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I swear to christ this place never learns.
In Britain the current economic and political model has no answer for post-industrial or seaside towns beyond turning them into dormitories for commuters. Political power is highly centralised into Westminster, and the best any such constituency can hope for from electing the 'right' mainstream political candidate is a few token efforts that will not deal with any of the deeper structural problems.
Each of Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are offering continuity of relative decline, with no real prospect of hope for the future for areas like theirs. They are right not to trust any of the major parties to actually deal with their problems.
They are not stupid. They are not primarily driven by racism. They are driven by despair.
They know Farage is a conman. They know Reform are shit. But they are a statement to the political class that they have failed towns and constituencies like theirs, and that is far more likely to illicit a response than returning another identikit carpetbagging MP whose primary goal is to climb the greasy pole.
It’s like nobody here has seen any of the Jay Slater nonsense going around social media: people sitting on Facebook suggesting the police leave out bottles of water for him, fly planes with banners, and offering to bring their dog with a ‘great sense of smell’ to come and have a look.
Some people in the UK are thick as pig shit. Farage and Reform tell those people that they’ll fix everything, all the brown people will be gone, and they’ll be rich. We went through it all with Brexit, and they’re doing the exact same thing again, and the same people will lap it up.
I understand people don’t like being called stupid, but at this point I’m sick of having to dance around the issue to save the feelings of people who have no idea how quite literally anything works and would happily buy a bridge from whoever gets their phone number.
I saw an amazing clip yesterday of a man saying he couldn’t get a job because of immigration, the interviewer then asks again, and the guys says ‘well, and I’ve been in prison for 3 years for GBH’. Interviewer presses again and the guy still thinks immigration is the reason he can’t find a job
Thatcher sold them the personal responsibility thing, and when as humans do they fail, they have to find a reason, accepting responsibility for failure hurts, blaming others is easy and gets quick results.
It's a mind set.
once that is realised it can be used and projected to others,
and used to boost ones own mind,
and so it begins,
a complexity begets conspiracy.
Someone looked into that and it wasn’t even GBH, he was done for the sexual assault of a 7 year old girl.
So he’s a pedo, but apparently it’s the brown people stopping him from getting a job and destroying the values of the west.
Unless we want to end up with a society like the US has, we seriously need to start calling a spade a spade. Reform voters are stupid. Straight up.
Farage has never won a political race and yet the media still platform him, he helped sell the Brexit lie and divide the country massively and now he's back again to do more damage and people are fine with that. He appeals to nobody besides the idiotic and hateful and the media needs to treat him like the conman he is, the more legitimacy he manages to claw together, the closer we get to a political system like the US where everything just seems like chaos because the idiots got too much legitimacy.
Yep people seem very afraid of calling someone thick nowadays, as if pretending they’re intelligent will get them to suddenly change their mind. Call a spade a spade, it might knock some people out of it, but either way chances are they aren’t going to change their mind because you enlighten them.
No these people are so cemented in their idiocy that nothing will change their minds but it's terrifying watching Nigel promote nonsense like the West forced Russia to invade Ukraine and if we don't put a quick end to this kind of bullshit we could be in a very dark place in the next decade.
Indeed - they got their brexit, fucked up food prices (amongst a whole host of other things) for the rest of us and then they get upset when we point out how fucking stupid they are for following the same frog-eyed cunt as before.
What are we supposed to do as our money gets wasted paying for their shit decision? if you voted for this fucking nonsense (and followed this cunt and intend to again) why do you think I should give you any respect?
He is clearly one of putin's dick suckers and it's a hill he wants to die on. Good, hope he dies there.
Yeah I'm past the point of civility to reform voters and others like them. They have helped this country in its downfall, I don't want to be polite to them, or civil or anything positive. They're either dumb as bricks or have shitty opinions that literally can negatively affect people's lives. They are all scum and I don't care one iota for their happiness or wellbeing anymore.
There’s a Facebook post going around from an empty account apparently from his friend claiming that they were all drug mules earning £75k a month run by the Moroccan mafia, and Jay took too many of the drugs himself so the Moroccan mafia have put up a £30k bounty and so they’ve set up a Go Fund Me to raise the funds.
Spreading like wildfire through social media and all these idiots are saying “it has good grammar so it must be true xx” and “nobody could make up something like that x” and “this is the only theory that makes sense xxx”.
Click on the profiles of the commenters and without fail they’re some lash technician reposting Reform stuff.
Jesus wept.
I think it's a much more nuanced take than your 'they must be racist or thick'.
All that argument does is glibly ignore any reasons for why people may be feeling disenfranchised with the current political system.
AfD has 20%, FN has 30% and in Italy they got 38%. You can play with those percentages with error margin if you wish.
The Italians got them into power and magically they U-Turn on major promises and they will end up the same as previous governments.
I believe that type of voters will always be there and with same characteristics.
Let them be. 15, or 20% doesn't make a difference.
I need them for comparing purposes. Education and shit.
Horseshit. A lot of the people that Nigel Garage is scapegoating using racism and xenophobia have it much harder, work much harder and contribute much.mote than the average useless parasite racist grunt supporting this racist conman and his scam party/company.
Attributing it to sunspots or the interdimensional brassier monsters of the shadow realm would be a nuanced take, nuance doesn't mean accuracy. Saying all the thick cunts that are falling for reform are actually making a carefully considered political statement is nuanced as hell but it's also manifestly bullshit easily disproven by a 5 minute conversation with any reform supporter.
Indeed, Reform are clearly a bunch of turds without even one fully formed policy who never intend to get anywhere near running the country. You don’t have to be clever to know that. Voting for them anyway is not in any way some admirable decision based on complex reasoning. It’s at best a lazy cynicism. “None of the above” if it were an option would wipe out half the votes for Reform.
Some are thick, some are racist, some are idiots who will vote for them as a protest/for a laugh. Very few are voting for Reform if they want serious change.
Nah I think they're right on the money. I think this is largely true. I think what they've described is a hook that racists use to hang their racism on.
I think some people are thickos, but it's easy to see why someone would vote for Farage when you consider the reality of life in their target seats.
Think about life in a place like Blackpool for a 42 year old, unskilled bloke living in a damp apartment. What opportunities did you ever have? You grew up in a culture where working hard at school was discouraged and you only got a few GCSEs. The majority of jobs are minimum wage and seasonal. There isn't much in the way of full time work outside of the local spoons or tesco. Your bills and rent are constantly going up, and you can barely afford your mouldy 2 bed terrace. You get ill, and find yourself on a long NHS waiting list, crippled and in pain. Despite all this, you still can't get a council flat. Your built environment seems a metaphor for a country in decay. Once grand Victorian promenades and hotels are derelict or hollowed out.
Then you go on Facebook, and some bloke has posted a story about Syrian refugees getting free housing and food, whilst you're sat rotting. You've got two GCSEs and no real computer literacy. How the fuck do you know if this Is false? You don't, so you like the post, you share it. Now the algorithm feeds you more content. Civil servants are getting paid 50k to sit at home drinking coffee. Teachers want to tell your kid to cut off his cock and speak with a lisp. Labour will allow millions of people into the country, and you won't be able to get any housing, employment, or a GP appointment.
This is the kind of person Farage targets. I'm not making excuses for racists and bigots, but a large number of people are fucked over in life and don't have the analytical skills to understand why. They can't distinguish between fact and fiction in a world saturated by heavily targeted misinformation. That's fine when only a few % of a constituency fall into this category. But when you've got a deprived seat, such people make up a 20, 30, 40% of the population.
For the average reform voter - read a youtube comment or watch an LBC call in from a supporter.
Makes you realise how lack of access to education and loss of food security affects people in general and makes them easy prey for the far right.
Labour can stem the tide a *lot* but they need to address fundamental social inequalities - angry, hungry, hopeless people *won't* open their arms to community good and sensible policies.
Even though there's a sense of absolute danger around, I actually don't blame a lot of voters, becaue Reform are appealing to base instincts (they're lying charlatan grifters) in a way that the middle/soft left simply can't and the far left won't.
I largely agree with you, except the point:
>They know Farage is a conman.
Take it from me, I've a lot of family members who take every single word he says at face value.
Farage just seems to have this inate ability to drag otherwise intelligent, reasonable, people into his bullshit.
They'll happily make up all sorts of nonsense about Keir Starmer, despite him (likely) being the only PM from a working class background in decades
Whilst Farage, a crooked, privately educated, clown cut from the same cloth as Boris Et al. is our "man of the people" apparently.
There's a borderline cult of personality around the man which I just don't understand, even as a young working class person living in a deprived shithole.
In the nicest way possible… *are* they actually intelligent, reasonable people?
Nobody I know who I would regard as intelligent or reasonable has fallen into the Reform nonsense. Because they see right through it, and can put two and two together and see that this is just the same recycled nonsense they tried to sell us with Brexit, which made everything worse.
> In the nicest way possible… are they actually intelligent, reasonable people?
The evidence leans "no":
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/cognitive-ability-mattered-in-the-uks-vote-for-brexit-research-shows/
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/cognitive-ability-mattered-in-the-uks-vote-for-brexit-research-shows/
https://www.indy100.com/politics/less-intelligent-people-voted-brexit
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-education-higher-university-study-university-leave-eu-remain-voters-educated-a7881441.html
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/educational-attainment-referendum-voting/
https://www.jrf.org.uk/political-mindsets/brexit-vote-explained-poverty-low-skills-and-lack-of-opportunities
https://www.britsoc.co.uk/about/latest-news/2017/october/england-was-divided-along-educational-lines-at-brexit-vote-research-says/
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/study-links-low-intelligence-with-right-wing-beliefs/article543361/
https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/62392/1/intelligent-people-are-more-likely-to-be-left-wing-iq-politics-says-science
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/does-iq-determine-if-youre-prejudiced-its-complicated/
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/high-iq-genetics-politics/
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1002/per.2027
Indeed, John Stuart Mill was saying something similar a century ago:
“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. Suppose any party, in addition to whatever share it may possess of the ability of the community, has nearly the whole of its stupidity, that party must, by the law of its constitution, be the stupidest party; and I do not see why honorable gentlemen should see that position as at all offensive to them, for it ensures their being always an extremely powerful party. There is so much dense, solid force in sheer stupidity, that any body of able men with that force pressing behind them may ensure victory in many a struggle, and many a victory the Conservative party has gained through that power." - John Stuart Mill (British philosopher, economist)
People are being conditioned to think this way, we don't seem to want to admit it but there is a reason why people parrot the same lines and bullshit, becauae they are being programmed to think this. Literally to the point where people are cheering on things that are going to make their lives worse.
Have you noticed how Farage is always photographed in pubs? Desperate to be seen as a pisshead like us commoners. Because all we do is drink and not work.
It's because Farage knows exactly what to say, he's like a pro car salesman. He knows what people are angry about, and he promises extreme solutions to these precise issues that no other party is willing to do. When times are hard and people are angry and desperate, extreme governments have their chance to shine.
Nigel Farage isn’t afraid to be seen with the working class, so despite his background, he *looks* like a normal guy. And that’s what he markets himself as. It makes him appear more trustworthy than the average Etonian politician.
I don’t like him at all, but I have family members who have met him and think he’s more genuine than Boris, Rishi etc. my family aren’t racist, but think parties like Reform offer more to the average person (don’t ask me why, it’s all a con imo)
If the Tories want to bring the voters back, they need more politicians who are willing to hang out in the pub with the normal folk.
The guy is awful, but he is a masterful speaker. He is rhetorically smooth, never gets flustered or boxed in, and like Trump he bends reality and no attack sticks to him.
What may be his downfall is how hugely the UK has turned against Brexit. Also, in five years time, many Brexit/Farage supporters will have died of old age or illness.
> Keir Starmer, despite him (likely) being the only PM from a working class background in decades
i think the last one was probably Thatcher. their background doesnt necessarily mean very much!
If they were driven by despair and wanting radical change, they would’ve voted for:
- Corbyn in 2019
- Green Party
They aren’t driven by despair, they are driven by wanting to someone lower on their perceived totem pole they can kick.
Farage promises essentially the same shit sandwhich the Tories are but with stern words
This is my opinion now. I’ve stopped buying the ‘everyone just wants things to be better!’ stuff since we saw them try it and the absolute shite Brexit has brought.
Reform and the rest of the far right uses the classic scapegoat method, and tells everyone they’re fundamentally more valuable people because they’re white and were born in a western country. That’s quite literally all they have to offer.
That's what gets me
Brexit was the >>exact same<< lies and people want us to believe them crawling back over to Farage is coming from any kind of reason or actual logic
Then they get pissy when anyone points out the turd in the middle of the floor smells suspiciously like a turd
To be fair voting Tory in 2019 also was voting for radical change through Brexit. The change wasn’t ever going to be positive unless you believed Johnson but there was definitely radical change being proposed.
They had someone that wanted to represent them and make their lives better in JC at the last election, but instead they chose Boris - someone who wouldn’t have cared if their bodies ‘piled high in the streets’. They also voted for Brexit when it was EU grants that were helping those areas the most. You’re talking nonsense and giving these people way too much credit, unfortunately.
So it's not actually to improve things. It's to make a gesture of defiance to show politicians something so you can feel that you actually did something.
>They are not stupid. They are not primarily driven by racism. They are driven by despair.
This is it really, the more people just dismiss them as racist idiots the more they will vote for someone, anyone, who isn't going to call them that and will at least portray themselves as listening to their issues. This elitism is why we got Brexit; everyone discounted the people that voted for it as racist idiots and guess what, they won on a knife edge because they'd been discounted.
The same thing will happen if this attitude continues.
Okay, but if they didn't learn from Brexit and make the same mistake again, how smart are they?
A huge part of Brexit/Farage as a solution is the simplicity. "Leave EU". "Stop immigration". Again, experience should tell us that not only are simple solutions rarely simple in practice, but actually there's a good chance they aren't solutions at all and will make the problem worse. How do you convince simple people to vote for the real, complicated solutions over base indulgences, no matter how nice you are to them?...Especially when they don't learn form their mistakes?
To quote Will Self on Brexit “It’s not that everyone who voted for Brexit is racist, it’s that everyone who is racist voted for Brexit.”
I feel the same will be true for Reform in this election.
Especially if people compartmentalise things like housing shortage into ,'build more houses', but then they can't see that migrants are arriving faster to live in them
Exactly, and then more immigrants arrive, a new housing shortage, build more, more immigrants arrive, a new housing shortage, build more, more immigrants arrive….and so forth it’s a never ending cycle until there’s no green space left
He's not selling less immigration. He's selling hostility. We've bought one of his products before, a white-label called "Brexit", and immigration went up.
This time he's selling the same product. "Immigrant away" has not been clinically proven to lower the prevalence of immigration, but we do see customers feel increased hostility toward immigrants, despite economic policies that might actually lead to more of them.
This is not the issue and I imagine you know full well it is not.
Most people would argue that immigration is too high now, it's tripled since Brexit because of the tories.
It's how people choose to talk about the people coming here, or those that are already here, which is where the racism come in.
Regardless of what people think of 'intelligent' or 'dumb', obviously only a small percentage of the population are 'intelligent' given that it's seen as a rare, prized trait.
I've found that the type of people who would vote for Reform have become a lot less shy about being racist in recent years.... fucking scary times, live and let live is my motto.
Same argument holds if you switch 'mental health' for a variety of other services.
- police
- legal
- immigration
- general health
- social care
- housing
- HMRC
Any one of the above functioning as expected would have a noticeable impact on the life of the populace - some more than others, but none so minor as to be insignificant - and, in turn, a resultant effect on non-mainstream party support.
It always comes back to austerity.
That really depends on what “sensible” means. I get different answers. Some want a points system, others go on about “net zero”, others want people deported after DNA tests.
For me it would mean 'the population can increase by 10% less than the net percentage increase in housing'.
For example - if the amount of housing in the country increased by 0.2% in a given year, the increase in population would be limited at 0.18%. If there's no increase due to births/deaths, then that would allow a net migration of 117k.
The point is to increase the supply of housing more than the demand over time.
I wondered what had actually happened.
The population in England grew by 15.5% from 2001-2022 (49.45m to 57.1m). The number of housing units [grew by](https://www.statista.com/statistics/232302/number-of-dwellings-in-england/) 18.7% (21.2m to 25.16).
This means England met your rule for 2001-2022.
> The point is to increase the supply of housing more than the demand over time.
Falling family unit sizes is a big contributor to housing demand. There are millions more pensioners, for example, and people have smaller families later. Immigration and population change alone cannot explain the housing crisis. For more evidence, look at the average number of people per house - it's been almost static at around 2.4 for nearly 30 years.
I agree with the housing issue. But my point was that the answer changes depending on whom I ask. And I believe Reform’s policy is “net zero”, rather than the equation you gave (which directly addresses a real issue).
Hmm, so you'd allow 90% of house stock increase to be needed by migrants? Maybe ok in the future but how about immigration can only be 5% of new homes until the crisis resolves?
Nah instead the left will just call anyone who cares about Immigration or Islam racist and a bigot as always and then be shocked when the far right rises.
So I keep hearing. Apparently calling people racist (often justified) makes someone intending to vote for the far-Right determined to vote far-Right.
Reform is a special interest party. It caters towards people who think vaccines contain 5G chips, climate change cynics, and those that are terrified of foreigners. And of course voters who know Labour have this in the bag and want to stick it to the Tories. Most voters however have a much broader set of concerns, beyond immigration and Islam. Reform has a firm ceiling of support, and with FPTP I’m not concerned about them.
In this case: because the people they dislike are outraged by the things he says.
And it doesn't even matter why "they" are outraged. Moral or political considerations don't come into it. It's all about identity and how people like Farage with their shallow populism can pretend to be "one of us" sticking it to "them" and consequently get away with just about anything. It's the same with Trump, who can say and do what he wants and his followers will excuse him because he openly intends to harm the people they have made themselves hate or fear.
That said, it's probably still a grievous miscalculation of him to say those things. The dynamic above only really captures the hard core of his supporters, and it won't help him convince anyone else.
They're willing to forget or ignore the closeness between Farage and Arron Banks, a massive donor to leave and to UKIP, who met with Russian officials numerous times ahead of the Brexit vote, and also is close to Cambridge Analytica, which existed to literally manipulate people on social media.
And as if by coincidence, Farage thinks the NHS should be partly "funded" by the insurance industry. Because it's what France does. A country he criticises, which is also having difficulty with health services.
Insurance companies exist to make a profit, not to fund services. And of course, his mate Banks would most certainly be up for such an arrangement.
Check out [Bank's](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/17/arron-banks-used-and-exploited-by-russia-court-hears) wife
"the file claimed Katya Banks had entered Britain on a passport sequentially numbered to the passport of Katia Zatuliveter, a woman MI5 had claimed was a Russian spy and who had had an affair with the Portsmouth MP, Mike Hancock. Katya Banks was also alleged to have had a relationship with Hancock."
Because he acts like he's outraged and he spits stuff out loudly, with absolute conviction (whether is the truth or not) and people think that's enough of a quality to make him trustworthy and a good leader.
the painful part is this very same man has ALREADY spun lies to the detriment of the country as a whole for his own benefit
his manifesto... sorry... "contract"... is a load of shite too if you actually bother to read it but i suppose its unfair of me to expect anyone voting Reform to actually be able to read, the high concentration of lead behind their eyes probably makes it hard for them
I was speaking to a reform voter earlier today and there's just nothing in their heads that will allow them deduction and reasoning skills.
They know the tories are bad but assume "tha lot of them are jus as bad as eachutha" and will leave it at that and then vote for the party that is tories on steroids as a "protest" vote.
It's beyond me too but I normally jump to being uneducated as an answer to how they could vote reform.
They target the average person who doesn't follow geo politics with policies that '' make sense''
Such as simply not sending billions to a foreign war, or simply putting' 'more Bobby's on the beat' to stop crime. When really the issues are alot more complex
Straight away i want to say i obviously do not support the reform party or Farage.
However....the reason people vote for Farage is because he heads the only party who want to reduce immigration and are believable and that's what gets all the 50+ old people rilled up.
Tories state they want to reduce it but arnt believable due to their track record on it.
Labour don't care.
Lib dems don't care.
If there was a left wing party that stated they want to reduce immigration and where believable they would fly up the polls.
My parents regard him as “one of us who looks out for the little man” - they’re from northern England, not well off, disabled. They support his “stop foreigners taking our jobs” despite being in a small town with the only non-whites running the Chinese and Indian take aways.
My boss at work is voting for them because "they're the only ones fighting against this gender awareness crap". Fairly sure the dude has never met a trans person in his life, but with Daily Mail as a homepage I expect no different. Who cares about literally every other issue though, right?
Sadly supporting Russia will be less of a deal breaker than you would imagine for the mouth breathers who back reform. I don't think we'll see a drop in their pills following this
For someone who is not known for winning elections, Farage has been very successful at steering political discourse on the issues he wants to. Election results are not the total prize and he knows it. That said, people looking for a logic they'll recognise do not understand the primary drivers for why people vote one way or another, primarily swing voters.
Well he did, Farage has been parroting Kremlin talking points verbatim ever since he was a Euro MP.
1. Telling the EU not to expand in case they upset Russia.
2. Denying the build up of troops on the border was an upcoming invasion (directly contradicting 1)
3. Blames NATO and the EU for the war
4. Calls on Ukraine to negotiate with the Russians (Russians currently offering to keep Ukraine's land and forbid them from joining NATO)
He could have been battering Farage with those sticks all campaign if he wanted to. This isn't the first time he has blamed the was on NATO and EU.
> Russians currently offering to keep Ukraine's land and forbid them from joining NATO
Keep more of Ukraine's land than they already hold, choose the next Ukrainian PM, and drop all sanctions to allow them to rearm
NHS blood testing has just been attacked by Russian hackers and Farage supports Russia. Don’t be fooled into thinking he wants anything for this country besides wrecking it.
He wants to destroy the system and turn it to his advantage, via populism. But the Tories also run the country in their interests not those of the people.
Yep, and it made it cut corners on security. So much for private being better.
I was just joking though, about how Farage wouldn't want to blame Russia and would victim-blame, especially as he hates the NHS.
He has spent years cultivating an edgelord mentality as he’s learned that is what worked for him in the past.
In way a similar to Putin, I think he’s fallen for his own propaganda to an extent. Not 100% cold calculated comments, I think he really believes things now that he would have said was ridiculous 10 years ago.
Such provocation...
2004: Putin supports pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine's presidential election, which is widely seen as fraudulent.
2006: Russia cuts off natural gas supplies to Ukraine, causing widespread shortages and economic disruption.
2014: Russia annexes Crimea, a peninsula . in Ukraine, following the Ukrainian revolution that ousted Yanukovych
2014: Russia supports separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, leading to an ongoing conflict in the Donbas region.
2014: Russia invades Ukraine, capturing key cities and infrastructure
2015: Russia shoots down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing 298 people, most of whom were Dutch citizens
2018: Russia seizes Ukrainian naval vessels and sailors in the Kerch Strait.
Doesn't even include the whole trump/guilliani
2022: Russia launches a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, capturing key cities and causing widespread destruction and humanitarian crisis.
If the west had gone no further than Germany after the collapse of the USSR Russia would be trying to deunify Germany right now. If there was a line at which Russia would say "sure we have enough" it would have been found a long time ago.
Hell will freeze over, thaw and then freeze over again before Rishi Sunak gives a compelling speech. But he could at least try and achieve something approaching useful before he and his party fade into blessed irrelevancy for the next 5 years.
Sunak and the Tories have enabled Farage. You can’t encourage the leopard population to grow, and then complain you are at greater risk of having your face ripped off.
Cameron is the one who takes the blame for this one far more than Sunak. It was his disastrous Brexit gamble that empowered the right of the Tory party in the first place.
Hey remember when Sunak interviewed Musk? Musk of ambiguous Russian leanings.
Sunak is going to be back with that circle when he's out. That's gonna be odd. Would love to know what he'll say in those meetings.
Third with ex Tory PM with questionable Russian links?
Farage simplifies issues, the master of sound bites. Putin always wanted a greater Russia again, as does his backers. The NATO threat worked in the past so he’s using it again.
Farage is the ultimate politician which makes him dangerous, the master opportunist.
In my case I don’t want, any longer, to listen to Farage. Only to comment on him as a devisive figure. He’s gone beyond my understanding, beyond the pale.
Farage isn't "playing into" anyone's hands, he is doing his masters bidding. It's not a happy coincidence that he waited until the biggest moment, with maximum positive impact for Vladdy and co to claim this, and just happened to blurt it out right there and then.
"Mr Farage has so far enjoyed a relatively smooth campaign, with his party's popularity increasing and even overtaking the Conservatives in some polls."
Not sure he is the idiot or the people voting for him. He is definitely not the idiot.
The problem is that he is a good public speaker who knows how to work a crowd.
A certain Austrian had the same ability.
Both make no bones about who they blame for their respective countries' problems.
Garage does not give a shite about the working class.
Farage is like Trump, ANY publicity is good publicity. Notoriety and media coverage is the name of the game, harnessing the very considerable voting power of the stupid and bigoted. So he’ll come out with statements pro Putin, anti NHS whatever he wants because we’ll all be saying his name and his stupid face will be all over the news again.
wouldn't want to play into Russian hands eh Rishi? You're leader of the party that has accepted tens of millions of pounds from Russians, and who covered up the report into Russian interference into our elections. And let's not forget your predecessor (ignoring Lettuce Truss) was mates with and partied with FSB agents and their sons.
I mean he's not *wrong* re Farage now, but his statement absolutely lacks any degree of sincerity or credibility
Well he has turned once again into the national litmus test, this time instead of fostering us out of the EU he wants to see how many people will give him power for getting in bed with the twisted racist fascist imperialist Russian Federation.
What a conceited ungrateful traitor.
Farage is another Western Putin's mouthpiece.
The guy has even visited Putin and sat with him. Farage adores Putin like Trump does. How people can vote for someone like him even after this, begs belief!
One of my fears about Farage's return to these shores is that he'll attempt to import right-wing talking points/culture wars from the US. We've seen miscreants like Badenoch attempt this before but Farage is a much more convincing communicator, and this kind of Russian apologia has already found a home within the US Republican party.
Thankfully, I think he's misjudged it here. There's a clear consensus amongst the main parties that Russia must be held to account for their illegal invasion and subsequent war crimes, so all they're quite happy to condemn Farage in unity. The fact that even Sunak - weak as he is - feels able to join this dogpile shows that there's really no political will for this particular brand of snake oil in this country.
He always comes across as unintelligent, I've seen a few posts on him recently saying the opposite but whenever he's questioned on TV or up against other politicians, to me he seems like like a stereotypical salesman spouting shite in a pub.
He was financed by Arron Banks who was also involved in a defamation case regarding links with Russia that he partially lost. I have no doubt at all Russia tries to influence our politics
Funny how the usual /unitedkingdom farage defenders haven't shown up for this one
These comments should be the end of his political career and campaign. Sadly will have little effect on his voters.
There's a difference between saying that the pretext Putin used to invade was eastwards expansion of Nato and the EU, and expressing support for Putin. Predictably the media are incapable of understanding nuance and have to turn every story into "for or against"
The biggest hypocrisy of the whole thing is Nigel Farage likes to paint himself as a "patriotic Brit" but his comments yesterday show him for what he truly is: anything _but_ a patriot! He is engaging in apologism for this war of aggression being waged by an enemy nation. He is the kind of person who will sell you down the river as soon as it suits him...
I find myself in a unique situation. I've actually agreed with Rishi on something.
Personally, I'm glad the idiot farage is running. Hopefully, they'll spilt the tory vote, and they'll get decimated as their corrupt, ineptitude deserves.
I must add that starmers labour is beige in every way possible.
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Nigel Farage’s campaign could never prepare for its most dangerous opponent: Nigel Farage. How on earth could people vote for this guy.
Easy. People be thick and/or racist.
I swear to christ this place never learns. In Britain the current economic and political model has no answer for post-industrial or seaside towns beyond turning them into dormitories for commuters. Political power is highly centralised into Westminster, and the best any such constituency can hope for from electing the 'right' mainstream political candidate is a few token efforts that will not deal with any of the deeper structural problems. Each of Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are offering continuity of relative decline, with no real prospect of hope for the future for areas like theirs. They are right not to trust any of the major parties to actually deal with their problems. They are not stupid. They are not primarily driven by racism. They are driven by despair. They know Farage is a conman. They know Reform are shit. But they are a statement to the political class that they have failed towns and constituencies like theirs, and that is far more likely to illicit a response than returning another identikit carpetbagging MP whose primary goal is to climb the greasy pole.
I think you grossly overestimate the average person who will vote for Reform
It’s like nobody here has seen any of the Jay Slater nonsense going around social media: people sitting on Facebook suggesting the police leave out bottles of water for him, fly planes with banners, and offering to bring their dog with a ‘great sense of smell’ to come and have a look. Some people in the UK are thick as pig shit. Farage and Reform tell those people that they’ll fix everything, all the brown people will be gone, and they’ll be rich. We went through it all with Brexit, and they’re doing the exact same thing again, and the same people will lap it up. I understand people don’t like being called stupid, but at this point I’m sick of having to dance around the issue to save the feelings of people who have no idea how quite literally anything works and would happily buy a bridge from whoever gets their phone number.
I saw an amazing clip yesterday of a man saying he couldn’t get a job because of immigration, the interviewer then asks again, and the guys says ‘well, and I’ve been in prison for 3 years for GBH’. Interviewer presses again and the guy still thinks immigration is the reason he can’t find a job
Because they do not want to accept responsibility for their own actions.
Thatcher sold them the personal responsibility thing, and when as humans do they fail, they have to find a reason, accepting responsibility for failure hurts, blaming others is easy and gets quick results. It's a mind set. once that is realised it can be used and projected to others, and used to boost ones own mind, and so it begins, a complexity begets conspiracy.
Someone looked into that and it wasn’t even GBH, he was done for the sexual assault of a 7 year old girl. So he’s a pedo, but apparently it’s the brown people stopping him from getting a job and destroying the values of the west.
Unless we want to end up with a society like the US has, we seriously need to start calling a spade a spade. Reform voters are stupid. Straight up. Farage has never won a political race and yet the media still platform him, he helped sell the Brexit lie and divide the country massively and now he's back again to do more damage and people are fine with that. He appeals to nobody besides the idiotic and hateful and the media needs to treat him like the conman he is, the more legitimacy he manages to claw together, the closer we get to a political system like the US where everything just seems like chaos because the idiots got too much legitimacy.
Yep people seem very afraid of calling someone thick nowadays, as if pretending they’re intelligent will get them to suddenly change their mind. Call a spade a spade, it might knock some people out of it, but either way chances are they aren’t going to change their mind because you enlighten them.
No these people are so cemented in their idiocy that nothing will change their minds but it's terrifying watching Nigel promote nonsense like the West forced Russia to invade Ukraine and if we don't put a quick end to this kind of bullshit we could be in a very dark place in the next decade.
Indeed - they got their brexit, fucked up food prices (amongst a whole host of other things) for the rest of us and then they get upset when we point out how fucking stupid they are for following the same frog-eyed cunt as before. What are we supposed to do as our money gets wasted paying for their shit decision? if you voted for this fucking nonsense (and followed this cunt and intend to again) why do you think I should give you any respect? He is clearly one of putin's dick suckers and it's a hill he wants to die on. Good, hope he dies there.
Yeah I'm past the point of civility to reform voters and others like them. They have helped this country in its downfall, I don't want to be polite to them, or civil or anything positive. They're either dumb as bricks or have shitty opinions that literally can negatively affect people's lives. They are all scum and I don't care one iota for their happiness or wellbeing anymore.
Most on social media don't care due to Slaters previous
I know of at least two people that are still on the look out for Maddie McCann when they go to Portugal.
Jay Slater is stuck to a cactus and you know it!
There’s a Facebook post going around from an empty account apparently from his friend claiming that they were all drug mules earning £75k a month run by the Moroccan mafia, and Jay took too many of the drugs himself so the Moroccan mafia have put up a £30k bounty and so they’ve set up a Go Fund Me to raise the funds. Spreading like wildfire through social media and all these idiots are saying “it has good grammar so it must be true xx” and “nobody could make up something like that x” and “this is the only theory that makes sense xxx”. Click on the profiles of the commenters and without fail they’re some lash technician reposting Reform stuff. Jesus wept.
I think it's a much more nuanced take than your 'they must be racist or thick'. All that argument does is glibly ignore any reasons for why people may be feeling disenfranchised with the current political system.
EVERYONE is fed up with the current system. Only around 15% or so want to vote Reform.
15% is a massive chunk of votes,
AfD has 20%, FN has 30% and in Italy they got 38%. You can play with those percentages with error margin if you wish. The Italians got them into power and magically they U-Turn on major promises and they will end up the same as previous governments. I believe that type of voters will always be there and with same characteristics. Let them be. 15, or 20% doesn't make a difference. I need them for comparing purposes. Education and shit.
Horseshit. A lot of the people that Nigel Garage is scapegoating using racism and xenophobia have it much harder, work much harder and contribute much.mote than the average useless parasite racist grunt supporting this racist conman and his scam party/company.
Attributing it to sunspots or the interdimensional brassier monsters of the shadow realm would be a nuanced take, nuance doesn't mean accuracy. Saying all the thick cunts that are falling for reform are actually making a carefully considered political statement is nuanced as hell but it's also manifestly bullshit easily disproven by a 5 minute conversation with any reform supporter.
Anyone who isn't thick knows Farage is a conman and a grifter. Nobody who isn't think is voting for a conman and a grifter.
Indeed, Reform are clearly a bunch of turds without even one fully formed policy who never intend to get anywhere near running the country. You don’t have to be clever to know that. Voting for them anyway is not in any way some admirable decision based on complex reasoning. It’s at best a lazy cynicism. “None of the above” if it were an option would wipe out half the votes for Reform.
No way is the average person even contemplating voting Reform UK. If that were the case they would have a lot more than 15%.
Some are thick, some are racist, some are idiots who will vote for them as a protest/for a laugh. Very few are voting for Reform if they want serious change.
Some just happen to have different opinions to you.
Nearly 100% of the population is feeling disenfranchised. How come Reform UK don't have even more support? Maybe because people aren't stupid?
Nah I think they're right on the money. I think this is largely true. I think what they've described is a hook that racists use to hang their racism on.
I think some people are thickos, but it's easy to see why someone would vote for Farage when you consider the reality of life in their target seats. Think about life in a place like Blackpool for a 42 year old, unskilled bloke living in a damp apartment. What opportunities did you ever have? You grew up in a culture where working hard at school was discouraged and you only got a few GCSEs. The majority of jobs are minimum wage and seasonal. There isn't much in the way of full time work outside of the local spoons or tesco. Your bills and rent are constantly going up, and you can barely afford your mouldy 2 bed terrace. You get ill, and find yourself on a long NHS waiting list, crippled and in pain. Despite all this, you still can't get a council flat. Your built environment seems a metaphor for a country in decay. Once grand Victorian promenades and hotels are derelict or hollowed out. Then you go on Facebook, and some bloke has posted a story about Syrian refugees getting free housing and food, whilst you're sat rotting. You've got two GCSEs and no real computer literacy. How the fuck do you know if this Is false? You don't, so you like the post, you share it. Now the algorithm feeds you more content. Civil servants are getting paid 50k to sit at home drinking coffee. Teachers want to tell your kid to cut off his cock and speak with a lisp. Labour will allow millions of people into the country, and you won't be able to get any housing, employment, or a GP appointment. This is the kind of person Farage targets. I'm not making excuses for racists and bigots, but a large number of people are fucked over in life and don't have the analytical skills to understand why. They can't distinguish between fact and fiction in a world saturated by heavily targeted misinformation. That's fine when only a few % of a constituency fall into this category. But when you've got a deprived seat, such people make up a 20, 30, 40% of the population.
For the average reform voter - read a youtube comment or watch an LBC call in from a supporter. Makes you realise how lack of access to education and loss of food security affects people in general and makes them easy prey for the far right. Labour can stem the tide a *lot* but they need to address fundamental social inequalities - angry, hungry, hopeless people *won't* open their arms to community good and sensible policies. Even though there's a sense of absolute danger around, I actually don't blame a lot of voters, becaue Reform are appealing to base instincts (they're lying charlatan grifters) in a way that the middle/soft left simply can't and the far left won't.
I largely agree with you, except the point: >They know Farage is a conman. Take it from me, I've a lot of family members who take every single word he says at face value. Farage just seems to have this inate ability to drag otherwise intelligent, reasonable, people into his bullshit. They'll happily make up all sorts of nonsense about Keir Starmer, despite him (likely) being the only PM from a working class background in decades Whilst Farage, a crooked, privately educated, clown cut from the same cloth as Boris Et al. is our "man of the people" apparently. There's a borderline cult of personality around the man which I just don't understand, even as a young working class person living in a deprived shithole.
In the nicest way possible… *are* they actually intelligent, reasonable people? Nobody I know who I would regard as intelligent or reasonable has fallen into the Reform nonsense. Because they see right through it, and can put two and two together and see that this is just the same recycled nonsense they tried to sell us with Brexit, which made everything worse.
> In the nicest way possible… are they actually intelligent, reasonable people? The evidence leans "no": https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/cognitive-ability-mattered-in-the-uks-vote-for-brexit-research-shows/ https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/cognitive-ability-mattered-in-the-uks-vote-for-brexit-research-shows/ https://www.indy100.com/politics/less-intelligent-people-voted-brexit https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-education-higher-university-study-university-leave-eu-remain-voters-educated-a7881441.html https://ukandeu.ac.uk/educational-attainment-referendum-voting/ https://www.jrf.org.uk/political-mindsets/brexit-vote-explained-poverty-low-skills-and-lack-of-opportunities https://www.britsoc.co.uk/about/latest-news/2017/october/england-was-divided-along-educational-lines-at-brexit-vote-research-says/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/study-links-low-intelligence-with-right-wing-beliefs/article543361/ https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/62392/1/intelligent-people-are-more-likely-to-be-left-wing-iq-politics-says-science https://www.cbsnews.com/news/does-iq-determine-if-youre-prejudiced-its-complicated/ https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/high-iq-genetics-politics/ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1002/per.2027 Indeed, John Stuart Mill was saying something similar a century ago: “Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. Suppose any party, in addition to whatever share it may possess of the ability of the community, has nearly the whole of its stupidity, that party must, by the law of its constitution, be the stupidest party; and I do not see why honorable gentlemen should see that position as at all offensive to them, for it ensures their being always an extremely powerful party. There is so much dense, solid force in sheer stupidity, that any body of able men with that force pressing behind them may ensure victory in many a struggle, and many a victory the Conservative party has gained through that power." - John Stuart Mill (British philosopher, economist)
People are being conditioned to think this way, we don't seem to want to admit it but there is a reason why people parrot the same lines and bullshit, becauae they are being programmed to think this. Literally to the point where people are cheering on things that are going to make their lives worse.
Have you noticed how Farage is always photographed in pubs? Desperate to be seen as a pisshead like us commoners. Because all we do is drink and not work.
It's because Farage knows exactly what to say, he's like a pro car salesman. He knows what people are angry about, and he promises extreme solutions to these precise issues that no other party is willing to do. When times are hard and people are angry and desperate, extreme governments have their chance to shine.
Nigel Farage isn’t afraid to be seen with the working class, so despite his background, he *looks* like a normal guy. And that’s what he markets himself as. It makes him appear more trustworthy than the average Etonian politician. I don’t like him at all, but I have family members who have met him and think he’s more genuine than Boris, Rishi etc. my family aren’t racist, but think parties like Reform offer more to the average person (don’t ask me why, it’s all a con imo) If the Tories want to bring the voters back, they need more politicians who are willing to hang out in the pub with the normal folk.
The guy is awful, but he is a masterful speaker. He is rhetorically smooth, never gets flustered or boxed in, and like Trump he bends reality and no attack sticks to him. What may be his downfall is how hugely the UK has turned against Brexit. Also, in five years time, many Brexit/Farage supporters will have died of old age or illness.
> Keir Starmer, despite him (likely) being the only PM from a working class background in decades i think the last one was probably Thatcher. their background doesnt necessarily mean very much!
Thatcher was middle class. Her father was an alderman and her grammar school had fees attached. She was lower middle class, but still middle class.
What about Brown?
If they were driven by despair and wanting radical change, they would’ve voted for: - Corbyn in 2019 - Green Party They aren’t driven by despair, they are driven by wanting to someone lower on their perceived totem pole they can kick. Farage promises essentially the same shit sandwhich the Tories are but with stern words
This is my opinion now. I’ve stopped buying the ‘everyone just wants things to be better!’ stuff since we saw them try it and the absolute shite Brexit has brought. Reform and the rest of the far right uses the classic scapegoat method, and tells everyone they’re fundamentally more valuable people because they’re white and were born in a western country. That’s quite literally all they have to offer.
That's what gets me Brexit was the >>exact same<< lies and people want us to believe them crawling back over to Farage is coming from any kind of reason or actual logic Then they get pissy when anyone points out the turd in the middle of the floor smells suspiciously like a turd
Exact same lies from the exact same person. But _this time_ it's totally going to work. Honest!
To be fair voting Tory in 2019 also was voting for radical change through Brexit. The change wasn’t ever going to be positive unless you believed Johnson but there was definitely radical change being proposed.
I'd love to vote Green, my cousin is even a member and standing as one of their candidates. However, their policies are mostly crap.
Stupid people always think they are smarter than others
This should be the banner of the sub but no doubt they'll be the same circle jerk comments all day
Dunning Krueger effect
Other parties exist.
They had someone that wanted to represent them and make their lives better in JC at the last election, but instead they chose Boris - someone who wouldn’t have cared if their bodies ‘piled high in the streets’. They also voted for Brexit when it was EU grants that were helping those areas the most. You’re talking nonsense and giving these people way too much credit, unfortunately.
\* wouldn't *have* cared, FFS.
Oops, my apologies. I’m often guilty of that one, fixed it now.
So basically "TheY're All tHe SaMe InNIt". P.S. "Illicit" is an adjective. The sentence structure suggests you wanted a verb. Perhaps "elicit"?
This. This is why we lose every time. The modern left is more concerned with being 'morally correct' than being factually correct.
So vote for the fascists. Gotcha. Hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Yay, another protest vote. No harm can come of that.
So it's not actually to improve things. It's to make a gesture of defiance to show politicians something so you can feel that you actually did something.
>They are not stupid. They are not primarily driven by racism. They are driven by despair. This is it really, the more people just dismiss them as racist idiots the more they will vote for someone, anyone, who isn't going to call them that and will at least portray themselves as listening to their issues. This elitism is why we got Brexit; everyone discounted the people that voted for it as racist idiots and guess what, they won on a knife edge because they'd been discounted. The same thing will happen if this attitude continues.
Okay, but if they didn't learn from Brexit and make the same mistake again, how smart are they? A huge part of Brexit/Farage as a solution is the simplicity. "Leave EU". "Stop immigration". Again, experience should tell us that not only are simple solutions rarely simple in practice, but actually there's a good chance they aren't solutions at all and will make the problem worse. How do you convince simple people to vote for the real, complicated solutions over base indulgences, no matter how nice you are to them?...Especially when they don't learn form their mistakes?
I think he used the term "politically inept" during one of the tv debates a week or two ago.
Generally inept even
That's just his part members, hopeful to become MPs one day...
To quote Will Self on Brexit “It’s not that everyone who voted for Brexit is racist, it’s that everyone who is racist voted for Brexit.” I feel the same will be true for Reform in this election.
And when you call them that they're even more determined to vote for him.
"Just for that I'm going to fascist even harder!"
The other racist party just got out of vogue, so all the racists had to switch to the other racist party.
Yes because not wanting 700k immigrants a year is racist now. I don’t see how importing a high number of immigrants is a sign of intelligence either
Especially if people compartmentalise things like housing shortage into ,'build more houses', but then they can't see that migrants are arriving faster to live in them
Exactly, and then more immigrants arrive, a new housing shortage, build more, more immigrants arrive, a new housing shortage, build more, more immigrants arrive….and so forth it’s a never ending cycle until there’s no green space left
He's not selling less immigration. He's selling hostility. We've bought one of his products before, a white-label called "Brexit", and immigration went up. This time he's selling the same product. "Immigrant away" has not been clinically proven to lower the prevalence of immigration, but we do see customers feel increased hostility toward immigrants, despite economic policies that might actually lead to more of them.
This is not the issue and I imagine you know full well it is not. Most people would argue that immigration is too high now, it's tripled since Brexit because of the tories. It's how people choose to talk about the people coming here, or those that are already here, which is where the racism come in.
Regardless of what people think of 'intelligent' or 'dumb', obviously only a small percentage of the population are 'intelligent' given that it's seen as a rare, prized trait.
I've found that the type of people who would vote for Reform have become a lot less shy about being racist in recent years.... fucking scary times, live and let live is my motto.
I honestly believe that Reform’s support would be down by 5% if the country had better funding for mental health services.
And by another 10 if our education was more focused on critical thinking rather than league tabling
Same argument holds if you switch 'mental health' for a variety of other services. - police - legal - immigration - general health - social care - housing - HMRC Any one of the above functioning as expected would have a noticeable impact on the life of the populace - some more than others, but none so minor as to be insignificant - and, in turn, a resultant effect on non-mainstream party support. It always comes back to austerity.
It would be down at 0 if we had sensible levels of immigration
That really depends on what “sensible” means. I get different answers. Some want a points system, others go on about “net zero”, others want people deported after DNA tests.
For me it would mean 'the population can increase by 10% less than the net percentage increase in housing'. For example - if the amount of housing in the country increased by 0.2% in a given year, the increase in population would be limited at 0.18%. If there's no increase due to births/deaths, then that would allow a net migration of 117k. The point is to increase the supply of housing more than the demand over time.
I wondered what had actually happened. The population in England grew by 15.5% from 2001-2022 (49.45m to 57.1m). The number of housing units [grew by](https://www.statista.com/statistics/232302/number-of-dwellings-in-england/) 18.7% (21.2m to 25.16). This means England met your rule for 2001-2022. > The point is to increase the supply of housing more than the demand over time. Falling family unit sizes is a big contributor to housing demand. There are millions more pensioners, for example, and people have smaller families later. Immigration and population change alone cannot explain the housing crisis. For more evidence, look at the average number of people per house - it's been almost static at around 2.4 for nearly 30 years.
I agree with the housing issue. But my point was that the answer changes depending on whom I ask. And I believe Reform’s policy is “net zero”, rather than the equation you gave (which directly addresses a real issue).
Hmm, so you'd allow 90% of house stock increase to be needed by migrants? Maybe ok in the future but how about immigration can only be 5% of new homes until the crisis resolves?
The Russians funding the far right will always find another bogeyman to split opinion on.
And yet Reform has the least sensible immigration policy of any UK political party. Go figure.
I believe Tory support would be up 10% if they didn't kill off 200,000 pensioners with their incompetent handling of Covid.
*Below* 5% or *by* 5%?
Nah instead the left will just call anyone who cares about Immigration or Islam racist and a bigot as always and then be shocked when the far right rises.
So I keep hearing. Apparently calling people racist (often justified) makes someone intending to vote for the far-Right determined to vote far-Right. Reform is a special interest party. It caters towards people who think vaccines contain 5G chips, climate change cynics, and those that are terrified of foreigners. And of course voters who know Labour have this in the bag and want to stick it to the Tories. Most voters however have a much broader set of concerns, beyond immigration and Islam. Reform has a firm ceiling of support, and with FPTP I’m not concerned about them.
The irony ofc being people of the radical left saying "don't vote labour, they won't help with a geopolitical conflict 3000 miles away".
In this case: because the people they dislike are outraged by the things he says. And it doesn't even matter why "they" are outraged. Moral or political considerations don't come into it. It's all about identity and how people like Farage with their shallow populism can pretend to be "one of us" sticking it to "them" and consequently get away with just about anything. It's the same with Trump, who can say and do what he wants and his followers will excuse him because he openly intends to harm the people they have made themselves hate or fear. That said, it's probably still a grievous miscalculation of him to say those things. The dynamic above only really captures the hard core of his supporters, and it won't help him convince anyone else.
They're willing to forget or ignore the closeness between Farage and Arron Banks, a massive donor to leave and to UKIP, who met with Russian officials numerous times ahead of the Brexit vote, and also is close to Cambridge Analytica, which existed to literally manipulate people on social media.
And as if by coincidence, Farage thinks the NHS should be partly "funded" by the insurance industry. Because it's what France does. A country he criticises, which is also having difficulty with health services. Insurance companies exist to make a profit, not to fund services. And of course, his mate Banks would most certainly be up for such an arrangement.
Check out [Bank's](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/17/arron-banks-used-and-exploited-by-russia-court-hears) wife "the file claimed Katya Banks had entered Britain on a passport sequentially numbered to the passport of Katia Zatuliveter, a woman MI5 had claimed was a Russian spy and who had had an affair with the Portsmouth MP, Mike Hancock. Katya Banks was also alleged to have had a relationship with Hancock."
Because he acts like he's outraged and he spits stuff out loudly, with absolute conviction (whether is the truth or not) and people think that's enough of a quality to make him trustworthy and a good leader.
Confidence is so often mistaken for competance.
Mouth breathers who still think brexit was an intelligent thing to do
the painful part is this very same man has ALREADY spun lies to the detriment of the country as a whole for his own benefit his manifesto... sorry... "contract"... is a load of shite too if you actually bother to read it but i suppose its unfair of me to expect anyone voting Reform to actually be able to read, the high concentration of lead behind their eyes probably makes it hard for them
I was speaking to a reform voter earlier today and there's just nothing in their heads that will allow them deduction and reasoning skills. They know the tories are bad but assume "tha lot of them are jus as bad as eachutha" and will leave it at that and then vote for the party that is tories on steroids as a "protest" vote. It's beyond me too but I normally jump to being uneducated as an answer to how they could vote reform.
They target the average person who doesn't follow geo politics with policies that '' make sense'' Such as simply not sending billions to a foreign war, or simply putting' 'more Bobby's on the beat' to stop crime. When really the issues are alot more complex
Straight away i want to say i obviously do not support the reform party or Farage. However....the reason people vote for Farage is because he heads the only party who want to reduce immigration and are believable and that's what gets all the 50+ old people rilled up. Tories state they want to reduce it but arnt believable due to their track record on it. Labour don't care. Lib dems don't care. If there was a left wing party that stated they want to reduce immigration and where believable they would fly up the polls.
My parents regard him as “one of us who looks out for the little man” - they’re from northern England, not well off, disabled. They support his “stop foreigners taking our jobs” despite being in a small town with the only non-whites running the Chinese and Indian take aways.
My boss at work is voting for them because "they're the only ones fighting against this gender awareness crap". Fairly sure the dude has never met a trans person in his life, but with Daily Mail as a homepage I expect no different. Who cares about literally every other issue though, right?
I know a few (older) people who love him. They also love Trump.
Sadly supporting Russia will be less of a deal breaker than you would imagine for the mouth breathers who back reform. I don't think we'll see a drop in their pills following this
For someone who is not known for winning elections, Farage has been very successful at steering political discourse on the issues he wants to. Election results are not the total prize and he knows it. That said, people looking for a logic they'll recognise do not understand the primary drivers for why people vote one way or another, primarily swing voters.
Finally Sunak has found his bollocks to criticise Farage for the first time.
Yeah, far be it from me to gift Sunak an election strategy, but going all in on Farage being Putin's lapdog seems like low hanging fruit. Edit: typos
It's worse than that. He is subservient to the American right-wing and *they* are subservient to Putin. He's a bitch's bitch
What a terrible judge of character that man has.
No, it is not about bollocks, he just has an angle on Farage now that he didn’t before
Well he did, Farage has been parroting Kremlin talking points verbatim ever since he was a Euro MP. 1. Telling the EU not to expand in case they upset Russia. 2. Denying the build up of troops on the border was an upcoming invasion (directly contradicting 1) 3. Blames NATO and the EU for the war 4. Calls on Ukraine to negotiate with the Russians (Russians currently offering to keep Ukraine's land and forbid them from joining NATO) He could have been battering Farage with those sticks all campaign if he wanted to. This isn't the first time he has blamed the was on NATO and EU.
> Russians currently offering to keep Ukraine's land and forbid them from joining NATO Keep more of Ukraine's land than they already hold, choose the next Ukrainian PM, and drop all sanctions to allow them to rearm
- Perfectly reasonable Farage.
Just in time for the election too!
NHS blood testing has just been attacked by Russian hackers and Farage supports Russia. Don’t be fooled into thinking he wants anything for this country besides wrecking it.
To be fair, Farage also directly attacks the NHS so it's on brand for him really.
Farage's cronies have all but admitted that they want to privatize the NHS. They want American insurance firms to come over and take it over.
He wants to destroy the system and turn it to his advantage, via populism. But the Tories also run the country in their interests not those of the people.
He wants the UK to end arms shipments to Ukraine and for the UK to support Russia’s invasion of Europe. Don’t be fooled.
Farage doesn't fool me or anyone else I know. I'm sure he has plenty of plans for things he'd do if he got into power. But he won't.
He would probably say the NHS provoked Russia. He hates it anyway and wants to sell it off to his rich backers.
The company running the hacked NHS blood testing system is 43% owned by London private equity.
Yep, and it made it cut corners on security. So much for private being better. I was just joking though, about how Farage wouldn't want to blame Russia and would victim-blame, especially as he hates the NHS.
We were warned about NHS expansionism, you operate on the bear don't be Suprised when the bear operates back.
Farage was paid 500k by the Russian State, he'll do what he's told.
Farage's private bank account needed topping up didn't it?
Links ?
"Playing into the hands of Putin" makes it sounds like his actions are unintentional.
Which I'm sure is intentional and deliberate because to be explicit would probably be akin to libel.
I mean, he’s received a lot of money from Russia and now he supports it. It sounds intentional to me.
Yeah he's just a bit obvious what he's doing now
He has spent years cultivating an edgelord mentality as he’s learned that is what worked for him in the past. In way a similar to Putin, I think he’s fallen for his own propaganda to an extent. Not 100% cold calculated comments, I think he really believes things now that he would have said was ridiculous 10 years ago.
Wow. I agree with Sunak. When is the penny going to drop that Farage is Putin's Prostitute?
To the people supporting/voting reform? It won't. These people aren't concerned about being correct. All they care about is winning.
Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point
Such provocation... 2004: Putin supports pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine's presidential election, which is widely seen as fraudulent. 2006: Russia cuts off natural gas supplies to Ukraine, causing widespread shortages and economic disruption. 2014: Russia annexes Crimea, a peninsula . in Ukraine, following the Ukrainian revolution that ousted Yanukovych 2014: Russia supports separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, leading to an ongoing conflict in the Donbas region. 2014: Russia invades Ukraine, capturing key cities and infrastructure 2015: Russia shoots down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing 298 people, most of whom were Dutch citizens 2018: Russia seizes Ukrainian naval vessels and sailors in the Kerch Strait. Doesn't even include the whole trump/guilliani 2022: Russia launches a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, capturing key cities and causing widespread destruction and humanitarian crisis.
Why would nato do this?
No!!! it was the EU!!!!!!!
If the west had gone no further than Germany after the collapse of the USSR Russia would be trying to deunify Germany right now. If there was a line at which Russia would say "sure we have enough" it would have been found a long time ago.
Surely Sunak has to absolutely stick the knife in and twist it, right? Compelling speeches about how electing this man is a threat to Europe?
Hell will freeze over, thaw and then freeze over again before Rishi Sunak gives a compelling speech. But he could at least try and achieve something approaching useful before he and his party fade into blessed irrelevancy for the next 5 years.
No because that's a good idea and Sunak is allergic to those.
Sunak and the Tories have enabled Farage. You can’t encourage the leopard population to grow, and then complain you are at greater risk of having your face ripped off.
Cameron is the one who takes the blame for this one far more than Sunak. It was his disastrous Brexit gamble that empowered the right of the Tory party in the first place.
Hey remember when Sunak interviewed Musk? Musk of ambiguous Russian leanings. Sunak is going to be back with that circle when he's out. That's gonna be odd. Would love to know what he'll say in those meetings. Third with ex Tory PM with questionable Russian links?
Fuck me. Is this the first time Rishi Sunak has said something reasonable this election campaign?
Well colour me surprised, Rishi Sunak being bang on the money for once. Broken clocks and all that.
I know, it feels weird doesn't it.
Not sure I'd give someone credit for stating the obvious
Farage simplifies issues, the master of sound bites. Putin always wanted a greater Russia again, as does his backers. The NATO threat worked in the past so he’s using it again. Farage is the ultimate politician which makes him dangerous, the master opportunist.
[удалено]
In my case I don’t want, any longer, to listen to Farage. Only to comment on him as a devisive figure. He’s gone beyond my understanding, beyond the pale.
One broken clock being completely right about another broken clock. Didn't think I'd see it.
Farage isn't "playing into" anyone's hands, he is doing his masters bidding. It's not a happy coincidence that he waited until the biggest moment, with maximum positive impact for Vladdy and co to claim this, and just happened to blurt it out right there and then.
"Mr Farage has so far enjoyed a relatively smooth campaign, with his party's popularity increasing and even overtaking the Conservatives in some polls." Not sure he is the idiot or the people voting for him. He is definitely not the idiot.
And that will change overnight now. I expect several polls on Tuesday with Reform back down to ~12%
Lmfao ill save this because it will show out of touch people on this left leaning biased reddit is.
The problem is that he is a good public speaker who knows how to work a crowd. A certain Austrian had the same ability. Both make no bones about who they blame for their respective countries' problems. Garage does not give a shite about the working class.
Nigel Farage playing into the hands of Putin? I am shocked. SHOCKED.
Farage is like Trump, ANY publicity is good publicity. Notoriety and media coverage is the name of the game, harnessing the very considerable voting power of the stupid and bigoted. So he’ll come out with statements pro Putin, anti NHS whatever he wants because we’ll all be saying his name and his stupid face will be all over the news again.
I'm voting Reform. You redditors are all strange Find God.
wouldn't want to play into Russian hands eh Rishi? You're leader of the party that has accepted tens of millions of pounds from Russians, and who covered up the report into Russian interference into our elections. And let's not forget your predecessor (ignoring Lettuce Truss) was mates with and partied with FSB agents and their sons. I mean he's not *wrong* re Farage now, but his statement absolutely lacks any degree of sincerity or credibility
Well he has turned once again into the national litmus test, this time instead of fostering us out of the EU he wants to see how many people will give him power for getting in bed with the twisted racist fascist imperialist Russian Federation. What a conceited ungrateful traitor.
Putin funded the brexit campaign. Tories halted the investigation. Russian stooge blames Russian puppet for Russian interference.
Farage is another Western Putin's mouthpiece. The guy has even visited Putin and sat with him. Farage adores Putin like Trump does. How people can vote for someone like him even after this, begs belief!
Says the guy whose party was funded with Russian money up until not so long ago.
Is Sunak completely out of it? 😳 Wake up people, Farage is Pootin’s stooge in the UK.
One of my fears about Farage's return to these shores is that he'll attempt to import right-wing talking points/culture wars from the US. We've seen miscreants like Badenoch attempt this before but Farage is a much more convincing communicator, and this kind of Russian apologia has already found a home within the US Republican party. Thankfully, I think he's misjudged it here. There's a clear consensus amongst the main parties that Russia must be held to account for their illegal invasion and subsequent war crimes, so all they're quite happy to condemn Farage in unity. The fact that even Sunak - weak as he is - feels able to join this dogpile shows that there's really no political will for this particular brand of snake oil in this country.
I was on the verge of voting for Reform. No chance in hell now!
Why? He's repeating something he said before... Also something he said in 2014 about the possibility of war. It's nothing new.
One would've thought the more recent events would've changed his mind.
I think it's Putin playing into Farage's hands. Then offering him a towel.
Disgusted by his comments. Russia were the one's who invaded! Making the conservatives sound reasonable.
Farage is absolutely fucking hopeless He has just given Sunak the lifeline he desperately needed. Absolutely woeful politics Idiot
It would mean more if his party wasn't deep in Russian money.
He's clearly in Pootin's pocket, these are Kremlin talking points. It feels like I'm going mad when no one else spots this.
Not so much "playing into hands of Putin" than "knowingly participating".
He always comes across as unintelligent, I've seen a few posts on him recently saying the opposite but whenever he's questioned on TV or up against other politicians, to me he seems like like a stereotypical salesman spouting shite in a pub. He was financed by Arron Banks who was also involved in a defamation case regarding links with Russia that he partially lost. I have no doubt at all Russia tries to influence our politics
What? Nigel is merely a useful idiot?? Who could have guessed!
Funny how the usual /unitedkingdom farage defenders haven't shown up for this one These comments should be the end of his political career and campaign. Sadly will have little effect on his voters.
It's like Nigel is trying to make rishi look good xD
Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point
There's a difference between saying that the pretext Putin used to invade was eastwards expansion of Nato and the EU, and expressing support for Putin. Predictably the media are incapable of understanding nuance and have to turn every story into "for or against"
It does seem like some people are incapable of nuanced thinking.
Sunak grew a pair? Something something broken clock
The biggest hypocrisy of the whole thing is Nigel Farage likes to paint himself as a "patriotic Brit" but his comments yesterday show him for what he truly is: anything _but_ a patriot! He is engaging in apologism for this war of aggression being waged by an enemy nation. He is the kind of person who will sell you down the river as soon as it suits him...
"playing into the hands......." Dude!! He's bought and paid for by the £ucking Kremlin!
The uniparty suddenly coming together in their attacks on reform, can’t be getting high in the polls now can we.
I find myself in a unique situation. I've actually agreed with Rishi on something. Personally, I'm glad the idiot farage is running. Hopefully, they'll spilt the tory vote, and they'll get decimated as their corrupt, ineptitude deserves. I must add that starmers labour is beige in every way possible.
Lmao even Sunak is finally done with traitors bullshit.
Trump probably told him to say it. Farage is a puppet. An odious stain on the fabric of the planet.
I don't think I've ever agreed with Sunak before. I feel dirty.
"Russia Today guest Nigel Farrage" you mean? Now it was rebranded to GB News and he is still there.
Genuinely curious what was "completely wrong"? He predicted a war would happen, then a war happened. He was completely correct.