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Yeah, after the first time people saw Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage exposed as the charlatans they were, they disappeared into obscurity and were never heard from again.
No, wait, that doesn't sound right...
It's the paradox of intolerance.
If we tolerate their views with the attitude of "people will see that they're toxic", their supporter base only grows.
It doesn't drive many people away. It drives far more to vote for them because it is seen as acceptable. If it weren't acceptable then why is it allowed?
People will justify voting for them over single issues like immigration and gladly ignore all the other stuff, like selling off the NHS, or removing workers rights, or stripping benefits from people.
People are smart enough generally, but it's that they tend to get overwhelmed with information that both contradicts or omits key information. It used to be accepted that it was not the job of an ordinary person to dig into news stories and find alternate sources to find an accurate account of what is going on. Not to say that was ever true, but we have a lot of people who would prefer they didn't have to actually be engaged because (even if you are plenty equipped) it is exhausting.
One thing to add to this is how reactionaries will pivot and change their own positions on the fly. You see this a lot with vox-pops of Tory/Trump supporters. They will on video change their opinion right in front of your eyes.
I had this the other night (in the pub) with two REFUK supporters. I, after too many pints, had a very vibrant discussion with them over REFUK's structure, the "policies", and the people involved in that corporation.
And every point I made was rejected with some sort of pivot, or handwaving that everything is okay, and there's a reasoning for it.
I even explained the time I was ejected from a UKIP "Free Speech" conference, without a hint of fucking irony. And that was just handwaved away with "Well you were probably causing a problem".
I wasn't, and the event hadn't even started yet!
The only evidence ever cited is Nick Griffin going on QT in 2009. Apparently that destroyed him... Yet 2010 was the BNPs best electoral result ever with a nearly 3-fold increase in votes compared to 2005.
Nick was always a fucking moron, he had no savvy to him in the slightest. That's where Farage thrives, he knows how to hint at things, and not say the quiet part out loud.
The whole "We don't allow blacks in the BNP" was painfully obvious, no black people WANT to join the BNP, so why bother banning them? It just makes it obvious.
And as always BNP was just NF in polyester suits, whereas UKIP was BNP in Saville Row suits.
There was a big time around 2016 when antifascsts were constantly told to stop their direct action. And "just debate them" nonsense.
Seemingly these people got awfully quiet when the likes of Charlottesville happened.
And as you say, these people already have their massive platforms, the likes of Farage seemingly lived in the QT set.
Yeah that's not what happens, this idea that a poorly educated populace will somehow turn away from nazis if we just let them spew their crap openly is absolute bollocks.
What happens is they lie and tell people anything and everything they want to hear, give them someone to blame for all their problems, etc. And on average, people aren't fucking bright enough to see through it.
What happens when you let them speak openly is they spread like a cancer.
The way to deal with nazis is [redacted]
I'm on two minds about this.
One the one hand, all these Reform candidates being shown to have such ridiculous views does highlight the absurdity of the party.
On the other hand, we live in an era where conspiracy theories have become normalised in public discourse. So instead of a "lets all laugh at the absurdity" it's becoming more of a case of legitimising the conspiracies and treating them as equal to thought out views.
As someone from the US, I can almost see the future, but I hope I’m wrong. Labour gets in, things don’t get better, or not as quickly as the populace would like. Reform grows support. It’s basically the same playbook in many countries right now.
I’m quite happy with Reform splitting the Tory vote to be fair. They’re unlikely to actually get any MPs (with the possible exception of Farage) so it’s beneficial for the more sensible parties in their constituency.
In all fairness to the dolphin, rapey stuff aside, they're quite well known for bringing joy, being friendly and trying to save humans from perilous situations.
I was discussing the Reform manifesto on this sub the other day with someone who was genuinely insisting it was "surprisingly free" from IDPol type stuff. Like somehow they just missed the constantly waffling on about woke and all the not-so-subtle nods to the anti-vax movement.
Genetics does not have anything to do with lack of education and the echo chambers created by social media and new sources financed or controlled by the super rich.
"But nobody is talking about immigration!", said in a country that has talked about nothing but immigration for the majority of the last decade.
What they mean is "Most people don't share my very specific views on immigration because they understand a need to specify what the exact problem is and for any possible solutions to be similarly specific, achievable, and deliver the desired outcome"
Most people actually do want to see immigration reduced that’s been shown in countless polls.
I’d guess most people also want the boats stopped but I haven’t seen polls on that specific question.
And yet there was a hugely vocal group here pushing Rwanda as the only solution, despite it not being a solution at all.
If anything, the boat crisis is the one item that's clearly acknowledged as a problem by all parties.
The Rwanda bill was a sneaky side-step of international rules.
Under international rules it's illegal to force refugees back to a safe country they passed through. (For example, France)
The Rwanda Bill was nothing more than a opportunistic chance to test the murky waters of international immigration rules. If it worked then great! Problem solved for the xenophobic, if it didn't work then blame the EU for their inteference and excess oversight of British politics.
Indeed. And an actual quote from the Reform "contract":
>Pick up illegal migrants out of boats and take them back to France
How's that meant to work in the real world?
Hence their manifest pledge to leave the ECHR. Without the ECHR it would be possible to send illegal immigrants back to France but it would also be possible to dismantle the democratic process of the UK without interference.
Reform voters are either blissfully unaware of the potential ramifications of leaving the ECHR or they're fully consumed by hatred.
I think everyone wants the boats stopped. It’s just a question of how that is achieved.
Some people want to open legal avenues to immigration and asylum seekers such that the boats don’t need to exist.
And then some people want to machine gun them down to sink them.
But at least we can all agree we don’t want them to exist right…?
Unfortunately even if legal avenues were as accessible as possibly can be, there will still be smuggling gangs taking advantage of desperate innocents.
I don't think it's possible to fully tackle immigrants arriving by boats. Not unless every country in the world became equally prosperous.
There's a difference between people who want the boats stopped because they are concerned for the safety of the people in the boats, and those who want the boats stopped by just shooting them on sight.
Can we agree that "immigration" is an incredibly wide umbrella term, though? Like, there is a difference between people who gave all their life savings to be taken on a perilous boat journey and live unregistered with 20 other people at the mercy of their trafficker - and an educated person from a culture similar to Britain, who wants to come legally and work in a skilled field. And yet we have now increased the income threshold for work visas to £38,700, which is not feasible for many people, including a lot of people with a degree or even a PhD. The income requirement for bringing a spouse here has also nearly doubled, meaning hard-working British taxpayers are unable to marry across borders, even within Europe. These policies feel like a distraction from the real issues, and they are causing a lot of damage to innocent people's lives without improving society in any way.
And most Germans in 1943 wanted Jewish people deported or killed. What the public wants isn't always the best. That's why we need more to go on than "ohmygod sooo many immigrants", as the person you responded to said.
But its f all to do with immigration. People want to see immigration fall because they a)fear strangers b)they blame the increasing volume of immigrants for decreasing public services.
If you believe those two points, of course you'd be anti immigration. Issue is who is pushing those two false narratives.
Millions of people are projected to vote for a party who has one ‘policy’ and that’s “less immigration”
It must be so easy being a right wing grifter like Reform, all you have to do is just repeat the same dog whistles and a decent portion of the public will back you because they don’t like foreigners. It really is a sorry state of affairs.
And yes - you can want less immigration without hating foreigners. Many people want less immigration, but it doesn’t cause them to vote for a party who have made that their only policy (and I use that word lightly considering they haven’t ever explained what they actually plan to do).
Think you'd be surprised how many people want to see immigration slashed.
The problem is the economy demands it since our birthrate is so low.
Reform are prepared to give people what they want regardless if consequences.
Other parties won't do anything nor talk about the reasons why they deem it necessary to continue it.
No the economy demands it because GDP must go up, and GDP/person has been flat for 14 years.
Leaving more people being the only way for the line to go up, but ignores the face that more people brings more costs.
> The problem is the economy demands it since our birthrate is so low.
The economy can 'demand' all it likes, although of course it doesn't - people demand: what happens when all countries have a sufficient standard of living so that they run a population deficit or barely break even?
If it's so easy to gain votes, why aren't other parties doing that? There's zero economic or social value to Britain of the recent immigration ramp-up, they could win millions of votes just by going back to 2010s levels of immigration.
You can recognise immigration needs to be reduced as it’s not sustainable for the size of the country, and still be endeavour to treat humans with basic respect.
When polled the vast vast majority of people want net migration to be below 100,000 a year. That's just over 10% of the current rate of migration. So yeah, pretty much everyone wants migration MASSIVLY reduced.
To put it in perspective I saw a poll a while back and zero net migration was more popular than the current rates. I don't remember the exact figure without finding the polling but it was something like less than 3% of the population that thinks current rates are acceptable.
For this election polling shows the most important single issue is the cost of living crisis... followed very closely by migration.
And that's the problem.
My post was highlighting that there's a real need to define the problem in detail and the response it got was "But it's too high".
When you ask the question which specific elements are too high, you'll actually start reaching potential solutions.
Farage has been bleating on about immigration in general for a decade, and the Reform contract doesn't have much detail on policies that survive contact with the real world.
Farage has actually been quite specific about the major groups that he sees as being the biggest problem. Unskilled migration, asylum seekers on boats and dependants.
It's getting to the point where instead of merely stemming the flow six years ago we'll have to start throwing people out.
That's what happenes when you let the extremists do it, instead of the moderates. I don't really care now.
Before brexit you could barely talk about immigration without immediately being labelled a racist. A vast majority of people do want to see immigration across the board reduced and currently no party other than reform (and tories although who can trust them anymore) are saying they want to reduce it.
Kier starmer didn’t say what he would do with those people who did make it across the channel - likely because he will allow them to stay.
Labour are still terrified to talk about it, whether that's because they think they'll lose the left or because it's not in the interests of their donors.
Immigration has become a left Vs right issue, when it really shouldn't be, there are strong arguments for centre left economically parties wanting to be tough on net migration rather than encouraging the race to the bottom.
>Before brexit you could barely talk about immigration without immediately being labelled a racist.
Because lots of these people are , things like Brexit and Reform have empowered this and they are lead to believe that the only reason their life is bad is because non British people are stealing what they deserve . it is also very interesting that its a certain type of immigrant they are actively talking about
Indeed it is, but we're by no means immune to phoney outrage culture war nonsense and the extreme polarisation it engenders. We're basically where America was 10-15 years ago, and on track to be where they are now in another decade or so, particularly if GB News or any similar fox- news-inspired purveyor of half truths and deliberate misrepresentations becomes mainstream here.
I've noticed this very sub getting significantly worse. People are parroting talking points direct from Farage and getting upvoted for it.
Go into a post like this and a comment like yours will be highly upvoted, and then in the next post the most upvoted thing will be a racist dog whistle.
As always, people need an easy target to blame. Forget the rich who have become even richer since the financial crash and particularly covid. No it must be all the immigrants.
Unfortunately Farage and reform have only grown in popularity the more immigration has been touted as the main problem.
There are too many people who actively *want* to feel like the rebels in a dystopian film or plucky Londoners during the romantic Blitz. COVID was such a lightning-rod for people who'd been absolutely chomping at the bit to start acting like they lived in North Korea.
You see it bleeding into things like the 20mph speed changes in Wales. It's one thing to oppose that, even to think it's stupid. That's absolutely valid. But so many people are instantly at the absolute extreme, sincerely discussing it in the same terms as atrocities like the Holocaust
Social media.
The algorithms feeding us content only care about how valuable they can make advertising space, not about whether content is true, accurate, complete, honest or not. And the speed and ferocity that these algorithms work to manipulate us is unparalleled in human history.
Even if there were no bad actors deliberately attempting to influence election outcomes, the way these algorithms work means we'd still have these grossly distorted perceptions of the world.
I saw a comment before on this subreddit - something along the lines of "WW3 already happened, and it's already been won, this time by the dictatorships of the world who have funded and botted our national discourse into oblivion".
(I've adapted what was said a lot, but still)
Any public official (or candidate for the role) who compares **X** to the Holocaust should be forced to go visit Anne Frank's house, followed by a tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem then go and have a chat with one of the few remaining survivors.
Is it time for that Sartre quote again? Here it is:
> Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since **they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.** If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
They know there's no comparison. They're doing it to scare and hurt people.
Yeah I remember being taught about how the Nazis implemented Eat Out To Help Out, though it did get pretty dire they kept shifting from a Tier 2 Holocaust to a Tier 1 and back for a while.
Yet still their supporters will be on here to say it's not a far right party and they are saying what we all are thinking etc. Every day there's another shocking revelation (well, shocking, that they are saying it aloud now). it's the party for the nasty of society
Lack of any sort of moral compass or accountability, they’ll always find a reason to try and counter or ignore the good points you make, there is zero point in trying to reason with them as they don’t want to be reasoned with. If Labour win they will need to a have a good think in how to smartly wipe away this cancer we’re seeing grow.
If Labour do badly in the next 5 years, reform get a chance of being in government.
They will be like Truss, but Truss could be forced out. Farage, with a majority, cannot be forced out.
Imagine... the Tories are hammered into the ground, but Reform manage to garnish a few MPs.. they become the dominant opposition party for the next few years. I would rather the Tories hold more seats than this happens.
The country hasn’t just shifted left. It’s just that the tories are that bad. We live in a conservative country. People need one reason to vote Tory and one reason not to vote labour. When labour don’t miraculously solve Imigration in a couple of weeks, that will be all we hear about from them and the press. And we will end up lurching right like the rest of Europe.
That is mathematically impossible for the time being but the fact that they’re now seen as third and neck and neck for second place is a very concerning road we’re going down
Why though? The tories shifting to the right is exactly what enabled reform to get so much airspace in the first place and there is very little between the tories and reform..
And this is a major reason why anyone who supports democracy should never vote Reform.
A vote for Reform is a vote for big business and billionaires running the country like a company. And Farage can't be removed from the party because it's not set up with democratic policies; it's a business and he's the majority shareholder.
A version of this is possible but not directly.
If the Tories get absolutely annihilated - I'm talking the level that the most pessimistic (from their perspective) polls predict - then the rabble that are left are likely to be proportionally over-represented by the *creme-de-la-creme* of the Swivel-Eyed. Truss, Braverman, Badenoch and Mogg are sitting on such vast majorities that they are more likely than most to survive.
What odds that these chumps decide that the reason they lost the election was that they were not far enough to the right? They'll look at all the votes Reform took off them, look admiringly on at Farage (who Truss has already cosied up to and who could conceivably be an MP on July 5th) and plot a course rightwards.
Meanwhile Labour are left with a country appearing to be in terminal decline and won't be able to turn things around, because nobody could and the electorate, being about as *what have you done for me lately?* as the best Eddie Murphy sketch, boot them out in five years time in favour of the Blues being led by a charismatic ManFish called Nigel.
It's highly improbable it'll work out that way. But the possibility is significantly non-zero.
How heavily the Tories lose the next election and how they poll over next year or two will be very significant. There is likely to be a tipping point where the owners of right-wing newspapers - particularly the Mail and Express, will conclude that the Tories are dead ducks and switch their support to Reform. If that happens, then a lot of the wealthy people who have traditionally funded the Tories will likely follow suit, and without the newspapers behind them, and with a large hole in their funding, the Tories will be dead.
I agree it's improbable - I'm just saying that if it does happen, then that's how it's likely to play out.
I think that Farage is looking to be leader of the Conservative party. After the failure in 2024 he'll try and push that Reform and Conservatives should unite under him.
I do think this is the plan. The Tory membership are largely delusional old people to whom Farage appeals. Basically a repeat of the Liz Truss debacle.
People said the same of Trump
It might work. The lunatics are not as crazy as to be indistinct from the average Briton, high on social media.
Reform will keep getting more popular.
I think for whatever reason the Russian narrative of "Democracy doesn't work" "politicians are all the same" has permeated people's thinking and resonates strongly with them.
So why not vote for the loonies who promise to really "shake it up".
I'd love to know how Farrage can pretend to have the high ground over Sunak over the D-Day Memorial, when, considering the antisemitic shit his candidates keep coming out with, I'm not entirely sure he'd even go in the first place.
It's not just his candidates. His own school teachers reported he was openly antisemitic towards Jewish classmates on many occasions.
I get that some people might believe that he's changed since childhood and I completely accept that people can on occasion change, but usually when that happens you see some acknowledgement or reflection regarding the issue. Farage has never demonstrated this so I'm sure he's still just as antisemitic and racist, just clever enough not to be so open about it.
It is interesting that there is a long history of extreme right-wing groups having close connections with what we now call conspiracy theories and alternative or mystic interests. It used to be called Esoteric or Occult.
The Nazi party was formed by [The Thule Society](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Society) an esoteric grouping dedicated to re establish a mythical ancient Germanic culture.
The Reform Manifesto demands a new British Bill of Rights. The sole 'rights' issue they identify is that Lockdowns in pandemics should be unlawful.
Their lean to anti-vax, covid-denialism and generally conspiracy nonesense is not minor.
Saying that you think the Covid response was too drastic, over the top, infringed on civil liberties is one thing, trying to compare it to the holocaust is just another way to water down the use of the word and subtly attack another group of people while maintaining plausible deniability.
No, this is a form of holocaust denial. It basically says 'the holocaust was bad, but also no worse than event X', where X is being asked not to sneeze on people for a few months.
No they actually think it was holocaust level of terror. You have to remember, these are completely unhinged people.
They want doctors put to death over it.
And yet if you read through this thread, the antivaxxers insist that everyone and their brother were demanding the unvaxxed be executed.
That's how strong the persecution fetish is.
Reform are very much the party of the "hanging around the town centre shouting at strangers through a megaphone because your wife took the kids"demographic.
Certain people can give the selfish, the nasty, and the stupid members of society as much leeway and justification as they want.
I still promise to point out the fact they are still selfish, they are still nasty, and they are still stupid to their face. If I have to hold the fort alone, I will.
The day I don't call someone who believed the entire planets medical professionals were out to get them, an idiot... is the day I die.
I know the general idea of democracy is to ensure people's voices are heard, but if these are the kinds of people you choose to represent your opinios, maybe your opinions aren't worth hearing
Yeah remember when we rounded up 6 million unvaccinated people, tortured and murdered them?
No?
That didn’t happen!?
Guess they’re talking out their fucking asses then.
I could swear sometimes you'd hear people say "They're treating us like Jews in the Holocaust!" and from the intonation you'd think... even aside that you're whining about not being allowed down the pub, you don't really mean that the Jewish people shouldn't have been treated like that, do you?
You're complaining that you're being "treated like Jews".
This is going to kill off Reform. They really need to figure out how to offer sensible, rational members and incentive to join up instead of relying exclusively on delusional nutters with a victim complex.
Every party or limited company plays to it's core demographic which for Reform is old idiots who were protected by the state and the young who were asked to take much more of a hit between education and job disruption.
Oh, so **she's** one of the crazy commenters on [Sky News' Youtube Community tab](https://www.youtube.com/@SkyNews/community). Look at your own discretion - the screams of the damned are in those comments.
Unfortunately the most extreme party seem to be the only ones talking about putting more money in the hands of struggling families, taxing them less, lowering net immigration and investing in public services.
People are getting fed up voting for ‘change’ and getting more of the same.
Unfortunately this is how radicals will get in to power as the mainstream parties constantly pass the ball between themselves while chronically under deliver on their promises and ignoring what the public are asking for.
I’d like to see mainstream parties talk about reducing the tax burden on low earners, upping the threshold for the upper tax limit, lowering net immigration to give us some headroom to fix the NHS and housing crisis, encouraging people to get involved in NHS work through tax breaks and reducing government wastage.
As it stands these are all talking points of what is seen as the radical alternative in the form of the reform party.
The tories are too busy spewing out absolute shite about national service which absolutely nobody is asking for and your man Starmer will just say whatever he feels like on a morning.
A rudderless mess.
Lowering tax and investing in public services are not radical.
Reform isn't a radical party. It's an entrenchment party, shot through with a core of crazy, not radical. Radical would be actively seeking to change the structures of state. They don't want to do that. They want to entrench themselves and their fellows in the best seats and sprinkle shavings on the people who got them there, pretending it's enough. Thet are the embodiment of the false promise of change.
They are Tories given permission to articulate the full range of their own paranoid delusions.
They are looking to radically change the tax structure, the voting structure, the immigration structure, the tax structure for workers within the NHS and defence .
There’s quite a lot of radical when you compare their manifesto to that of labour and the conservatives.
What astounds me is that teachers (a lots of other professions) can currently be refused a job due to social media/history that can be considered offensive (nothing related to safeguarding but for the purpose of not bringing the profession into disrepute) yet the leaders of our entire country aren't subject to the same or even higher standards of professionalism.
If the government can demand it amongst professions they surely should be expected to be role models of that behaviour themselves.
There really needs to be some kind of vetting process - as part of hiring teachers new rules from the government instructs schools to do background searches in prospective candidates social media, why is this not the same for jobs with much more power and influence?
At the very least, prospective and current MPs should be required to annually complete some kind of test that is fair, non-academic and specifically relates somehow to acts that could bring the role into disrepute.
Should have just let them not get vaccinated. They recieve low priority if they need to be hospitalized and come next election they'll be too dead to vote.
Well I never thought I'd see the Daily Mail being quoted in this sub and it getting such thunderous support!
"John Edwards (Southampton Test) criticised a Canadian rail firm that 'tells vaccinated travellers to wear a yellow sticker', adding: 'Nazi Germany did something similar.'"
"Pete Durnell, standing in Smethwick, West Midlands, wrote on social media during lockdown in 2020: 'Idea that elderly and/or infirm should be forcibly isolated, virtually indefinitely, is one which fits better with 1940s Germany than a modern day democracy.'"
What's wrong with these comments?
Well:
"Vera Sharav was three and a half years old when her family was chased from their Romanian home in 1940.
She was herded to a concentration camp with her parents, and her father soon died of typhus. To save her daughter’s life, Vera’s mother claimed her daughter was an orphan and sent her away.
“I wound up, for about a year, going from one family to another,” Vera explained years later.
During a train ride, Vera eventually became attached to a family she felt comfortable with and trusted. Eventually, however, she was ordered to leave the family and join other orphan children on boats carrying them to their destination.
She refused to go.
“Everyone was on one of the three boats and I was sitting on my little valise just crying, screaming,” Sharav explained. “I just was not going to go, no matter what.”
Her defiance paid off. Vera was allowed to stay with the family. That night while she slept, a submarine destroyed the boats carrying the children. When Vera was told, she said nothing. But even then, at just six years old, she realized her disobedience had saved her life.
“That’s a lesson that right now is very needed,” Sharav said early in the COVID-19 pandemic. “Adults now are not rebelling against things that are wrong.”"
https://fee.org/articles/a-holocaust-survivor-warned-americans-about-blindly-supporting-the-war-on-covid-we-didn-t-listen/
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When you trawl the shallow end of the gene pool, this is the haul you catch.
We need to stop giving these people the limelight, it's just playing into reforms hands.
Disagree. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let these morons be seen for what they are and the majority will turn away.
Yeah, after the first time people saw Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage exposed as the charlatans they were, they disappeared into obscurity and were never heard from again. No, wait, that doesn't sound right...
It's the paradox of intolerance. If we tolerate their views with the attitude of "people will see that they're toxic", their supporter base only grows. It doesn't drive many people away. It drives far more to vote for them because it is seen as acceptable. If it weren't acceptable then why is it allowed? People will justify voting for them over single issues like immigration and gladly ignore all the other stuff, like selling off the NHS, or removing workers rights, or stripping benefits from people.
The biggest problem being that we assume people are smart enough to realise it's all distractions and bullshit.
People are smart enough generally, but it's that they tend to get overwhelmed with information that both contradicts or omits key information. It used to be accepted that it was not the job of an ordinary person to dig into news stories and find alternate sources to find an accurate account of what is going on. Not to say that was ever true, but we have a lot of people who would prefer they didn't have to actually be engaged because (even if you are plenty equipped) it is exhausting.
One thing to add to this is how reactionaries will pivot and change their own positions on the fly. You see this a lot with vox-pops of Tory/Trump supporters. They will on video change their opinion right in front of your eyes. I had this the other night (in the pub) with two REFUK supporters. I, after too many pints, had a very vibrant discussion with them over REFUK's structure, the "policies", and the people involved in that corporation. And every point I made was rejected with some sort of pivot, or handwaving that everything is okay, and there's a reasoning for it. I even explained the time I was ejected from a UKIP "Free Speech" conference, without a hint of fucking irony. And that was just handwaved away with "Well you were probably causing a problem". I wasn't, and the event hadn't even started yet!
A lot of people are pretty stupid when it comes down to it.
The BBC gave them more and more publicity, and so these charlatans were made popular rather than vanishing into obscurity.
[удалено]
The only evidence ever cited is Nick Griffin going on QT in 2009. Apparently that destroyed him... Yet 2010 was the BNPs best electoral result ever with a nearly 3-fold increase in votes compared to 2005.
I knew people that genuinely said that the attacks on him were disgraceful during that event.
Nick was always a fucking moron, he had no savvy to him in the slightest. That's where Farage thrives, he knows how to hint at things, and not say the quiet part out loud. The whole "We don't allow blacks in the BNP" was painfully obvious, no black people WANT to join the BNP, so why bother banning them? It just makes it obvious. And as always BNP was just NF in polyester suits, whereas UKIP was BNP in Saville Row suits.
There was a big time around 2016 when antifascsts were constantly told to stop their direct action. And "just debate them" nonsense. Seemingly these people got awfully quiet when the likes of Charlottesville happened. And as you say, these people already have their massive platforms, the likes of Farage seemingly lived in the QT set.
Yeah that's not what happens, this idea that a poorly educated populace will somehow turn away from nazis if we just let them spew their crap openly is absolute bollocks. What happens is they lie and tell people anything and everything they want to hear, give them someone to blame for all their problems, etc. And on average, people aren't fucking bright enough to see through it. What happens when you let them speak openly is they spread like a cancer. The way to deal with nazis is [redacted]
Farage gets plenty of sun but he’s still going
Shame
I'm on two minds about this. One the one hand, all these Reform candidates being shown to have such ridiculous views does highlight the absurdity of the party. On the other hand, we live in an era where conspiracy theories have become normalised in public discourse. So instead of a "lets all laugh at the absurdity" it's becoming more of a case of legitimising the conspiracies and treating them as equal to thought out views.
As someone from the US, I can almost see the future, but I hope I’m wrong. Labour gets in, things don’t get better, or not as quickly as the populace would like. Reform grows support. It’s basically the same playbook in many countries right now.
Bleach, vinegar, fire and a long list of other things cast doubt on that belief.
I’m quite happy with Reform splitting the Tory vote to be fair. They’re unlikely to actually get any MPs (with the possible exception of Farage) so it’s beneficial for the more sensible parties in their constituency.
Even Nigey will struggle, lest we forget that he lost to a dolphin And John Bercow
In all fairness to the dolphin, rapey stuff aside, they're quite well known for bringing joy, being friendly and trying to save humans from perilous situations.
> We need to stop giving these people the limelight JuSt IgNoRe ThEm. They already have platforms by virtue of being political candidates.
I was discussing the Reform manifesto on this sub the other day with someone who was genuinely insisting it was "surprisingly free" from IDPol type stuff. Like somehow they just missed the constantly waffling on about woke and all the not-so-subtle nods to the anti-vax movement.
The most IDPol people are the ones who claim to be against it...
Yeah but their identity politics is “common sense” and doesn’t count!
Genetics does not have anything to do with lack of education and the echo chambers created by social media and new sources financed or controlled by the super rich.
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The only thing that can stop a bad Nazi is a good Nazi.
"But nobody is talking about immigration!", said in a country that has talked about nothing but immigration for the majority of the last decade. What they mean is "Most people don't share my very specific views on immigration because they understand a need to specify what the exact problem is and for any possible solutions to be similarly specific, achievable, and deliver the desired outcome"
Most people actually do want to see immigration reduced that’s been shown in countless polls. I’d guess most people also want the boats stopped but I haven’t seen polls on that specific question.
And yet there was a hugely vocal group here pushing Rwanda as the only solution, despite it not being a solution at all. If anything, the boat crisis is the one item that's clearly acknowledged as a problem by all parties.
The Rwanda bill was a sneaky side-step of international rules. Under international rules it's illegal to force refugees back to a safe country they passed through. (For example, France) The Rwanda Bill was nothing more than a opportunistic chance to test the murky waters of international immigration rules. If it worked then great! Problem solved for the xenophobic, if it didn't work then blame the EU for their inteference and excess oversight of British politics.
Indeed. And an actual quote from the Reform "contract": >Pick up illegal migrants out of boats and take them back to France How's that meant to work in the real world?
Hence their manifest pledge to leave the ECHR. Without the ECHR it would be possible to send illegal immigrants back to France but it would also be possible to dismantle the democratic process of the UK without interference. Reform voters are either blissfully unaware of the potential ramifications of leaving the ECHR or they're fully consumed by hatred.
I think everyone wants the boats stopped. It’s just a question of how that is achieved. Some people want to open legal avenues to immigration and asylum seekers such that the boats don’t need to exist. And then some people want to machine gun them down to sink them. But at least we can all agree we don’t want them to exist right…?
Unfortunately even if legal avenues were as accessible as possibly can be, there will still be smuggling gangs taking advantage of desperate innocents. I don't think it's possible to fully tackle immigrants arriving by boats. Not unless every country in the world became equally prosperous.
There's a difference between people who want the boats stopped because they are concerned for the safety of the people in the boats, and those who want the boats stopped by just shooting them on sight.
Can we agree that "immigration" is an incredibly wide umbrella term, though? Like, there is a difference between people who gave all their life savings to be taken on a perilous boat journey and live unregistered with 20 other people at the mercy of their trafficker - and an educated person from a culture similar to Britain, who wants to come legally and work in a skilled field. And yet we have now increased the income threshold for work visas to £38,700, which is not feasible for many people, including a lot of people with a degree or even a PhD. The income requirement for bringing a spouse here has also nearly doubled, meaning hard-working British taxpayers are unable to marry across borders, even within Europe. These policies feel like a distraction from the real issues, and they are causing a lot of damage to innocent people's lives without improving society in any way.
And most Germans in 1943 wanted Jewish people deported or killed. What the public wants isn't always the best. That's why we need more to go on than "ohmygod sooo many immigrants", as the person you responded to said.
But its f all to do with immigration. People want to see immigration fall because they a)fear strangers b)they blame the increasing volume of immigrants for decreasing public services. If you believe those two points, of course you'd be anti immigration. Issue is who is pushing those two false narratives.
And "da boats" is a Tory policy
Millions of people are projected to vote for a party who has one ‘policy’ and that’s “less immigration” It must be so easy being a right wing grifter like Reform, all you have to do is just repeat the same dog whistles and a decent portion of the public will back you because they don’t like foreigners. It really is a sorry state of affairs. And yes - you can want less immigration without hating foreigners. Many people want less immigration, but it doesn’t cause them to vote for a party who have made that their only policy (and I use that word lightly considering they haven’t ever explained what they actually plan to do).
Think you'd be surprised how many people want to see immigration slashed. The problem is the economy demands it since our birthrate is so low. Reform are prepared to give people what they want regardless if consequences. Other parties won't do anything nor talk about the reasons why they deem it necessary to continue it.
No the economy demands it because GDP must go up, and GDP/person has been flat for 14 years. Leaving more people being the only way for the line to go up, but ignores the face that more people brings more costs.
> The problem is the economy demands it since our birthrate is so low. The economy can 'demand' all it likes, although of course it doesn't - people demand: what happens when all countries have a sufficient standard of living so that they run a population deficit or barely break even?
If it's so easy to gain votes, why aren't other parties doing that? There's zero economic or social value to Britain of the recent immigration ramp-up, they could win millions of votes just by going back to 2010s levels of immigration.
You can recognise immigration needs to be reduced as it’s not sustainable for the size of the country, and still be endeavour to treat humans with basic respect.
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It’s like people saying “nobody is talking about palestine!!” When it’s regularly top of the news headlines.
"Nobody is talking about this" says man, talking about it
It’s much better that representatives are ignoring constituents
When polled the vast vast majority of people want net migration to be below 100,000 a year. That's just over 10% of the current rate of migration. So yeah, pretty much everyone wants migration MASSIVLY reduced. To put it in perspective I saw a poll a while back and zero net migration was more popular than the current rates. I don't remember the exact figure without finding the polling but it was something like less than 3% of the population that thinks current rates are acceptable. For this election polling shows the most important single issue is the cost of living crisis... followed very closely by migration.
And that's the problem. My post was highlighting that there's a real need to define the problem in detail and the response it got was "But it's too high". When you ask the question which specific elements are too high, you'll actually start reaching potential solutions. Farage has been bleating on about immigration in general for a decade, and the Reform contract doesn't have much detail on policies that survive contact with the real world.
Farage has actually been quite specific about the major groups that he sees as being the biggest problem. Unskilled migration, asylum seekers on boats and dependants.
It's getting to the point where instead of merely stemming the flow six years ago we'll have to start throwing people out. That's what happenes when you let the extremists do it, instead of the moderates. I don't really care now.
Well apparently that isn't enough given that it has only gotten worse
Before brexit you could barely talk about immigration without immediately being labelled a racist. A vast majority of people do want to see immigration across the board reduced and currently no party other than reform (and tories although who can trust them anymore) are saying they want to reduce it. Kier starmer didn’t say what he would do with those people who did make it across the channel - likely because he will allow them to stay.
Labour are still terrified to talk about it, whether that's because they think they'll lose the left or because it's not in the interests of their donors. Immigration has become a left Vs right issue, when it really shouldn't be, there are strong arguments for centre left economically parties wanting to be tough on net migration rather than encouraging the race to the bottom.
>Before brexit you could barely talk about immigration without immediately being labelled a racist. Because lots of these people are , things like Brexit and Reform have empowered this and they are lead to believe that the only reason their life is bad is because non British people are stealing what they deserve . it is also very interesting that its a certain type of immigrant they are actively talking about
You get arrested and thrown in jail just for saying you're english!
*in a country that has talked about nothing but immigration for the majority of the last ~~decade~~ fifty years.
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Have you seen America recently? The public discourse bar here can (and likely will) sink much, much lower.
I mean America is a low bar to achieve
Indeed it is, but we're by no means immune to phoney outrage culture war nonsense and the extreme polarisation it engenders. We're basically where America was 10-15 years ago, and on track to be where they are now in another decade or so, particularly if GB News or any similar fox- news-inspired purveyor of half truths and deliberate misrepresentations becomes mainstream here.
Look at America. That should answer your question.
I've noticed this very sub getting significantly worse. People are parroting talking points direct from Farage and getting upvoted for it. Go into a post like this and a comment like yours will be highly upvoted, and then in the next post the most upvoted thing will be a racist dog whistle.
As always, people need an easy target to blame. Forget the rich who have become even richer since the financial crash and particularly covid. No it must be all the immigrants. Unfortunately Farage and reform have only grown in popularity the more immigration has been touted as the main problem.
It's so obviously transparent, the tactics they're using. Seeing it *actually working* in real time is beyond frustrating.
Not even dog whistles any more, just out and out racism
look at the accounts, all made within days of the election being announced, its astroturfing bullshit, many of whom are replying in this thread.
Russian bots.
Oh but we can sink much lower. We'll soon reach Nazi level of idiocy. And of course it will be far too late to do anything about it.
There are too many people who actively *want* to feel like the rebels in a dystopian film or plucky Londoners during the romantic Blitz. COVID was such a lightning-rod for people who'd been absolutely chomping at the bit to start acting like they lived in North Korea. You see it bleeding into things like the 20mph speed changes in Wales. It's one thing to oppose that, even to think it's stupid. That's absolutely valid. But so many people are instantly at the absolute extreme, sincerely discussing it in the same terms as atrocities like the Holocaust
You will find out in 2 weeks
Social media. The algorithms feeding us content only care about how valuable they can make advertising space, not about whether content is true, accurate, complete, honest or not. And the speed and ferocity that these algorithms work to manipulate us is unparalleled in human history. Even if there were no bad actors deliberately attempting to influence election outcomes, the way these algorithms work means we'd still have these grossly distorted perceptions of the world.
I saw a comment before on this subreddit - something along the lines of "WW3 already happened, and it's already been won, this time by the dictatorships of the world who have funded and botted our national discourse into oblivion". (I've adapted what was said a lot, but still)
I love the Conservative having a whooping but seing clinically insane people poll at 20+% is kind of frightening
Any public official (or candidate for the role) who compares **X** to the Holocaust should be forced to go visit Anne Frank's house, followed by a tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem then go and have a chat with one of the few remaining survivors.
Uttering such nonsense immediately gives a clear insight into their IQ
Or they know who their target audience is, which is even sadder
This is assuming they have the critical thinking skills allowing them to process this information.
Is it time for that Sartre quote again? Here it is: > Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since **they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.** If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. They know there's no comparison. They're doing it to scare and hurt people.
Yes, Jerusalem's a good place to go and learn about genocide.
Steady on now, we don’t need to give this filth ideas
Yeah I remember being taught about how the Nazis implemented Eat Out To Help Out, though it did get pretty dire they kept shifting from a Tier 2 Holocaust to a Tier 1 and back for a while.
I hope that the British dry wit like this will keep these clowns on the fringe and not allow them to enter the mainstream like they have in th US
Yet still their supporters will be on here to say it's not a far right party and they are saying what we all are thinking etc. Every day there's another shocking revelation (well, shocking, that they are saying it aloud now). it's the party for the nasty of society
*Yet still their supporters will be on here* They are paid to do so. Live from St Petes.
Tell me about it. "Farage/reform are racist," has gone from common knowledge to controversial in this sub.
It’s scary that people will actually vote for these clowns.
Lack of any sort of moral compass or accountability, they’ll always find a reason to try and counter or ignore the good points you make, there is zero point in trying to reason with them as they don’t want to be reasoned with. If Labour win they will need to a have a good think in how to smartly wipe away this cancer we’re seeing grow.
That's a bit insulting to clowns!
You're right. I apologise to real clowns :D
If Labour do badly in the next 5 years, reform get a chance of being in government. They will be like Truss, but Truss could be forced out. Farage, with a majority, cannot be forced out.
Imagine... the Tories are hammered into the ground, but Reform manage to garnish a few MPs.. they become the dominant opposition party for the next few years. I would rather the Tories hold more seats than this happens.
I'm hoping for libs in opposition
The country hasn’t just shifted left. It’s just that the tories are that bad. We live in a conservative country. People need one reason to vote Tory and one reason not to vote labour. When labour don’t miraculously solve Imigration in a couple of weeks, that will be all we hear about from them and the press. And we will end up lurching right like the rest of Europe.
Me too; but i'm wary we'll end up with a few right-wing party 'mouthpiece' MPs
That is mathematically impossible for the time being but the fact that they’re now seen as third and neck and neck for second place is a very concerning road we’re going down
Why though? The tories shifting to the right is exactly what enabled reform to get so much airspace in the first place and there is very little between the tories and reform..
And this is a major reason why anyone who supports democracy should never vote Reform. A vote for Reform is a vote for big business and billionaires running the country like a company. And Farage can't be removed from the party because it's not set up with democratic policies; it's a business and he's the majority shareholder.
A version of this is possible but not directly. If the Tories get absolutely annihilated - I'm talking the level that the most pessimistic (from their perspective) polls predict - then the rabble that are left are likely to be proportionally over-represented by the *creme-de-la-creme* of the Swivel-Eyed. Truss, Braverman, Badenoch and Mogg are sitting on such vast majorities that they are more likely than most to survive. What odds that these chumps decide that the reason they lost the election was that they were not far enough to the right? They'll look at all the votes Reform took off them, look admiringly on at Farage (who Truss has already cosied up to and who could conceivably be an MP on July 5th) and plot a course rightwards. Meanwhile Labour are left with a country appearing to be in terminal decline and won't be able to turn things around, because nobody could and the electorate, being about as *what have you done for me lately?* as the best Eddie Murphy sketch, boot them out in five years time in favour of the Blues being led by a charismatic ManFish called Nigel. It's highly improbable it'll work out that way. But the possibility is significantly non-zero.
How heavily the Tories lose the next election and how they poll over next year or two will be very significant. There is likely to be a tipping point where the owners of right-wing newspapers - particularly the Mail and Express, will conclude that the Tories are dead ducks and switch their support to Reform. If that happens, then a lot of the wealthy people who have traditionally funded the Tories will likely follow suit, and without the newspapers behind them, and with a large hole in their funding, the Tories will be dead. I agree it's improbable - I'm just saying that if it does happen, then that's how it's likely to play out.
I think that Farage is looking to be leader of the Conservative party. After the failure in 2024 he'll try and push that Reform and Conservatives should unite under him.
If he's elected in Clacton he could simply defect to the Tories and run for leader. Conservative party members would love him
I do think this is the plan. The Tory membership are largely delusional old people to whom Farage appeals. Basically a repeat of the Liz Truss debacle.
It’s never going to work if reform keep peddling absurdities and keep attracting lunatics to represent them in public life
People said the same of Trump It might work. The lunatics are not as crazy as to be indistinct from the average Briton, high on social media. Reform will keep getting more popular.
I think for whatever reason the Russian narrative of "Democracy doesn't work" "politicians are all the same" has permeated people's thinking and resonates strongly with them. So why not vote for the loonies who promise to really "shake it up".
The idea of Reform ever being in a position to form a government sounds like a masturbatory fantasy, tbh.
Its amazingly hilarious how Deform have candidates that both deny the Holocaust and also use it for disgusting comparisons.
Ooh, I like the "Deform UK" thing, goes well with my phone autocorrecting to Nigel Garage (I refuse to correct it).
I'd love to know how Farrage can pretend to have the high ground over Sunak over the D-Day Memorial, when, considering the antisemitic shit his candidates keep coming out with, I'm not entirely sure he'd even go in the first place.
It's not just his candidates. His own school teachers reported he was openly antisemitic towards Jewish classmates on many occasions. I get that some people might believe that he's changed since childhood and I completely accept that people can on occasion change, but usually when that happens you see some acknowledgement or reflection regarding the issue. Farage has never demonstrated this so I'm sure he's still just as antisemitic and racist, just clever enough not to be so open about it.
Seems Farage Ltd are a bit too on the nose even for the Daily Hate. They prefer the dogwhistle to the foghorn.
It is interesting that there is a long history of extreme right-wing groups having close connections with what we now call conspiracy theories and alternative or mystic interests. It used to be called Esoteric or Occult. The Nazi party was formed by [The Thule Society](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Society) an esoteric grouping dedicated to re establish a mythical ancient Germanic culture.
Occult simply means 'that which is hidden', being cognate with 'occluded'. So conspiratorial behaviour falls under its category.
The Reform Manifesto demands a new British Bill of Rights. The sole 'rights' issue they identify is that Lockdowns in pandemics should be unlawful. Their lean to anti-vax, covid-denialism and generally conspiracy nonesense is not minor.
Saying that you think the Covid response was too drastic, over the top, infringed on civil liberties is one thing, trying to compare it to the holocaust is just another way to water down the use of the word and subtly attack another group of people while maintaining plausible deniability.
In 1933-1945 Germany, jews were not allowed into night clubs. Such a tragic part of our history.
I mean At least they acknowledge there was a holocaust right? That makes them some of the better candidates.
No, this is a form of holocaust denial. It basically says 'the holocaust was bad, but also no worse than event X', where X is being asked not to sneeze on people for a few months.
No they actually think it was holocaust level of terror. You have to remember, these are completely unhinged people. They want doctors put to death over it.
And yet if you read through this thread, the antivaxxers insist that everyone and their brother were demanding the unvaxxed be executed. That's how strong the persecution fetish is.
Those people are morons, deserve zero sympathy from anyone
This is what happens when mental healthcare services are pared to the bone.
Reform are very much the party of the "hanging around the town centre shouting at strangers through a megaphone because your wife took the kids"demographic.
Certain people can give the selfish, the nasty, and the stupid members of society as much leeway and justification as they want. I still promise to point out the fact they are still selfish, they are still nasty, and they are still stupid to their face. If I have to hold the fort alone, I will. The day I don't call someone who believed the entire planets medical professionals were out to get them, an idiot... is the day I die.
Considering that this is The Daily Heil I imagine that this is their endorsement of Reform
Reform candidates demonstrate once again that they are uneducated morons with no sense of empathy or dignity. Who knew?
They are just desperate to be victims, aren't they?
This thread is full of their persecution fetish.
Dumbest thing I've seen today. Surprised it took this long.
Most of these lot are nutters. If you are not going to vote Tory please have a look at what your Reform candidate is really like first before voting.
I know the general idea of democracy is to ensure people's voices are heard, but if these are the kinds of people you choose to represent your opinios, maybe your opinions aren't worth hearing
Hysterical hyperbole at its finest. Those eyes are pretty much swivelling 360 degrees.
I still remember when they marched the unvaccinated into the camps… wtf are they talking about?
Least they believe the Holocaust happened, unlike some other Reform-adjacent folk
Yeah remember when we rounded up 6 million unvaccinated people, tortured and murdered them? No? That didn’t happen!? Guess they’re talking out their fucking asses then.
I could swear sometimes you'd hear people say "They're treating us like Jews in the Holocaust!" and from the intonation you'd think... even aside that you're whining about not being allowed down the pub, you don't really mean that the Jewish people shouldn't have been treated like that, do you? You're complaining that you're being "treated like Jews".
This is going to kill off Reform. They really need to figure out how to offer sensible, rational members and incentive to join up instead of relying exclusively on delusional nutters with a victim complex.
Are we getting more stupid as a country or is it just more visible now? Honestly I can't tell.
These idiots change their name every few years, get some headlines, then fade back into obscurity
I can’t believe how hard I just physically facepalmed
Every party or limited company plays to it's core demographic which for Reform is old idiots who were protected by the state and the young who were asked to take much more of a hit between education and job disruption.
For people who like to say 'you lost get over it' about Brexit this lot sure love re-litigating the lockdown debate.
“This is just how ordinary people speak” Farage probably
They so DESPERATELY want to be persecuted to justify themselves it's painful
I'm confused so they like Hitler but don't like the Holocaust?
Have any of those reactionaries used the term “Holohoax” yet?
Oh, so **she's** one of the crazy commenters on [Sky News' Youtube Community tab](https://www.youtube.com/@SkyNews/community). Look at your own discretion - the screams of the damned are in those comments.
Considering the sort of people in Reform UK next they'll be denying the holocaust.
Nasty remark. How many people sent to camps to be murdered?
Why is the daily mail seemingly against the reform party? Surely reform winning would be the best outcome for them?
Unfortunately the most extreme party seem to be the only ones talking about putting more money in the hands of struggling families, taxing them less, lowering net immigration and investing in public services. People are getting fed up voting for ‘change’ and getting more of the same. Unfortunately this is how radicals will get in to power as the mainstream parties constantly pass the ball between themselves while chronically under deliver on their promises and ignoring what the public are asking for.
Surely what's unfortunate is that we have a generally superficial politics, not that radicals will appear to provide the alternative if it is wanted.
I’d like to see mainstream parties talk about reducing the tax burden on low earners, upping the threshold for the upper tax limit, lowering net immigration to give us some headroom to fix the NHS and housing crisis, encouraging people to get involved in NHS work through tax breaks and reducing government wastage. As it stands these are all talking points of what is seen as the radical alternative in the form of the reform party. The tories are too busy spewing out absolute shite about national service which absolutely nobody is asking for and your man Starmer will just say whatever he feels like on a morning. A rudderless mess.
Lowering tax and investing in public services are not radical. Reform isn't a radical party. It's an entrenchment party, shot through with a core of crazy, not radical. Radical would be actively seeking to change the structures of state. They don't want to do that. They want to entrench themselves and their fellows in the best seats and sprinkle shavings on the people who got them there, pretending it's enough. Thet are the embodiment of the false promise of change. They are Tories given permission to articulate the full range of their own paranoid delusions.
They are looking to radically change the tax structure, the voting structure, the immigration structure, the tax structure for workers within the NHS and defence . There’s quite a lot of radical when you compare their manifesto to that of labour and the conservatives.
What astounds me is that teachers (a lots of other professions) can currently be refused a job due to social media/history that can be considered offensive (nothing related to safeguarding but for the purpose of not bringing the profession into disrepute) yet the leaders of our entire country aren't subject to the same or even higher standards of professionalism. If the government can demand it amongst professions they surely should be expected to be role models of that behaviour themselves.
There really needs to be some kind of vetting process - as part of hiring teachers new rules from the government instructs schools to do background searches in prospective candidates social media, why is this not the same for jobs with much more power and influence? At the very least, prospective and current MPs should be required to annually complete some kind of test that is fair, non-academic and specifically relates somehow to acts that could bring the role into disrepute.
Should have just let them not get vaccinated. They recieve low priority if they need to be hospitalized and come next election they'll be too dead to vote.
Well I never thought I'd see the Daily Mail being quoted in this sub and it getting such thunderous support! "John Edwards (Southampton Test) criticised a Canadian rail firm that 'tells vaccinated travellers to wear a yellow sticker', adding: 'Nazi Germany did something similar.'" "Pete Durnell, standing in Smethwick, West Midlands, wrote on social media during lockdown in 2020: 'Idea that elderly and/or infirm should be forcibly isolated, virtually indefinitely, is one which fits better with 1940s Germany than a modern day democracy.'" What's wrong with these comments?
Well: "Vera Sharav was three and a half years old when her family was chased from their Romanian home in 1940. She was herded to a concentration camp with her parents, and her father soon died of typhus. To save her daughter’s life, Vera’s mother claimed her daughter was an orphan and sent her away. “I wound up, for about a year, going from one family to another,” Vera explained years later. During a train ride, Vera eventually became attached to a family she felt comfortable with and trusted. Eventually, however, she was ordered to leave the family and join other orphan children on boats carrying them to their destination. She refused to go. “Everyone was on one of the three boats and I was sitting on my little valise just crying, screaming,” Sharav explained. “I just was not going to go, no matter what.” Her defiance paid off. Vera was allowed to stay with the family. That night while she slept, a submarine destroyed the boats carrying the children. When Vera was told, she said nothing. But even then, at just six years old, she realized her disobedience had saved her life. “That’s a lesson that right now is very needed,” Sharav said early in the COVID-19 pandemic. “Adults now are not rebelling against things that are wrong.”" https://fee.org/articles/a-holocaust-survivor-warned-americans-about-blindly-supporting-the-war-on-covid-we-didn-t-listen/