[The Times are running JK Rowling's denouncement of Labour as their front page tomorrow](https://x.com/JohnJamesNI/status/1804286326394753519?t=O7V7YdB-i0uyYnXhI8_xhA).

Go on JKR team up with Holly Vallance. You know you can do it.

[The Gurkha running for Reform has a new campaign video](https://x.com/PrabhdeepReform/status/1804140194523726043?t=mpRdy9K6zrJHH4qD0MUo7A).

Here's why Farage saying the Ukraine War is the West's fault is actually a good thing...

> According to recent polling 1 in 5 voters intends to vote for a party headed up by a best a Putin apologist and at worst a Russian asset. Just incredible. The electorate has LOT to answer for when it comes to the state of the country. The electorate has nothing to answer for. They have voted for a better country at every election and get ignored every single time. I'm fed up of c*nts like this blaming the average Brit. The Russian asset bit is BS. His bank couldn't find any suspicious payments from any other country. https://www.reveddit.com/v/ukpolitics/comments/1dkvytt/rukpolitics_general_election_campaign_megathread/l9otakb/#csa

the people Had squandered the confidence of the government And could only win it back By redoubled migration. Would it not in that case Be simpler for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?

It is especially rich considering Labour spent 5 years trying to get us to make an antisemitic, anti-NATO Communist the next PM. And yet Farage is beyond the pale because he says something most IR specialists have been saying for years. And it is exactly what the Left say about Islamic Terrorism since before 2001, that it is the reaction to our misguided foreign policy and support for Israel. We also dont recognise Taiwan for exactly the same reason. They are a democratic state being threatened by an expansionist dictatorship, but recognition is withheld over fears it would provoke China. It doesn't justify the actions of China, but unless we are willing to drop an airborne division over Beijing, we have to be sensible.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/21/france-snap-parliamentary-elections-muslims-lyon-far-right-national-rally Thought I’d check to see if the Guardian had bothered to run the story of the little Jewish girl that was raped and beaten by a group of “French” boys. Turns out they had, sort of. Managed to miss out on naming the culprits of much of the antisemitism, managed to take two days as they needed to shoehorn in the looming threat of Le Pen, and needed it to coincide with their article pasted above which paints the entire Muslim community as saintly victims. Disgusting journalism from a dangerous propaganda pump. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/20/jews-questioning-their-future-in-france-amid-fears-about-rise-in-extremism?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Very pleased to see this as the “other” Reform UK party election broadcast: https://x.com/nigel_farage/status/1803880697787994377?s=61&t=gi8_M8RNPemZ-zgb0zzyrA Proper comfy. I could sit with Nige on that bench all day and put the world to rights.

The Farage/Ukraine story has nothing to do with the next couple of weeks, polls or the election itself. It's to discredit him as a potential threat against whatever rump of the Tory party is left after the election.

Remember on 2 June when the Labour party had blown a HUGE chunk of their campaigning money, were "uneasy" that donations had slowed down because the Diane thing had annoyed their own supporters, and were going to have to divert resources to defending existing seats from Greens and independents, which meant less resources for target seats held by Tories, unless they could raise more money? [Well, they raised a shitload more money.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c800k0p175ro) >Labour far ahead of Tories in election donations >Labour raised nearly 15 times as much as the Tories in large donations in the second week of the general election campaign, latest figures show. >According to the elections watchdog, Labour raised nearly £4.4m between 6-12 June, way ahead of the Conservatives on £292,500. >The figures mean the Conservatives raised £889,000 in the first two weeks of the official campaign, which began when Parliament was shut down on 30 May. >This is significantly down on the more than £8.6m the party raised in the first two weeks of the campaign in the last election in 2019. >The £292,500 it raised in the latest reporting period was less than the £335,000 posted by the Liberal Democrats. >It was also less than Reform UK, which raised £742,000, thanks largely to £500,000 donated by former leader Richard Tice through his company Britain Means Business Limited. >It stands in stark contrast to the £5.3m raised by Labour so far, including £926,908 during the first week of the campaign.

Say what you will about TikTok, but you don't randomly see on your timeline humans being burned multiple times in a year.

Saw Geert Wilders's tweet huh?

[Full Article of JK Rowling denouncing Starmer](https://www.thetimes.com/article/f9b13bad-6b20-4deb-825b-b640fb630467). She highlights how he failed to defend Labour MP Rosie Duffield and left her open to death threats and abuse from train activists.

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As usual someone like Farage gives you meat and two veg. The permanently online and oh-so-smart redditards only see the meat and spend their Friday and Saturday evenings bitching about it. I don't support Farage or Reform, but good God the quality of political discourse on here is total crap. Part of me does wonder what it might be like to live in somewhere like Singapore where that just doesn't happen and people aren't bitching about things lightyears beyond their control.

There was a reason NATO and the EU expanded east - the people in those countries wanted to put a lot of distance between themselves and Russia because Russia fucked them over, including deporting large amounts of the population to replace them with Russians.

They could want to join until the cows came home, we weren't compelled to admit them.

You make it sound so simplistic but it really is not. You are correct Russia fucked over these countries, but the problem is that the people of russian heritage left in these countries are honestly discriminated against even if they are born in those countries. The problem with this is that it enables Putin to argue for his actions so some of the russian people at least partially support it.  In the end this is what farage said here. A lot of pundits etc are saying "farage is just repeating Putin's awful excuse", but he's simply stating that for Putin's audience (russians) it was a suitable excuse. Doesn't mean we will excuse it.

There is nothing wrong with discrimination against a colonial population that won't accept that the empire they were produced by is gone. I've dealt with plenty of Russians who viewed the population of the countries they were living in as yapping dogs who didn't respect their betters and as a problem that needs to be dealt with.

You're making more wrong assumptions. I'm talking about people who are born post soviet union **and see themselves as citizens of the country they were born in, not Russia**. It seems unfair to be discriminatory to these people as they haven't done anything wrong? Sins of the father..

They see themselves as Russians, living in lands that rightfully belong to Russia.

Just not true. Why would they see themselves as Russians when they weren't born in Russia..

Because they are Russians. It's not like our part of the world where anyone whose been here long enough to have a postal address is suddenly British.

very kind to people who had no choice in the matter but were actually born outside of russia. If your argument is just though "they aren't natives" i kind of understand but in the end all you are doing is making my point correct. You are literally saying "the russian born people in estonia/ukraine/georgia deserve punishment", which is.. the excuse Putin gives to invade. Seems.. counterproductive.

Russia wants to invade because it views those countries as parts of Russia, and wants what it thinks it has a right to and what it thinks was stolen from them by independence movements following the collapse of the USSR.

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>Ukraine is the prize on the continent. If you're a tractor retailer

Ukraine accounts for around a tenth of the grain market. Whoever controls that has a lot of influence in Africa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wheat_production They're 11th in the world in terms of wheat production- below France and Germany. And produce a 1/5 of what Russia does.

This isn't the counter you think it is. Ukraine produces a lot of wheat, corn and barley. They export a lot of it to Africa and the rest of Europe hence why Russia wants to control it. I'm not sure why you're arguing against this. They also have a lot of mineral resources plus the warm water ports and infrastructure. That's why Russia annexed Crimea.

Russia is the world's largest grain exporter, and the EU is the world's second largest grain exporter, and also produces 46% of world grain. The EU doesn't need more grain, and actually placed tariffs on Ukrainian grain before the war to protect EU farmers. The great powers aren't fighting over Ukraine because of it's grain production.

Also the people. Russian demographics are not good and without change it won't be long before they don't have the population to secure their borders, especially in the east. If their original fantasy plan had worked out (being welcomed etc), it would have given them a massive population boost.

[Front page of the Daily Mail tomorrow](https://x.com/ThatTimWalker/status/1804258835009327343?t=2HZhzCenkCuLfdE4CI5YtA). For goodness sake. I thought Farage was better than to be taken down by BBC interview.

At this point Farage could say Jimmy Savile was innocent and it wouldn't make a difference. When only one party is willing to address an issue on which voters have been ignored for a decade they aren't going to care about their position on anything else.

DM are still sat firmly in the Tory camp. They will take any chance they can to attack Farage. Edit: The comments on the online edition are telling. They're pretty much telling the DM to get fucked.

I think you’re overestimating how much Reform or potential Reform voters care about this when immigration is > 1 million per year.

It's typical behaviour from the chattering media class. They did the same with Brexit and kept banging on about "the money, the money" as if the man on the street gave a shit about that

>Kuwait calls on its nationals to avoid travel to Lebanon and for them to depart the country if already there https://x.com/spectatorindex/status/1804266590156001555 >Israel's Channel 12 reports that Canada is preparing a massive evacuation of 45,000 people from Lebanon https://x.com/spectatorindex/status/1804235212337090585

First Hamas, now Hezbollah.

Haven't seen the video, but Farage is right to say Russia was provoked by West. Anyone who thinks that isn't the case is a gift for the PR men of the world, and no doubt would have been convinced Saddam had WMD. >That is unfortunate. Although it is obscene to blame the United States for Putin’s inhumane attack on Ukraine, to insist that the invasion was entirely unprovoked is misleading. Just as Pearl Harbor was the consequence of U.S. efforts to blunt Japanese expansion on the Asian mainland, and just as the 9/11 attacks were partly a response to the United States’ dominant presence in the Middle East after the first Gulf War, so Russian decisions have been a response to the expanding post–Cold War hegemony of the United States and its allies in Europe. Putin alone is to blame for his actions, but the invasion of Ukraine is taking place in a historical and geopolitical context in which the United States has played and still plays the principal role, and Americans must grapple with this fact. Robert Kagan https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-04-06/russia-ukraine-war-price-hegemony Kagan, by the way, is a neocon ultra Russia Hawk, and his wife was Victoria Nuland, who until recently was the point woman for the State Department on Ukraine.

'We provoked Islamic terrorism with our foreign policy' is left wing political orthodoxy going back decades and the subject of a billion CiF opinion pieces. But when Farage says something along the same lines, it is heresy...

REF+3

The voting public aren't capable of this nuance. I won't be surprised if this tanks Reform's support back to 14-15% average.

I think you’ve gotten a bit caught up in all this. I don’t think elections actually turn on a dime like that, that’s political class mythology to explain the inexplicable. Further, Ukraine is absolutely blob central, it’s a blob project. Farage isn’t seeking to activate those kinds of voters.

It's on all the front pages of the Saturday newspapers tomorrow.

So? You're assuming that matters all that much anymore. The media is hated, and especially by the people voting for Farage. And there will be another current thing along shortly

Reforms support is based almost solely on immigration, I don't think foreign policy moves the needle for them at all.

I don't get the feeling that Ukraine issue is that important. I don't think this is a foreign policy election or foreign policy is particularly important in Britain. I think everyone sort of subconsciously knows that we'll do whatever America tells us to do and we've little if any independent foreign policy at all.

I'm not sure it will have that much impact anymore. The public have moved on from Ukraine being the latest thing, and anyone outraged by this probably wasn't voting for him anyway.

Of course Putin’s invasion was partly due to NATO expansion, because the warped Eurasian Duginesque philosophy of the Russian government sees itself as the only legitimate protector of all Slavic peoples, and any attempt by others to replace Russia (read: Other countries want to join alliance) is a irreconcilably insidious threat

https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1804248188913881133 >EXCLUSIVE: >JK Rowling has accused Sir Keir Starmer of 'abandoning women' who are concerned about transgender rights >In an article for The Times the author criticised the Labour leader for taking a 'dismissive and often offensive' approach to feminist concerns >She said she can no longer vote for the party that she was once a member of because she does not trust Starmer’s judgement and has a 'poor opinion' of his character >'As long as Labour remains dismissive and often offensive towards women fighting to retain the rights their foremothers thought were won for all time, I’ll struggle to support them >'The women who wouldn’t wheesht [be quiet] didn’t leave Labour. Labour abandoned them.' I think this is due to the way Starmer handled the Rosie Duffield question on QT last night.

Interesting article from Basedstani: >There is a temptation to treat Farage as purely a media phenomenon: a showman adept at exploiting any opportunity to attract TV cameras, get on BBC Question Time and go viral on TikTok. And that’s fair. But it’s also increasingly clear that his politics and rhetoric are changing as he carves out a new space for himself, not only after Brexit but as living standards stagnate. Out is the bare-faced, unapologetic Thatcherism. **In its place, a kind of welfarist nationalism more reminiscent of the Law and Justice party in Poland, or Victor Orban in Hungary. Alongside that, there is a clear effort to champion small business. If Britain really is a nation of shopkeepers, then Farage wishes to be their tribune.** >For a long time the Brexit right, beyond the Conservative mainstream, felt like a Thatcherite re-enactment society. Besides Farage himself, there were the likes of Douglas Carswell, Matthew Elliott and Daniel Hannan, all pitching the idea that leaving the EU would allow greater deregulation and a smaller state. Despite their very real influence, such figures – generally found wandering the free market think tanks of Westminster – had their horizons shaped by the historic success of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the Anglophone world. Gradually, however, Reform and Farage are moving on – and aligning more closely with trends most visible in continental Europe. >Take the party’s manifesto: it’s “pro business” – but in a very different way to the Confederation of British Industry, the Tories and the countless TV pundits who parrot the phrase. Reform plans to lift the threshold to pay corporation tax to £100,000 (it’s presently £50,000) – something it claims will help over 1.2 million small and medium-sized businesses. Corporation tax itself would gradually go from 25% to 15% and, importantly, the VAT threshold would rise to £150,000 (it is now £90,000).  >**Elsewhere, and more interesting, is the promise to abolish business rates for small and medium-sized businesses on the high street, paid for by an “Online Delivery Tax” of 4% on “large, multinational enterprises”.** The intent, the document states, is that this will “create a fairer playing field for high streets”. Such a proposal would have been unthinkable for the David Cameron administration – and you can almost picture Peter Mandelson mocking the idea. **Identikit Thatcherism it ain’t.** https://novaramedia.com/2024/06/21/nigel-farage-has-spotted-a-major-gap-in-the-political-market/

>In its place, a kind of welfarist nationalism more reminiscent of the Law and Justice party in Poland, or Victor Orban in Hungary. This became clear to me when he said he supports abolishing the two-child benefit cap, which not even Labour are doing. And that people should be supported in starting families. Cemented my vote for his party.

Bastani is an extremely likeable man. Certainly has a sense of charisma about him when you talk to him. He even entertained my political rants for a bit, which is impressive.

What's the traffic usually like on the M-25 at around 08:00 on a Saturday? More specifically, what's it like between junctions sixteen and twenty-five?

I assume you're going clockwise? If so, probably better flowing than going anti-clockwise.

Don't let them know where you'll be mate. They watch this thread...

I think Nigel fucked up today. Definitely the biggest mess up of his campaign so far and you can bet your ass the Beeb and the uni party is going to grab this by the nuts and run My bet is headline or top of bbc news for at least 4/5 days

Hard to know. I think he's just being honest, but he should have *prefixed* the statement rather than saying oh but Putin sucks after. His talk about the steelworks though is super refreshing. 

It doesn't really help how Farage puts anything. If the press wants to attack him, they'll take quotes out of context and paint him as the bad guy. See for example the quotes used recently about him "praising" Hitler.

Yep I'm aware. That's the problem with any sort of debate etc - you only get the soundbite.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if it disappeared quite quickly, it's already gone from The Telegraph front page. The issues raised by Farage are not questions they want people to dwell on, the less they are thought about the better. Maybe I am being seduced into conspiratorial thinking. Lets see.

Truth be told, I don't think it's done as much damage as the BBC might hope, at least. From what I've seen in response, most people either don't care or actually agree with him. He's not wrong to suggest NATO expansionism was at least party responsible. Sure, Putin is ultimately the one giving the order.

I think it’s a positive boon to Nigel. He’s plying the Trump game: positive headlines mean a breakthrough into normieland, negative headlines means the establishment are out to smear him. I said months ago on here that is Sunak wanted to win the election, he’d turn it into a referendum on immigration. Nigel has come along and done that, banking that the establishment is far enough out of touch to not spot the danger of ‘smearing’ him by calling him anti immigrant. Hook, line and sinker.

Do the voters that Reform is courting really care that much? I really don’t think they do.

Well unless he's intending to court the 'ohhhhh jeremy corbyn' gang I don't see who his target audience is with that line

Presumably not the ‘sensible centrist’ Ukraine flag fliers who care about this and would never vote for him in a million years anyway. Most of those who aren’t politically obsessed succumb to war fatigue a couple of years into foreign conflicts and stop caring all that much.

I agree it's not winning him any votes But I think these days people just don't care all that much about Ukraine. This was a stone cold campaign killer a few years back but I don't think many really give this much of a shit anymore, the emotion is well out of the issue.

I'd question anyone that makes this a red line over a billion bomalians.

How is Farage going to stop a Labour govt from repealing the Illegal Migration Act and Rwanda scheme with about 5 MPs in his group? You chaps are not comprehending the nature of landslide govts.

Boris had massive majority and did sweet FA. So we'll see.

So instead of a billion bomalians a year we will have a billion + 2 under Labour?

You are not comprehending how much the public hates your party. Highest marginal tax rates since WW2, mass immigration higher then at any point of the Blair years and just the general decline of the country as a whole.

And yet your choice of govt in this election is a) Labour, who will repeal illegal migration act and rwanda scheme. Have said they will review Cleverly's ban on dependents and review min salary thresholds for skilled visas. b) Tories. Flights to Rwanda start 24th July. Min salary threshold already £38k from last April, dependents banned from last Feb. New overall cap to be introduced.

Reform are beating the Tories in the popular vote at the moment Rose. Have you considered that maybe the Tories should stand down their candidates to avoid splitting the right vote? :P

The Tories continue to make promises which they have no intention of keeping.

Good point Rose The tories need to step down and stop splitting the right wing vote. A vote for rishi is a vote for labour after all

Pretty much, but the general public are emotionally charged voters. This is a potential campaign killer.

You're overestimating the public's conscious regarding Putin. Half the public probably forgot there was still a war ongoing in Ukraine. Most responses seem to be in agreement with Farage, or apathetic to it.

Quite possibly. We will see in the next coming polls. Just a massive shame if so. Immigration is the only issue that matters. Reform tanking over Ukraine is utterly ridiculous. Farage's stance isn't even pro-Putin. Farage and Reform are hardly [Kurten and the Heritage Party posting stuff like this](https://x.com/davidkurten/status/1800803894399737882?t=KWF7evnTpDi1NUYL0mk1Rw).

Its frustrating. Even if he does genuinely believe that why didn't he just lie, there nothing to be gained by picking that hill to die on and surely he knows that

They dug up his old speech to the EU parliament, so he couldn't lie unless he lied about changing his mind.

Yes and Robinson was referencing the tweet Farage made at the start of the war in 2022 where he blamed EU/NATO expansion.

Considering the illegal migrant situation, I think the US may be far better off than us. If you saw a baby or young child crying because it needs food or water after such a long journey, you’d let it through the fence, right? But it needs its mother too, so you let them in. It’s the only right thing to do. But you don’t let the men in because they may be a terror suspect, so you tell them to fuck off and go back to where they came from. In America this means they have a long walk back home over a few deserts and jungles to watch TV and smoke with their gringos, but for us it means sending them back over the English Channel. What are we going to do, give them an inflatable dingy? Can’t be done. This is why we have a massive hotel bill and why all these stupid plans won’t work, except turning them back to France before they get here. https://youtu.be/8iQA8_P8asc?si=zmOHq0FetPAzTrMq

Sort of. In terms of quantity the US isn't better off illegal immigration wise, they are experiencing the typical issues you do with mass low-skilled immigration no matter who is coming over. The "tell them to fuck off and go back to where they came from" part isn't really happening there any more than it is here. Trump made some progress on the border crossings but Biden undid virtually all of it, now he's claiming he will get tough just in time for the election. However, unlike Europe, for the most part the immigrants they're getting don't hate the guts of the country they're moving to, which is a plus I'd say. Sure there are a few sketchy people from other parts of the world who fly to Latin America and then try to slip in but it's never going to compare to what Europe is dealing with.

Send them down the service tunnel of the Channel Tunnel.

The Yanks (outside a few select cities) don't give their equivalent of the dinghymen any gibs. Texas might let you sleep under a highway overpass, and when you've had enough stick you on a bus to NYC thousands of miles away.

[Farage clarifies his points](https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1804256739270996102?t=Cz8TqHlujOAfQuvXIvV3tg). He's blaming EU expansion, not NATO expansion. He does blame Putin.

I don't think that's going to help really is it. So it's wrong for the people of Ukraine to want to join the EU? It was wrong for Finland to join the EU? There's only one "wrong" in all this. I actually think this clarification tweet is far worse than his verbal defence in the interview.

I mean. It's literally in the quote in the BBC article. They just took one word from paragraph 4 for the headline.

[J.K.Rowling denounces Kier Starmer](https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1804254618475471258?t=UYO-ZJYJRK15c90fTYd74w). Labour has lost the Rowling vote. Could have an impact.

She always put her name and money to Labour electioneering in the past. She has a long way to go before she achieves redemption. I just don't understand how leftists tend to be regarded on the most fundamental levels.

[Tory councillor rips out autistic neighbour’s prized hedge despite pleas to stop](https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/tory-councillor-rips-out-autistic-33073167) >A Tory councillor has been charged with vandalism after he destroyed an autistic neighbour’s beloved hedge. >Dorothy Welsh, 58, claims that she pleaded with Gavin Scott, 69, to leave her garden alone, but he refused to stop. >Dorothy broke down in tears as she told The Record: “I’m very nervous because I have autism. >“When he started doing it, I asked him: ‘What are your intentions with my hedge? I do not want you to touch or remove my hedge. I am the owner and this is my property and you need my permission’. >Dorothy, who rarely leaves her home and gets pleasure from tending to her garden, said it's "all she has". >She continued: “I don't even go out so my garden is my whole life. It is all I’ve got. I have nothing else. >But a defiant Scott claims the hedge is council property and that he did nothing wrong. >When confronted by the Record, he said: "This has been going on for three or four months now. She is a very keen gardener but I’ve got a new car and plan to use my garden as a driveway. It will be nice when it’s finished. >"The lady next door was upset to say the least, but the hedge is certified as council property officially and I’ve been snipping away. >"She had the police here yesterday but the sergeant said it's 'case closed'. >“Above all I am allowed to do everything. Stereotypical arr scotland user meets stereotypical Tory politician

>the hedge is certified as council property officially and I’ve been snipping away. This implies he thinks that by virtue of being a councillor he can do as he wishes with council property.

YouTube comment sections are where Big Baz does his posting since he was banned from Facebook. [Have a look at these comments.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJbXW18B1ME) Sorry if repost.

It's animals. That's probably Linda the retired librarian writing that whilst knitting a balaclava. Those comments are why we'll get "no video" rules for immigrant Vs animal incidents in future. Can't wake up the normies.

He was probably having a sexual emergency.

This is from Wilders official account… https://x.com/geertwilderspvv/status/1804232559749951651?s=46 (Video in tweet is nsfw)

[this](https://twitter.com/Pharmageddon24/status/1804233100534145397) reply.

What is it about Pakistan specifically that makes it such a hotbed for stuff like this? There are many other Islamic countries but you don’t hear about the same level of brutality towards apparent non-believers.

inbreeding

Lack of civility directly correlates with lack of respect for human life. You see it all the time in third world countries.

They can't read Arabic so they're making it up even moreso as they go along. So they're using regardation to fill in the gaps.

They're basically Indians just with hardcore Islam added in. Thank about it.

I will never forgive our politicians for allowing the French and Dutch of all people to be more based than us, especially when the whole of Western Europe and in particular those two countries have been calling us a far-right shithole since 2016. What happened to good old fashioned self-fulfilling prophecy.

Nsfl warning please. Also, the amount of people filming that...

I was going say a wedding isn't that nsfl. Then I noticed there wasn't any AK47s being fired in the air, so no it's just regular old burning. Agreed. Nsfl.

Wouldn't be so quick to judge, what did he do? May be based.

As if lol. It was because they *thought* he'd "desecrated" their stupid book. He was already in police custody for it but they broke in and dragged him out, burned him, then burned down the police station.

It's mad to consider that this is racist and offensive thing to say about a nation. And yet... Is the video real or not? If it is - it's right there.

I just enjoy when people use the R word in a correct way. We need a leader who can call it how it is, a platform of stopping Rs and inbreds should be a vote winner.

I wish we had the Dutch overton window. Could you imagine the backlash if Farage said this?

Gore warning 

Inviting these people to Britain is *our greatest strength.*

Inb4 "We do not stand by the comments issued by Mr Wilders' account. The intern responsible for managing this account has been fired" Without fail, any time something spicy is said

is Ukraine the only thing that splits the sub? Quite funny.

Israel does too. Very weird, people know the BBC doesn't report truthfully when it comes it migrant crime or similar, but at least half this sub takes their foreign policy opinions from the BBC. Very weird.

This is the media's narrative though. Got people arguing about Putin and Ukraine and causus belli. Rather than a) what did Farage actually say? And b) do I care? Edit: shaggability of various political figures also splits the fanbase here. Angela Raynor, Tom Harwood, Nicola Sturgeon's last nights oats etc.

War games will always have a fair difference of opinion.

That, the first lockdown and vaccines. To a lesser extent climate change as well. Always been controversial here.

Trump surely?

Eh, maybe a few or a couple of years ago but not anymore really. Iirc except Troubadour who's half-American afaik, I think people are apathetic towards Trump or pro-Trump here these days.

>climate change [Just saying this hasn't flooded yet](http://cdn.architecturendesign.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/AD-NewYork.jpg)

Ice cap disappeared in 2008. bigot. Do you not trust the word of your now king?

[Nigel Farage’s latest comments on Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine just PROVE that the far-left and the far-right are two sides of the same coin. Unlike them, I am very smart and know that Putin’s illegal invasion has NOTHING to do with NATO expansion, despite him regularly speaking about it. He’s no better than his mate Drumpf.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMvIttSXwAAchfT?format=png&name=900x900)

Putin and the war in Ukraine is a weak area for Farage, complicated I feel by his interests with elements of the right in America. But he's being misrepresented by the BBC headline. Also right after Robinson *correctly* informed Nigel about his lies in recent debates ref students mothers, Robinson went on to incorrectly describe the recent changes in that policy area. Makes me want to cancel my licence fee.

Farage is right. On a hiding to nothing talking about it though.

It's one of those things that is obviously true but you're not meant to say or you're giving power to Voldemort.

>Putin’s illegal invasion has NOTHING to do with NATO expansion, despite him regularly speaking about it Just because a dictator repeatedly speaks about something as a casus belli doesn't make it true. Hitler constantly spoke about the Judaeo-Bolshevik conspiracy as the reason for his actions. Almost every offensive war in history has been defined as a necessary defensive war by the aggressors.

It is a demonstrable statement of fact that NATO and EU has expanded eastward, and Putin has repeatedly complained about this. >Almost every offensive war in history has been defined as a necessary defensive war by the aggressors. And provocation has been part of wars in the past, see for example Franco-Prussian war and the Ems Dispatch.

I think you’ve missed my point. I’m not saying that Putin’s claim that NATO expansion towards Russia being a threat is objectively true or false, I’m just saying that Putin’s perception of the threat exists. Therefore the invasion *is* a consequence of NATO’s expansion, saying this does not mean that you agree with the invasion or support Putin, or even that Ukraine’s desire to join NATO is irrational.

Except it's pretty obviously the cause to anyone with eyes and a functioning brain

>In 2014, the West's attempt to recruit Ukraine into its economic system led Putin to launch an opportunistic war that enabled him to support a war of succession in eastern Ukraine and to annex Crimea Spicy passage from the final few paragraphs of the 'The Romanovs', which I read last year. Seemed to be an acceptable conclusion to draw in 2015 or whenever the book was written.

I was bored of this argument 2 years ago and it's annoying it's come back in the run-up to our own election. I think Farage is wrong, possibly even compromised, on this issue. I don't care. I would vote for the rotten remains of the Liz Truss cabbage if I thought it would stop the insane immigration levels.

>I think Farage is wrong, possibly even compromised, on this issue. I don't care. I would vote for the rotten remains of the Liz Truss cabbage if I thought it would stop the insane immigration levels. Nothing wrong with that because you're being honest and transparent, unlike a lot of people on this sub.

Every other comment on the UKpolitics mega is seemingly about Farage. For a party who they feel will get 4-5 seats, they do seem rather pre-occupied.

Replace “pre-occupied” with “quaking in their boots, deservedly”, and you’d be correct.

One day I will write an essay on why universal, natural rights are a lie. It will be so controversial that all of you will disagree with me. Until then, [Sky News have extended their DEBOOONKING to sports](https://news.sky.com/story/euro-2024-submit-your-questions-for-a-live-qanda-with-our-sports-correspondent-on-englands-poor-performance-13156449) No naughty opinions on Southgate’s tenure as manager!

Don't worry I'm already in that camp. In a godless world then the next thing down that could enforce your rights is the state and the state is shit.

Universal natural rights ✋️ Rights as an Englishman 👈

Thank you, the issue isn't the rights it's the recognition of others as equal to us. The French for starters. (In truth, rights can only be shared by friends).

Last time some blokes sat down to think out their Rights as Englishmen the US was born. Be careful brother.

We should resurrect the idea of the ancient rights of the freeborn Englishman, which fuelled both the Civil War and the American War for Independence.

We must defend the MAGNA CARTA!

We need a black England manager, think of all the headlines after every shit performance.

Micah Richards it is Why can't they get some actual manager who doesn't want to be working full time at club level any more

Alex Scott would be my choice. Probably could do with a break from hosting every show on the BBC.

Will be Frank Lampard, can guarantee it. If you think Southgate is bad, both at football and politics, wait until you get Lampard

Lampard is probably the most right-wing person in English football.

Coincidentally also the most intelligent

>One day I will write an essay on why universal, natural rights are a lie. They're true in the sense that you have the right to do absolutely anything you want, until a more powerful entity takes that right away from you. Which is, you know, precisely the notion that English common law is based on.

I’ve officially reached my wits end. [This comment, about the ECHR, has a bunch of fucking wankers talking about how EVIL leaving the ECHR is](https://x.com/RedWallPleb/status/1803896781832425786) Many comments criticising the idea of a British Bill of Rights because they don’t trust the Tories to implement it (which is an entirely different question to whether the ECHR should be replaced with a British Bill of Rights, one could support a BBR and not trust the Tories to implement it) Many comments talking about how it NEEDS to be on an international scale because otherwise domestic governments could tinker with it (ignore literally all of the measures modern democracies have to deal with democratic backsliding, balance of powers etc, and also the fact that this could just as easily happen on an international level, especially with the European rightward lurch) One person got particularly angry at the suggestion that human rights were socially constructed and not things that everyone is just born with (because cavemen, of course, had the right to form a trade union) Read the comments for yourself, I don’t understand why people are so stupid. I feel ashamed to say it, but I’ve officially been wound up, why are people so idiotic? Why is this place, of all places, literally the only place online that has even a vestige of intelligence and common sense? Even the most moronic person here has ten times the intelligence of these middle class midwit mouthbreathers.

The vast, vast majority of countries don't have an external court telling them what rights they do or do not have. Australia doesn't do this. Japan doesn't, etc, etc. Can you imagine the Americans doing it? It's a very weird European mindset on display here.

I guarantee you the vast majority of non-European countries wouldn't waste time in even quietly sniggering at what the ECHR thinks about them or their policies. I'm sure the likes of Narendra Modi and Kim Jong Un are absolutely shitting themselves... not. The Americans would just pretend the ECHR doesn't exist and carry on as they were, because only American law applies worldwide remember.

>very weird European mindset on display here. They miss Rome and they've spent a thousand years trying to recreate it through a series of supranational pan European authorities ever since.  Catholic church, HRE, Napoleonic continental system, etc.  England has always been on the periphery rejecting these and getting animosity for it.  it's weird that they think that'll be best for their rights when unified civilisation wide empires like China or Rome aren't usually great for human rights, economic development or scientific advancement. 

In any sensible country that man would be mocked for the rest of his life for not knowing what the first letter of ECHR means and going on TV loudly pronouncing his ignorance. For reference someone even gives a list of others that aren't. https://x.com/retiaculum/status/1803902034661318672 The ECHR doesn't stop massively disgusting countries in Europe who are far worse than some on that list.

Human rights were invented so we could apply a legal gloss to the obviously correct decision to hang Nazis. They serve no function and are clearly retarded.

Britain pioneered many or most of these concepts that we exported to autocracies all over the world, and there's people in the comments saying we need other yuro countries to keep us in check lmao. As I said yesterday I don't think democracy is the best way to govern, and you don't need some manifesto detailing how to treat people if you have a proper, good grown-up culture like Britain used to have, so I could not give a single shit about this debate anyway, but I will not accept being told that we need the Europeans to tell us how to behave.

They don't even know that the HRA signed it into law.  They think it's another international treaty that the world police will enforce. They hate the idea of nations getting to decide their own shit - unless they aren't Western of course.

You don’t understand! Governments could just, like, edit that. Like the evil Tories want to do (but Labour don’t)

Weird situation I want to throw out here… What happens in a totally bizzarro world, won’t happen etc. if Labour gets 34%, Reform 35%? And Labour get just enough for a majority and Reform 50 seats? Would our parliament literally implode in that situation because there’s no way people would take Labour seriously surely?

Adds legitimacy to reform & makes people spend the next year arguing about PR. The real question is whether it converts to seats & wins in the election after.

1906 general election: Liberal party led by Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman got 397 seats with 48.9% of the vote. Tories led by Arthur Balfour, got 156 seats with 43.4% of the vote. Poor Balfour lost his seat. Voters shrugged and accepted the results because that was the system. The Liberals used their huge majority to be one of the most radical govts of all time. All you people moaning about the state pension and welfare state - the 1906 landslide is when it started. Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_welfare_reforms >During the 1906 general election campaign, neither of the two major parties made poverty an important election issue and no promises were made to introduce welfare reforms. The Liberals led first by Henry Campbell-Bannerman and later H. H. Asquith won a landslide victory and began introducing wide-ranging reforms as soon as they took office. Wasn't in the manifestos, wasn't discussed during the election. Also, that landslide govt took us into WW1

Oh you're back... Couple of questions. 1. Do you think your intern should have deleted the gambling tweet? Wouldn't it have been better to just own it? 2. Why in Christs name did you make the welcome beach tweet? Seriously none of you can defend the record really can you? >Wasn't in the manifestos Neither was most ever channel crossings in a day, month or year or having a prime minister with less shelf life than a lettuce. Edit: lol got a rose downvote 🤣

Completely wrong as ever. Wikipedia letting you down again. One, they called an election on that Budget because the Lords refused to pass the Bill. They won, that is why the Budget was passed (there was a problem allying with Irish Nationalists). Two, the reason that Budget happened was because of high levels of poverty and massive levels of labour unrest. The Liberals were not the left-wing government, the Tories brought in most of the welfare before that point and Liberals had typically been opposed to all forms of intervention, the Tories were the interventionist party. You may have heard of a certain junior minister who worked with Lloyd-George on that Budget: Churchill. There was also a worry that if there was war, the population would be too weak to fight (which was the case in the Boer War, and did happen in WW1) because they were malnourished whilst Germans, which had a strong state, were not...a populace so weakened by poverty in order to support the shooting diaries of aristocrats...this isn't the high ground (that this isn't apparent to you 100 years after the fact is quite funny). Three, that did not bring in the welfare state as it is today. The measures were largely contributory and not heavily redistributive. Four, the stuff they passed before 1910 was things aimed at children and education. Terrible, right? Measures that Salisbury brought in. Totally bizarre that you are a Tory party member. Raging against the welfare state for Brits when you supported a party that gave free houses to illegals. Fucking British children getting a primary education, right? Fucking elderly Brits not being allowed to starve, right? You are a zealot.

The 1910 election was about the budget and constitutional crisis. The **1906** was the landslide election which the Liberals won and embarked on radical change even though they'd only got 5% more votes than the Tories and hadn't put any of the changes in their manifesto.

It wasn't radical change. It was radical change for the Liberals who had generally opposed social welfare but it continued what the Tories started. And it happened because of massive labour unrest that had shut down the economy (and the growth of ILP). I have no idea what you are talking about with manifestos either...that isn't how politics worked then. Again, are you basing this off Wikipedia? Because the major parties did not have manifestos in the way they existed today, most voters would be unaware of any speech made and wouldn't have thought this binding in any way. Afaik, the only party that actually produced a manifesto in the modern sense was ILP...and that was because they were the only party with a strong central structure. Factions within parties were formed and dissolved overnight (I would have thought a Tory would have known this given that the modern Tory party was formed based on a split during this time...Conservative AND Unionist Party...two parties, not one)...no, there weren't manifestos in the modern sense.

Great shout mate. Fair play also for knowing it’s not something I’d be aware of.

Prior to Farage this was my hope anyway. A proper crisis of legitimacy.  Was a feeble hope though, as if the blob and establishment would let the crisis take hold. They'd paper over the cracks and spend the years talking about thick voters and how precious their democracy is. Remember a significant portion of our right on countrymen fantasise about governing the nation as a Bolshevik group of technocrats to act as the adults in the room. They actively relish the thought of the proles disengaging from politics and leave it to them.

Even if you got 100% of the vote in them 50 seats, that would be far from 35% nationally.

But hypothetically if they got 35% nationally and whatever seats reform achieve… What the hell happens to parliament? Labour could not be taken seriously

Hung parliament most likely.

FPTP would be exposed, but outside of a disgruntled populace I'm not sure anything practically could be done unless Labour suddenly decided to scrap it. [It happened in South Africa in the 1920s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_South_African_general_election), the party that won the election came second in the popular vote thanks to FPTP.

The dam has finally burst. Reform on 20/21%. I think it’ll be 25-30% come election day.

>25-30% come election day. Cope but I hope it's not.

Compromise. 22.5%.

I'd be very happy if reform gets half of what labour gets. It would completely vindicate what I've been saying for years about voting for a 3rd party & it leading to viable representation.

I do think Reform will smash Nigel's target of beating 2015 UKIP on votes. The target is only around 3.5m and that is very achievable given the energy and momentum the party seems to have amassed. I also do think Nigel himself will be elected in Clacton.

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BBC platforming David Icke level conspiracy theories yet Highlighter Girl says nothing?