Snapshot of _Nigel Farage turns on Marine Le Pen_ :
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Le Pen and RN have a very left wing socialist economic platform.
It involves things like student debt forgiveness, no income tax for the below 30s and a redistribution of foreign capital to French citizens through taxation of foreign investment. They are big on protectionism and government intervention on the economy.
This interventionist, France first economic platform is what irks Farage to his Francophobic, investment banker core. Yes they both dislike immigration especially non-EU immigration but they don't see eye to eye on free markets.
> Le Pen and RN have a very left wing socialist economic platform.
Do they really?
Or are they similar to Wilders in the Netherlands, who they seem closely aligned with. Wilders has all the talk of a left wing economic platform but votes economically hard right on every bill in parliament.
So many voters are duped and truly believe that Wilders is economically left.
This is why simply saying right or left wing makes zero sense and hasn’t for decades. Sure some policies are right wing and far right. But it isn’t close to being as black and white as the traditional line would make out
The Nazis massively expanded the welfare state, and did huge wealth redistribution (largely by plundering the wealth of Jews and other enemies of the regime). It's perfectly fine to call parties far right even if they have some big populist economic policies around redistribution.
I don’t mean to throw accusations of favouring Nazis, but rather point out that stating that due to the Nazis having ‘socialist’ in the name and are therefore related in some way to socialism is up there with the most brain dead takes. Whether you have left or right tendencies, the only reason people trot out this take is due to ignorance or bad faith
It isn't confusion, you're just incorrect, the NSDAP was never a socialist party. From Ian Kershaw's 'Hitler: A Biography':
"Hitler was wholly ignorant of any formal understanding of the principles of economics. For him, as he stated to the industrialists, economics was of secondary importance, entirely subordinated to politics. His crude social-Darwinism dictated his approach to the economy, as it did his entire political "world-view." Since struggle among nations would be decisive for future survival, Germany's economy had to be subordinated to the preparation, then carrying out, of this struggle. This meant that liberal ideas of economic competition had to be replaced by the subjection of the economy to the dictates of the national interest. Similarly, any "socialist" ideas in the Nazi programme had to follow the same dictates. Hitler was never a socialist. But although he upheld private property, individual entrepreneurship, and economic competition, and disapproved of trade unions and workers' interference in the freedom of owners and managers to run their concerns, the state, not the market, would determine the shape of economic development. Capitalism was, therefore, left in place. But in operation it was turned into an adjunct of the state."
Any serious historian that specialises in the Nazi period will come to a similar conclusion, the assertion that the NSDAP was in any actual way socialist is nonsense.
Thanks. It was a poorly put comment, I’ll delete it. I didn’t mean to suggest they were socialist, just that it was part of their brand (or propaganda as it used to be called, but I see that - especially but not only - in the context of the comment I replied to this was how it came across.
But isn't that by design with RN.
They were hard right and realised it had limited appeal, so their strategy was to integrate the more popular left wing stances?
Both the right and the left will do collectivist big government things, the right aren't exclusively neolibs eg the facists weren't, its just the right in recent memory have been small government.
Reform believe in cutting student fees for core subjects, reducing income tax. I don't think this is exactly the divide.
Its more because le pen is much much more extreme. Contrary to what most people think, thats not his boat.
The reform manifesto is a joke tbf, poisonous to the debate. Pretending it's economically possible is beyond dishonest, very much like the greens
French voters know that good public services cost money
Farage's parties have never had a policy of repatriating legal immigrants, as far as I am aware, nor restricting religious practices of Muslims (face coverings, halal meat).
Nothing they've admitted to publicly anyways.
The AfD in Germany had a very under wraps series of discussions about it that caused a scandal when it finally leaked.
Nothing saying history won't repeat with Farage's crowd in time.
Reform believe in cutting student fees for core subjects, reducing income tax. I don't think this is exactly the divide.
Its more because le pen is much much more extreme. Contrary to what most people think, thats not his boat.
Did his German wife divorce him? I haven't been watching the more recent episodes of _Keeping Up With The Farages_ unfortunately :/ (Now _that_ would be a cursed TV show)
What people don’t seem to understand is NF is a small government kind of right wing and le penn is traditional massive government right wing.
I don’t think the U.K. right of centre understand that sometimes. LP is government rule by huge government. Not more freedoms and less regulations with less government
That’s a very good point. It is a tension that I think will be very interesting to observe within reform, how they square the circle. The ‘new’ right or national conservative is much more protectionist, statist and opposed to the neoliberal economic consensus than previous right wing movements. As you say, Farage is very much a small state, low tax, low regulation kind of guy. That’s why I was surprised at the Reform manifesto, some of it doesn’t seem to chime with the kind of economic philosophy that Farage seems to favour.
Many people really don’t get some mainland European right wing parties and how massively different they are.
For France this is bigger news than anything going on in the U.K. how the EU will play this out with France will be very interesting.
Oh yes definitely. I can imagine there are a lot of teeth currently being ground in Brussels (and in Berlin it’s probably worse). Meloni in Italy is one thing, but the prospect of a hostile Far Right National Assembly in Paris, one of the two anchors of the whole European project is on another level. It doesn’t bode well for the stability of the EU and its institutions.
To say nothing of what it foretells in the French presidential elections in 2027- though obviously a lot can change in that time. I know Macron has said he will stay as President until 2027, but part of me can’t help but wonder if he might resign if the second round is as bad as the first.
I despise Farage, but he's not stupid. He knows that a lot of his supporters are socially conservative but want protectionism and well funded public services. This specially applies to Red Wall voters.
For brexit Farage initially talked a lot about the Norway option, then once leave won the referendum, progressed to the diamond hard brexit he always supported.
Reform UK is the same. They start by appearing statist and if they gain traction they will transit to small state, low tax, low regulation.
Bait and switch. Politics, the art of the possible.
>‘[They’ll be] even worse for the economy than the current lot’. He then praised Italy premier Giorgia Meloni as an example for Le Pen to learn from. ‘She’s brought her party [Brothers of Italy] into the 21st century… she’s been a very good thing and she’s made her party electable’.
It seems he's always had an issue with her.
>Marine Le Pen, leader of France's National Front (FN), has accused Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party of "aggression" against her party, for labelling it racist.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-eu-27391499
Its a long standing thing. From 7 years ago: "I think Marine wants to fuck me, you know” https://imgur.com/farage-i-think-marine-le-pen-wants-to-me-ipwoLv4
As UKIP leader he refused to be in an EU party with her, it shouldn't surprise you. His parties have been to the right of the Conservatives, but not as extreme as the parties that made up the old ID grouping.
He’s been anti them for a while because they are big government. They are against some of the same thing but via very different methods. LP isn’t light touch government and free markets.
its going to happen anyway. With Europe going right as a whole theres going to be an almost brexit like response of "oh...shit no thats not what I wanted" followed by a tory style wipeout. How long it takes though remains to be seen.
No there's history between the two.
>Marine Le Pen, leader of France's National Front (FN), has accused Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party of "aggression" against her party, for labelling it racist.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-eu-27391499
He always disliked the BNP and politically she is much closer to what the BNP were than what Reform is. They've tolerated each other at times but there's never been any fondness in either direction there that I have seen.
I would say a more accurate analogy is when people accuse the Greens of that.
Reform is no more right than the Greens are left. It's why I don't like to label either of them "far" as they certainly are no BNP or Workers Union.
Orwell wrote about all the big political issues of the early 20th century. Indeed he’s often the best way of trying to understand that period. His contempt for political extremes was arguably more around authoritarianism than far-left or far-right interpretations thereof, and the destruction of the self that so often results.
You're absolutely right but I fail to see how that has anything to do with Reform. The party isn't that extreme, being nor more rightwing than the Greens are (or ILP were) leftwing, and they are certainly not authoritarian with a support for proportional representation and a democratic upper chamber.
They are just a solidly right-wing populist party, and while I have no love for either of those positions, they don't really fit into the warnings Orwell gave like the RN or AfD does.
I doubt Orwell's opinion on Reform would be much different to that of the Tories. Disagreeable but ultimately necessary to accept as a proponent of democracy. You can't really be getting annoyed at the mere existence of other pro-democratic parties that simply disagree with you or you start sounding like the undemocratic one.
I assume that this is just sniping between two far-right groups, which is always going to happen with extremists. It typically becomes a purity contest - one faction is not doing the far-righting correctly according to the other. See infighting in the Conservative party for a worked example. Certainly Brexit has not been done right, etc. etc. etc. According to the linked piece, Farage's criticism was about RN's economic policy, which may be way too populist for Farage's liking.
The thing about the Far Right is that it’s always complaining about something different to its neighbours. For context, Tucker Carlson went to Russia to interview Putin and get the soundbite of him complaining about wokeness or something. Instead, he got two hours of complete nonsense in the form of Putin’s version of Russian history.
Snapshot of _Nigel Farage turns on Marine Le Pen_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/farage-turns-on-marine-le-pen/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/farage-turns-on-marine-le-pen/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Le Pen and RN have a very left wing socialist economic platform. It involves things like student debt forgiveness, no income tax for the below 30s and a redistribution of foreign capital to French citizens through taxation of foreign investment. They are big on protectionism and government intervention on the economy. This interventionist, France first economic platform is what irks Farage to his Francophobic, investment banker core. Yes they both dislike immigration especially non-EU immigration but they don't see eye to eye on free markets.
> Le Pen and RN have a very left wing socialist economic platform. Do they really? Or are they similar to Wilders in the Netherlands, who they seem closely aligned with. Wilders has all the talk of a left wing economic platform but votes economically hard right on every bill in parliament. So many voters are duped and truly believe that Wilders is economically left.
This is why simply saying right or left wing makes zero sense and hasn’t for decades. Sure some policies are right wing and far right. But it isn’t close to being as black and white as the traditional line would make out
The Nazis massively expanded the welfare state, and did huge wealth redistribution (largely by plundering the wealth of Jews and other enemies of the regime). It's perfectly fine to call parties far right even if they have some big populist economic policies around redistribution.
[удалено]
Would you eat urinal cakes because cake is in the name?
Er - did I somehow give the impression that I was in favour of Nazism? I if you point me to it, I’ll edit it.
I don’t mean to throw accusations of favouring Nazis, but rather point out that stating that due to the Nazis having ‘socialist’ in the name and are therefore related in some way to socialism is up there with the most brain dead takes. Whether you have left or right tendencies, the only reason people trot out this take is due to ignorance or bad faith
It isn't confusion, you're just incorrect, the NSDAP was never a socialist party. From Ian Kershaw's 'Hitler: A Biography': "Hitler was wholly ignorant of any formal understanding of the principles of economics. For him, as he stated to the industrialists, economics was of secondary importance, entirely subordinated to politics. His crude social-Darwinism dictated his approach to the economy, as it did his entire political "world-view." Since struggle among nations would be decisive for future survival, Germany's economy had to be subordinated to the preparation, then carrying out, of this struggle. This meant that liberal ideas of economic competition had to be replaced by the subjection of the economy to the dictates of the national interest. Similarly, any "socialist" ideas in the Nazi programme had to follow the same dictates. Hitler was never a socialist. But although he upheld private property, individual entrepreneurship, and economic competition, and disapproved of trade unions and workers' interference in the freedom of owners and managers to run their concerns, the state, not the market, would determine the shape of economic development. Capitalism was, therefore, left in place. But in operation it was turned into an adjunct of the state." Any serious historian that specialises in the Nazi period will come to a similar conclusion, the assertion that the NSDAP was in any actual way socialist is nonsense.
Thanks. It was a poorly put comment, I’ll delete it. I didn’t mean to suggest they were socialist, just that it was part of their brand (or propaganda as it used to be called, but I see that - especially but not only - in the context of the comment I replied to this was how it came across.
But isn't that by design with RN. They were hard right and realised it had limited appeal, so their strategy was to integrate the more popular left wing stances?
They’re just standard populists. Say anything to get people’s votes then when you gain power do what you actually planned to do all along.
Yeah, you can't trust fascists to deliver social policy.
I guess that's what I'm saying really.
Both the right and the left will do collectivist big government things, the right aren't exclusively neolibs eg the facists weren't, its just the right in recent memory have been small government.
No income tax for under 30s isn't socialist.
>Francophobic I wonder how much of this drip-drip about France relates to the fact he has a French girlfriend?
Reform believe in cutting student fees for core subjects, reducing income tax. I don't think this is exactly the divide. Its more because le pen is much much more extreme. Contrary to what most people think, thats not his boat.
The reform manifesto is a joke tbf, poisonous to the debate. Pretending it's economically possible is beyond dishonest, very much like the greens French voters know that good public services cost money
More extreme in what way?
Farage's parties have never had a policy of repatriating legal immigrants, as far as I am aware, nor restricting religious practices of Muslims (face coverings, halal meat).
Nothing they've admitted to publicly anyways. The AfD in Germany had a very under wraps series of discussions about it that caused a scandal when it finally leaked. Nothing saying history won't repeat with Farage's crowd in time.
There’s a reason that the European Parliament has like, three Far Right blocs.
I suppose that mostly makes sense, but isn't Farage a protectionist to?
Nah, he's very free market. He wanted unilateral tariff liberalisation when we left the EU, i.e. reduce all tariffs to 0 and undercut the EU.
LP wants massive government to control everything not more competition. It’s a very different ideology.
Reform believe in cutting student fees for core subjects, reducing income tax. I don't think this is exactly the divide. Its more because le pen is much much more extreme. Contrary to what most people think, thats not his boat.
This headline is very much open to interpretation...
Lol, just noticed. Funny thing, he apparently is/was dating a French right wing politician.
Did his German wife divorce him? I haven't been watching the more recent episodes of _Keeping Up With The Farages_ unfortunately :/ (Now _that_ would be a cursed TV show)
They separated.
What people don’t seem to understand is NF is a small government kind of right wing and le penn is traditional massive government right wing. I don’t think the U.K. right of centre understand that sometimes. LP is government rule by huge government. Not more freedoms and less regulations with less government
National Front or Nigel Farage?
Nigel.
Nigel Front?
Nigel front of Judah
Not the Judean Front of Nigel? It's better than his other fronts so I hear.
Splitters!
Don't be daft. It's the Nigelian People's Front
That’s a very good point. It is a tension that I think will be very interesting to observe within reform, how they square the circle. The ‘new’ right or national conservative is much more protectionist, statist and opposed to the neoliberal economic consensus than previous right wing movements. As you say, Farage is very much a small state, low tax, low regulation kind of guy. That’s why I was surprised at the Reform manifesto, some of it doesn’t seem to chime with the kind of economic philosophy that Farage seems to favour.
Apparently Tice wrote it. Farage knows it will never be implemented
Many people really don’t get some mainland European right wing parties and how massively different they are. For France this is bigger news than anything going on in the U.K. how the EU will play this out with France will be very interesting.
Oh yes definitely. I can imagine there are a lot of teeth currently being ground in Brussels (and in Berlin it’s probably worse). Meloni in Italy is one thing, but the prospect of a hostile Far Right National Assembly in Paris, one of the two anchors of the whole European project is on another level. It doesn’t bode well for the stability of the EU and its institutions. To say nothing of what it foretells in the French presidential elections in 2027- though obviously a lot can change in that time. I know Macron has said he will stay as President until 2027, but part of me can’t help but wonder if he might resign if the second round is as bad as the first.
I despise Farage, but he's not stupid. He knows that a lot of his supporters are socially conservative but want protectionism and well funded public services. This specially applies to Red Wall voters. For brexit Farage initially talked a lot about the Norway option, then once leave won the referendum, progressed to the diamond hard brexit he always supported. Reform UK is the same. They start by appearing statist and if they gain traction they will transit to small state, low tax, low regulation. Bait and switch. Politics, the art of the possible.
>‘[They’ll be] even worse for the economy than the current lot’. He then praised Italy premier Giorgia Meloni as an example for Le Pen to learn from. ‘She’s brought her party [Brothers of Italy] into the 21st century… she’s been a very good thing and she’s made her party electable’.
All is not well in the League of International Nationalists, alas
Well, didn't expect this out of Nigel. I assume Le Pen is to radical for even many Reformers? Or is this about something else?
It seems he's always had an issue with her. >Marine Le Pen, leader of France's National Front (FN), has accused Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party of "aggression" against her party, for labelling it racist. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-eu-27391499
Pot meets kettle…
Its a long standing thing. From 7 years ago: "I think Marine wants to fuck me, you know” https://imgur.com/farage-i-think-marine-le-pen-wants-to-me-ipwoLv4
As UKIP leader he refused to be in an EU party with her, it shouldn't surprise you. His parties have been to the right of the Conservatives, but not as extreme as the parties that made up the old ID grouping.
Likely he knows she's gonna show that going full right wing is a bad idea... which will destroy Reform.
He’s been anti them for a while because they are big government. They are against some of the same thing but via very different methods. LP isn’t light touch government and free markets.
its going to happen anyway. With Europe going right as a whole theres going to be an almost brexit like response of "oh...shit no thats not what I wanted" followed by a tory style wipeout. How long it takes though remains to be seen.
hopefully not as long as it took here tho.
I assume it's an attempt at damage control after the Putin stuff distancing himself from other populists
Read the article, this is the first line; >Nigel Farage has aimed his sights towards the old enemy
The old enemy as in France surely
No there's history between the two. >Marine Le Pen, leader of France's National Front (FN), has accused Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party of "aggression" against her party, for labelling it racist. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-eu-27391499
He always disliked the BNP and politically she is much closer to what the BNP were than what Reform is. They've tolerated each other at times but there's never been any fondness in either direction there that I have seen.
Farage has never been more than the BNP with a public school swagger. Orwell called it long before he was born
Erm.... BNP policies were pretty socialist in nature. Reform's definitely are not.
Nope, don't agree in the slightest. That's just a convenient smear, same as how people accuse Labour of being full blown commies.
I would say a more accurate analogy is when people accuse the Greens of that. Reform is no more right than the Greens are left. It's why I don't like to label either of them "far" as they certainly are no BNP or Workers Union.
Hardly the same thing at all. Farage is the embodiment of Orwell’s prediction.
Orwell was warning against the excesses of communism more than anything else, did you even read any of his stuff?
Orwell wrote about all the big political issues of the early 20th century. Indeed he’s often the best way of trying to understand that period. His contempt for political extremes was arguably more around authoritarianism than far-left or far-right interpretations thereof, and the destruction of the self that so often results.
You're absolutely right but I fail to see how that has anything to do with Reform. The party isn't that extreme, being nor more rightwing than the Greens are (or ILP were) leftwing, and they are certainly not authoritarian with a support for proportional representation and a democratic upper chamber. They are just a solidly right-wing populist party, and while I have no love for either of those positions, they don't really fit into the warnings Orwell gave like the RN or AfD does. I doubt Orwell's opinion on Reform would be much different to that of the Tories. Disagreeable but ultimately necessary to accept as a proponent of democracy. You can't really be getting annoyed at the mere existence of other pro-democratic parties that simply disagree with you or you start sounding like the undemocratic one.
I doubt he would have taken them at such face value.
I assume that this is just sniping between two far-right groups, which is always going to happen with extremists. It typically becomes a purity contest - one faction is not doing the far-righting correctly according to the other. See infighting in the Conservative party for a worked example. Certainly Brexit has not been done right, etc. etc. etc. According to the linked piece, Farage's criticism was about RN's economic policy, which may be way too populist for Farage's liking.
The thing about the Far Right is that it’s always complaining about something different to its neighbours. For context, Tucker Carlson went to Russia to interview Putin and get the soundbite of him complaining about wokeness or something. Instead, he got two hours of complete nonsense in the form of Putin’s version of Russian history.
He's disliked them and called them racist for years, It's hardly surprising when they're basically the French BNP.
Not a surprise, the far right often hate all foreigners especially neighbours.