see how standing up to Trump (over something really important) pans out:
Zilensky stood up to Trump a few weeks ago and was thrown out.
He has now come back cap in hand, ready to gift the US a mass of the nation's resources,
and perhaps also concede Crimea..... for peace.

There may come a point when the UK decides to split from the US.
Denying Trump a state visit would tickle the anti-Trump tummies in the UK.
The Guardian would be delighted.
But it will have negative impact on the UK if Trump recognizes it as a rebuke; Trump will punish the UK.
If Trump does not see it as a rebuke it would be a pointless gesture.
I can put people on NSC on ignore if they get on my tits.
Most of them probably don't even know I have, or care, and it doesn't matter.
Sticking two fingers up to Trump is a very different enterprise.

sorry for thread drift - on first points. Zelenskyy wont recognise Crimea as Russia, and even if he wanted to (he doesnt), he couldnt, as only way constitution could be changed to legally allow it, is if it was voted for in a national referendum and it would never pass.

As for cap in hand to the US......... Maybe he didnt have "the cards", but he's played his hand as well as he could imho.
He stood his ground, and refused to sign the original minerals deal the US put in front of him for 500B and full of unreasonable conditions that gave US defacto control of much of Ukraines energy infrastructure, which was colonial exploitation.

That has since changed massively more into Ukraines favour from orignal with US backing down on a lot of original asks.

All the energy assets and minerals are and will remain sovereignly Ukrainian owned, a national fund for minerals profits will be split 50/50 (US will mine them) and fund will prioritise Ukraine reconstruction and allow for purchase of US military hardware.

Its not perfect, but in the current mad world of a lunatic like Trump cosying up to the genocidal fascist invading you, its a lot better than a few months ago.

 

[TomandJerry]

One of Reforms main policies is to scrap net zero

"The party also wants to scrap subsidies for renewable energy, allow companies to drill for more gas and oil in the North Sea and fast-track nuclear energy.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Farmers
Pensioners
People on the sick
Dole moles

That’s pretty much 90% of Northerners, isn’t it.

That's not worthy of you.

 

[Happy Exile]

But I think there may be flaw in your plan of spending the next 4 years writing off 4% of GDP each and every year while desperately trying to grow the economy by 0.2% per year and keeping spending 'under control'

Reform do well where my in-laws are near Nottingham, only kept at bay by the fact Robert Jenrick is their MP and he is odious enough. I can see a little as to why that's the case in the people I know there (almost all pensioners), who have been made to feel under siege by the repeated negative messaging from their politicians and a local paper that seems to only report bad news even though really it's a relatively low-crime area that is mostly doing OK.

All of that feeds into a culture of fear of the world and outsiders that's tangible, and unfortunately they still have plenty of people to blame for that fear and for the degradation of their environment before they get anywhere near reflecting on whether it's their chosen politicians or Brexit that have made things worse (or ask who is benefitting from pretending things are worse than they are). Those people are never going to change their minds unfortunately and while everything you say is right I think the country is likely to sink further before it bounces back. It will do though with a generation coming into voting age over the next few years of whom many seem resentful of the opportunities in life previous generations benefitted from but then denied them.

For a giggle, I made a note of the first few pages of headlines in their local paper at Christmas - it's maybe no surprise these people are unnecessarily scared and want a right wing government:

Huge cannabis farm found
Council spending half a million on cuts consultants [not actually true]
Villagers 'hope and pray' abuse will stop
Heroin found in oven during police raid
Street fight descended into 'trench warfare'
Murder case appeal for writer of note
Roads branded 'embarrassing'
Two men got out of BMW and robbed student
Jail for shoplifter who crept into cinema
Teen arrested after boulder dropped from bridge

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I have to congratulate all who have excelled themselves this morning. The response to last night has been exceptional. Its like a greatest hits of cliches which I've thoroughly enjoyed.
1. Its like the start of Nazi Germany in the 30's
2. Its because of the "right wing media" (apart from the Daily Mail & Express which hardly anyone reads theses days I'm not sure who that is)
3. Those Reform voters are thick / brainwashed (or any of several sneering insults that suggest inferior intellect to those on the left)
4. Brexit is the cause of everything negative to the economy (while totally ignoring the COVID lockdown & the Ukraine war & the state of other European economies)
5. Liberal use of the word racist
Maybe just maybe the fact that Labour have proved to be even worse than the last shower might have something to do with why people have voted Reform? Throwing insults at everyone you disagree with isn't a good look. Try debating without the condescending attitude perhaps?

Try debating without the condescending attitude perhaps?

 

[Gabbiano]

I don't get how people can see what's going on in the US right now and think "I want some of that!"

We all know exactly what Farage is, and that is certainly not "man of the people".

I hope Starmer and Labour are taking this seriously. They need to go about strengthening the national institutions to make them more difficult to gut and throw away, than has proven in the States.

 

[Peteinblack]

One of Reforms main policies is to scrap net zero

"The party also wants to scrap subsidies for renewable energy, allow companies to drill for more gas and oil in the North Sea and fast-track nuclear energy.

They are Climate Change deniers, so perhaps not surprising.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Reform do well where my in-laws are near Nottingham, only kept at bay by the fact Robert Jenrick is their MP and he is odious enough. I can see a little as to why that's the case in the people I know there (almost all pensioners), who have been made to feel under siege by the repeated negative messaging from their politicians and a local paper that seems to only report bad news even though really it's a relatively low-crime area that is mostly doing OK.

All of that feeds into a culture of fear of the world and outsiders that's tangible, and unfortunately they still have plenty of people to blame for that fear and for the degradation of their environment before they get anywhere near reflecting on whether it's their chosen politicians or Brexit that have made things worse (or ask who is benefitting from pretending things are worse than they are). Those people are never going to change their minds unfortunately and while everything you say is right I think the country is likely to sink further before it bounces back. It will do though with a generation coming into voting age over the next few years of whom many seem resentful of the opportunities in life denied them.

For a giggle, I made a note of the first few pages of headlines in their local paper at Christmas - it's maybe no surprise these people are unnecessarily scared and want a right wing government:

Huge cannabis farm found
Council spending half a million on cuts consultants [not actually true]
Villagers 'hope and pray' abuse will stop
Heroin found in oven during police raid
Street fight descended into 'trench warfare'
Murder case appeal for writer of note
Roads branded 'embarrassing'
Two men got out of BMW and robbed student
Jail for shoplifter who crept into cinema
Teen arrested after boulder dropped from bridge

This is the problem with local media. It never prints good news.

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

I have to congratulate all who have excelled themselves this morning. The response to last night has been exceptional. Its like a greatest hits of cliches which I've thoroughly enjoyed.
1. Its like the start of Nazi Germany in the 30's
2. Its because of the "right wing media" (apart from the Daily Mail & Express which hardly anyone reads theses days I'm not sure who that is)
3. Those Reform voters are thick / brainwashed (or any of several sneering insults that suggest inferior intellect to those on the left)
4. Brexit is the cause of everything negative to the economy (while totally ignoring the COVID lockdown & the Ukraine war & the state of other European economies)
5. Liberal use of the word racist
Maybe just maybe the fact that Labour have proved to be even worse than the last shower might have something to do with why people have voted Reform? Throwing insults at everyone you disagree with isn't a good look. Try debating without the condescending attitude perhaps?

Now here’s a thing.

if you bother to look at the rise of nazism, I have, there are plenty of podcast from the reputable sources which highlight that much of what has been done by the right wing organisations in the west that take from the nazies play book. Blaming failures on a minority group, preferably ones that are noticeably different from yourselves. Jews in Germany but certainly immigrants and Muslims today. Saying that your aren’t safe walking the streets because of said group. Blaming a failure of English/britishness on immigrants and ironically spouting fish and chips being one of the values that we are losing. I’m not joking I have actually had this said to me, the irony is that F&C came with Portuguese Jews in the 1800.
Nazi Germany calling anyone that doesn’t agree with you a communist, today apparently it’s a liberal. Funnily enough in the US communist and liberal are interchangeable.

The Nazi used fear of the Un German to control the population and they first appealed directly to the older Germans then focussed on the youngsters …. If you know your history ……

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

sorry for thread drift - on first points. Zelenskyy wont recognise Crimea as Russia, and even if he wanted to (he doesnt), he couldnt, as only way constitution could be changed to legally allow it, is if it was voted for in a national referendum and it would never pass.

As for cap in hand to the US......... Maybe he didnt have "the cards", but he's played his hand as well as he could imho.
He stood his ground, and refused to sign the original minerals deal the US put in front of him for 500B and full of unreasonable conditions that gave US defacto control of much of Ukraines energy infrastructure, which was colonial exploitation.

That has since changed massively more into Ukraines favour from orignal with US backing down on a lot of original asks.

All the energy assets and minerals are and will remain sovereignly Ukrainian owned, a national fund for minerals profits will be split 50/50 (US will mine them) and fund will prioritise Ukraine reconstruction and allow for purchase of US military hardware.

Its not perfect, but in the current mad world of a lunatic like Trump cosying up to the genocidal fascist invading you, its a lot better than a few months ago.

Thanks. I didn't know all that. My point was he had to negotiate with Trump in the end.
By contrast, the UK removing Trumps' State Visit invitation would seem petty and churlish.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Looks like @bazbha has lost his internet connection.

Probably being hogged by those damn immigrants from their luxury tent.

 

[nicko31]

One of Reforms main policies is to scrap net zero

"The party also wants to scrap subsidies for renewable energy, allow companies to drill for more gas and oil in the North Sea and fast-track nuclear energy.

Reform is funded by the fossil fuel industry. Farage knows fully well that the domination of renewables is the way to get us away from electricity being pegged to gas prices.

But he likes the money and he knows there are plenty of twats that will buy more snake oil, this despite he contributing to their lower standard of living.

Farage's love for Trump and his 8+ trips to US since becoming an MP are not highlighted enough. Instead he'll be back on Question Time very soon, this is where we are

 

[Happy Exile]

I don't get how people can see what's going on in the US right now and think "I want some of that!"

We all know exactly what Farage is, and that is certainly not "man of the people".

I hope Starmer and Labour are taking this seriously. They need to go about strengthening the national institutions to make them more difficult to gut and throw away, than has proven in the States.

I don't think people who look at the US and think 'I want some of that' are aware of the consequences of it, they just like Trump's approach. There was an interview recently with British supporters of Trump on holiday in the US when the tariffs were announced and they were asked what they liked about him, their response was along the lines of Britain needing someone like Trump...a strong leader...what makes him strong?...he says it like it is.

That's it.

It's true cult of the personality politics and little if anything to do with any rational understanding of his policies or the impact of those policies. Unfortunately with Johnson's success as a politician that boat has already sailed in the UK too. I recently met someone who told me she planned to move to France and work in a couple of years. I asked how and she said she would just do it - she had literally no idea she couldn't anymore because of Brexit...that she voted for...which I know because she said she might have paid more attention if she'd realised. But even that was in her eyes a failing of the remainers not being clear enough as much as her own failing. The gap for many between who they vote for and understanding the consequences of that vote and taking responsibility for it have never been greater I don't think.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Now here’s a thing.

if you bother to look at the rise of nazism, I have, there are plenty of podcast from the reputable sources which highlight that much of what has been done by the right wing organisations in the west that take from the nazies play book. Blaming failures on a minority group, preferably ones that are noticeably different from yourselves. Jews in Germany but certainly immigrants and Muslims today. Saying that your aren’t safe walking the streets because of said group. Blaming a failure of English/britishness on immigrants and ironically spouting fish and chips being one of the values that we are losing. I’m not joking I have actually had this said to me, the irony is that F&C came with Portuguese Jews in the 1800.
Nazi Germany calling anyone that doesn’t agree with you a communist, today apparently it’s a liberal. Funnily enough in the US communist and liberal are interchangeable.

The Nazi used fear of the Un German to control the population and they first appealed directly to the older Germans then focussed on the youngsters …. If you know your history ……

I would love every Reform voter to take a DNA test. Apart from Wales, northern Scotland and some Irish, we are all descended from boat people.

The irony is that Farage's ancestors came here as a result of the Huguenot persecution in France.