Putin dropped in on Farage tonight… https://x.com/bydonkeys/status/1807141707571454290?s=61&t=n0dBF7HSu_RxVm41qwi4kQ
There are quite a few rightish wing actors. Ray Winstone, Rowan Atkinson over hear I believe; Jon Voight is a particularly egregious American specimen.
Reform candidate Liam Booth Isherwood who was standing for the Farage/Tice Party has disowned the party because of the ‘widespread’ racist attitudes its supporters have displayed.
I just don't get that. Bin it off by all means and go independent but switch to a different party with a completely different manifesto?
The message is that what she and the other ex-Reform candidate witnessed is so bad voters should back another Party to stop it.
Quelle surprise. It’s another plot, like C4 was. Like everything in the entire World. It’s never them and that’s the real danger with Reform. And again, these candidates’ having their safety jeopardised by these claims.
Well it smells off. Either the prospective MPs were green as goose **** or Reform really needs to raise this to the electoral commission. Whinging about it isn't going to help anyone.
Really? Reform is a new party, I think it’s perfectly plausible that prospective candidates might not really understand what they were letting themselves in for.
Whingeing about it as if it was done to you rather than you did it is populist tactic number one. Look at Trump. This is pure smokescreen and like the C4 thing, Reform’s allegations will come to precisely nothing.
Reform is the Brexit party is it not? I would hope someone that applies to stand as an MP for a party has some idea about the actual party, policies and culture. Maybe I'm guilty of crediting people with more intelligence than they're due. If they really are that ******* stupid then this country is more ****ed than I thought.
If this is true then Refom have to be done for don't they? Surely the british bublic has a bit more sense than being hoodwinked by a our own version of shredded wheat head?
Raise what to the Electoral Commission? Surely there'll be better things for them to do with their time than look into a tinfoil hat theory peddled by the girlfriend of their chairman?
If Reform get six seats they get a nice bump in taxpayer funding from the public purse – something in the region of £1 million. As Reform is a private company with one majority shareholder, Nigel Farage, that's a lovely dividend payment for him.
Looks like they might actually get 5 as there's a recount in South Basildon & East Thurrock. Yet another reason not to visit Essex if possible.
I see Farage is pulling another page out of the Trump playbook: That's from the BBC live text thing from a press conference he's holding this afternoon. This is exactly what Trump's gone on about before with Biden (and other opponents)... only to then be shown using a teleprompter himself soon afterwards. Expect Farage to be just as hypocritical.
Interesting - and concerning - that the rise in support for the far right across Europe appears to have been driven not only by older voters but also by Gen Z. My daughter shared an interesting TikTok by The Financial Times about this. Men and women of the same generation have historically tended to share broadly the same ideology. But in Gen Z there is an increasing divide between male and female views - young women are becoming more liberal, but young men are becoming more right wing (hence Andrew Tate’s following). It’s an alarming shift.
The main problem is, ‘they’ know only one thing that they believe in, so there is no need to use any form of notes. ‘It’s immigration, innit?’
This doesn’t split for M/F but no real sign of a Reform surge in the young. Social media can present a hugely distorted view.
Yep, I heard this from a Brexit-supporting acquaintance who is in the older age group. He's fed up of the argument that Brexit was overwhelmingly a policy for the old, hencing the reason its popularity is falling. He said that Reform was the future because of the surge in popularity among the young. I asked him where he'd seen or heard that and he said it was just how the vote broke down. So I did a bit of searching and came up with a similar chart to the one you posted above. The tactic on the right seems to be to state something loudly and often enough that people don't question it.
That’s good to hear - and likewise with the chart @Moose put up. To be fair, though, the piece by the Financial Times wasn’t a right wing bit of propaganda and was backed up with stats. If I was more technically astute, I would share it on here.
There are the first rumblings on X about Reform potentially having stood non-existent candidates in some constituencies in order to meet the nomination deadline. Will be very interesting to see how that one unravels. Won’t be too hard for the police to start leaning on the people who signed the nomination forms to find out how that came about…
I sceptical of this. Obviously it would be delicious if true and that’s why I don’t tend to believe it. I doubt if even Reform’s leadership would conclude they could get away with it.
This article was published the day before the GE. https://bylinetimes.com/2024/07/03/reform-uks-invisible-candidates-who-are-they-hiding/ I heard the name "Mark Matlock" being mentioned on the radio yesterday - now I know who he is (or isn't )
I think they'll probably all turn out to be real people too. Seems Reform are saying they put forward some 'paper candidates' just to get on the ballot. But I also hope it triggers a wider debate about what's required to stand as a candidate. It's clearly ludicrous I need to show photo ID to vote yet anyone can be nominated to stand for Parliament by signing a written declaration and getting 8 people from that constituency who never have to have met them to sponsor their nomination and paying £500. No photo ID needed, no one has to see them in person and the form doesn't even ask for any other identifying info like an NI number or whatever.
TBF I think the laxity of the rules had a valid democratic rationale in ye olden days but they are obviously open to abuse now. Surely Labour will drop the photo ID thing?
