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People Vs the establishment

But the establishment isn't showing up 😂

Farage looks a total idiot now. Some papers reporting he may ask to unresign but he can't. The bi-election must happen now

So no labour, Tory, lib Dems or Greens even Restore Britain refuse to join his circus.

So Clacton what's better? Return him essentially unopposed so the investigations can complete and possibly force another bi-election through his suspension where we'd have a proper fight with the results of the investigation known. Or return Count Binface to parliament (only confirmed opposition I've seen at the moment) as a huge slap in the face for treating the system and the electorate with such distain?

If I lived in Clacton I'd probably be voting Binface.
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ArishMell · 70-79, M
"The Establishment" real;ly only exists in imaginations. It is not an organisation.

However, Nigel Farages' 'Reform Party' is very much part of the political system so his use of the word is merely stupid.

He seems genuinely unable to see what he has actually done wrong.

The offence is not accepting huge amounts of money from dodgy characters, nor his incredible claim about a personal "gift". Even though they are obviously politically-motivated donations.

Instead it is his attempt to ignore the rules covering such donations. They have to be declared, have to be transparent, but he was trying to cover them up.

He cannot claim not to have been involved in poltics when he received the money. He runs Reform as if it is a company, and although not its political leader and MP when he took the money, he was its "president" (ironically as that is an American, not British, directorial title) and is a major shareholder in the Reform Party.


Reform is Nigel Farage's third political party he has founded in not many more decades.

He was the guest on BBC Radio Four's Political Thinking several weeks ago. This programme asks its guests, only one per instalment, about their social and political backgrounds to help us understand them better. Most do have sincerely-held, altruistic beliefs and aims stemming from their pre-political lives, careers, experiences and home communities.

Usually, Farage is aggressive when interviewed, especially if challenged when of course it is always the interviewer or news organisation who is in the wrong; but was quite at ease on Political Thinking. He does have a sense of humour and this showed occasionally.

Farage explained he had not gone to university as he could have done, and most of his friends had, but followed his father into money-trading "for the buzz". His motive for entering politics, and ultimately creating Reform? He was quite casual but blunt: the same reason - "the buzz".

Not the country, not Parliament, not even his constituents. Just his own "buzz".

...

Did you hear what he said to a Sky reporter who tried to question him publicly about this?

He told him quite aggressively to "tell your bosses" to stop "harrassing my family" (Sky denies it was doing that), or they would have to ".... face the consequences. Now go away!".

What "consequences" was he threatening? What could he do?
Waveney · M
@Platinum I didn't say I hated Farage. But many people in Clacton do, and will be voting against him :)
KatyO83 · 41-45, F
@Platinum

...tell me what parts of his manifesto dont you agree with


First that Reform don't actually publish a manifesto.

The policies they do publish

Firstly removing all net zero targets. Dangerous, foolish etc etc I am totally opposed to that.

Immigration what is essential immigration? Didn't we only have that since Brexit anyway as noone has freedom to movement here apart from Irish citizens,which I am. So I don't understand what they mean. On that topic I work in the public sector which pays lower than private sector and continues to struggle to recruit specialists from UK population. Therefore public sector and public services hugely rely on immigrant labour but reform UK promise a 20% employment tax on foreign employees. But say they'll reduce tax. How? They'll have an enormous additional tax bill via that one policy alone.

I'm against the outsourcing of the NHS via their proposal for vouchers. It's a way of privatisation by the back door. Farage has long wanted the NHS in private ownership.

I live in a reform run council. Frankly been a laughing stock. No idea, arguments defections etc plus we were promised our council tax would be reduced. It went up. Straight up lie.
Promised to huge reduce waste only once elected to find a council barely meeting it's statutory obligations. The doge fiasco too. In end hardly any money saved other than cancelling some long term projects that will probably now cost more when they are forced to do them.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@KatyO83 I have no time for Reform either.

This is the third political-party Nigel Farage has formed, all of them leaning heavily on wooing MPs betraying their original parties and their constituents who voted for them under those parties.

I have perhaps slightly more insight into Nigel Farage's politics than many of his opponents do because I was a UKIP member for some years. UKIP was often branded a "Far Right" party by the Press and other attackers; but in fact it was originally fairly Centrist, and attracted a goodly number of Labour supporters as well as business people you might expect "Rightist". I cannot recall if it attracted many defectors from Labour, Conservative or the Liberal-Democrats.

I left it eventually for three reasons:

1) It was becoming overtaken by events anyway, as did Farage's next manifestion as the Brexit Party.

2) It produced a draught manifesto lest it became the nation's governing party, and I regarded many of its proposals at least flawed and at worst, traitorous. This also revealed a drift further Right than I liked, although I am not strongly socialist in Britain's own Left-Right spectrum.

3) Nigel Farage was replaced as leader by Gerard Batten. Fine so far - he seemed wiser and less histrionic than Farage. Though, and this was the last flaw for me, Batten then appointed as a "special advisor" a convicted criminal whose own extreme views barred him from UKIP membership under the Party's own rules, applicable to Left and Right equally. That "special advisor" was the odious, deeply-racist Steven Yaxley-Lennon. (He who calls himself "Tommy Robinson".)


I do not know if Reform has published a formal Manifesto as such but its own website outlines its main "promises". These show among things it has not a clue what civil-servants in totality do!

(The States' background public services are an easy target for cost-cutters who know only cost not value. The Civil Service works in the background and rightly, jealously guards its political independence and probity, meaning it is difficult to defend itself from the Great Ignorant who all rely on it but love to attack it. It is attacked by Labour as much as Conservative, too.)

The web-site does not detail how a Reform government could or would carry out any of its superficially-attractive, vote-bait promises, though.

It calls for investment in British industry. Quite right, we want that; but Reform does not say if it wants Britons investing in Britain for Britain, but yet more foreign investors investing in Britain against Britain. (The "inwards investment" myth).

Reform UK's own web-site claims it will guard the NHS, but not how, and it is hard to see how when we can also read this:

Reform UK proposes £70 billion in annual tax cuts, funded by canceling net zero targets and reducing government spending. NHS staff would receive zero basic-rate tax for three years, and private health insurance would get 20% tax relief.


The problem I see with private health-care is not that it exists, for in theory it should ease the burden on the NHS. Unfortunately it also diverts talent from the NHS, and when used as a contractor by the NHS, adds a profit element to the cost. Worse still, if the owners are not even British, for then the profits are lost to the country.


Now, that quote is not Reform's words
. It appeared at the top of the link summaries screen, and is from Copilot, so we need account for its publisher being a giant commercial Internet-monopoliser based in a largely hard-Right wing country that regards comprehensive state health and welfare services as bordering on "Communism". So we might question its reliability and probity, but unfortunately, it does not reveal its the sources. Saying "Reform UK proposes" does not prove quoting Reform UK.

Even so, if Copilot is even only half accurate, it is hard to see Reform's promises being at all credible.

They are self-contradictory: we cannot have something for nothing!
SunshineGirl · 36-40, F
Judging from his television interview this morning, I'd say that Count Binface has rather more respect for British democracy and the people of Clacton than Farage does.

Rachel Reeves was quoted as saying "If Farage wants to spend his summer talking to a bin, I'm not going to stop him!" 🤣
Burnley123 · 41-45, M
Binface will never ever get a better chance to become an MP.

Not only would I vote for him against Farage, I'd put up a placard and canvass for him

Imagine if he actually won. It would be such a humiliation for Farage that it would end his political career.
Platinum · M
@Waveney you are diluded...
Waveney · M
@Platinum Binface's campaign is being funded by an energy billionaire and there is a huge Anti-Farage tactical voting movement growing. This is a Boaty McBoatface moment, and boy oh boy our country needs a laugh😂
FreddieUK · 70-79, M
@Platinum Is that diluted or deluded? 🤭
OldBrit · 61-69, M
Count Binface Clacton Manifesto
KatyO83 · 41-45, F
@ArishMell Rupert Lowe. I find it odd to put Corbyn in that company you couldn't find people more polls apart politically .
SunshineGirl · 36-40, F
@OldBrit "Invite European countries to join the UK" is genius!
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@KatyO83 Thank you.

Oh, I know they are ideological opposite but I still regard them as essentially narcissist power-players.
MrAverage1965 · 61-69, M
Binface looks like the best choice
FreddieUK · 70-79, M
I understand that the Monster Raving Loony Party is also intending to stand. A choice of three similar parties, methinks.
SunshineGirl · 36-40, F
@FreddieUK An example of the "uni-party" perhaps? 🤡 🤡 🤡
jeni9999 · 41-45, FNew
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KatyO83 · 41-45, F
@Northwest should I have said again?
kittee · 26-30, T
if he wins or loses, hes lost, he is thin skinned and knows hes done wrong, reform party didnt do their usual laugfh at everybody todayin pmq's
Platinum · M
Its pointless... he should wait for the commissioners verdict and then fight a bye election....if he loses then retire from politics
SunshineGirl · 36-40, F
@Platinum Yes, that would have been the rational, politically responsible course of action 🤣
Waveney · M
@Burnley123 But it doesn't make sense. If he is re-elected, the scrutiny will continue.
SunshineGirl · 36-40, F
@Waveney Brutal . . but essentially true 🗑

 
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