Nigel Farage

[krtek a houby]

The idea that Farage could ever be PM, or even that he actually wants to be PM, is complete nonsense.

It's the sort of thing that could only be seriously suggested by someone posting from half way round the world, with no grasp of the most basic realities of British politics, so it's little surprise to see you suggesting it.

How strange, and not for the first time. What on earth has a poster's country of residence got to do with the opinion expressed?

Farage is a grifter and opportunist. There's quite a few of them cropping up, who were initially laughed at/dismissed. Only to end up confounding people's expectations.

And sure, liberals are part of the blame, looking back at Clinton disdain for half the US electorate and smug entitlement - that destroyed here career course.

Now, maybe, andy, you might believe British politics to be above the kind of nonsense that happens elsewhere with the grotesque and populist... but you just can't tell these strange days.

Hopefully, like Galloway after BB, his career will always go down the toilet.

 

[andysays]

How strange, and not for the first time. What on earth has a poster's country of residence got to do with the opinion expressed?

Farage is a grifter and opportunist. There's quite a few of them cropping up, who were initially laughed at/dismissed. Only to end up confounding people's expectations.

And sure, liberals are part of the blame, looking back at Clinton disdain for half the US electorate and smug entitlement - that destroyed here career course.

Now, maybe, andy, you might believe British politics to be above the kind of nonsense that happens elsewhere with the grotesque and populist... but you just can't tell these strange days.

Hopefully, like Galloway after BB, his career will always go down the toilet.

Your opinion is based on a complete absence of knowledge of British politics, which I put down in part to your no longer living here, though TBH you didn't have a much better grasp while you were still here, so maybe that was unfair.

Everyone here can see that Farage is a grifter and and opportunist; that has never been in doubt. But although he has managed to gain a voice and an influence way above what any objective assessment of his significance would justify, in parliamentary terms he has always been a complete failure.

How many times did he try and fail to get elected as an MP? He has clearly given up on that path now, partly because it wasn't actually necessary for him to win, it just gave him an additional platform to be the leader of a party which was never going to be significant in parliamentary terms.

As so often, there's no genuine political content or analysis in your posts, you're just indulging in performative fantasizing around your imagined version of a stock bogie-man figure, which is why you ended up attacking a poster above when you completely misunderstood their post about how Farage is perceived by some as an expression of that poster's own opinion.

 

[krtek a houby]

These commentators seem to think it's a possibility

Nigel Farage as the next Tory PM? The idea is poisonous.. and plausible

A broken Tory party would turn to a Farage comeback

www.theneweuropean.co.uk

Labour Shadow Cabinet Minister Thinks Nigel Farage Could End Up Tory Leader

Labour's Emily Thornberry believes former UKIP and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage could be a future Tory leader because the Conservative party is...

www.politicshome.com

Maybe it's far fetched. Maybe it's the sources linked that are scare stories.

Anyway, you can be as haughty as you like. It's just your opinion, which you are entitled to.

 

[andysays]

These commentators seem to think it's a possibility

Nigel Farage as the next Tory PM? The idea is poisonous.. and plausible

A broken Tory party would turn to a Farage comeback

www.theneweuropean.co.uk

Labour Shadow Cabinet Minister Thinks Nigel Farage Could End Up Tory Leader

Labour's Emily Thornberry believes former UKIP and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage could be a future Tory leader because the Conservative party is...

www.politicshome.com

Maybe it's far fetched. Maybe it's the sources linked that are scare stories.

Anyway, you can be as haughty as you like. It's just your opinion, which you are entitled to.

Yes, it's completely far-fetched and an obvious scare story.

And because you have a poor grasp on the reality of British politics, and a tendency to indulge in fantasising around how far right bogiemen are about to take over, you swallow it whole and then regurgitate it here.

 

[krtek a houby]

Yes, it's completely far-fetched and an obvious scare story.

And because you have a poor grasp on the reality of British politics, and a tendency to indulge in fantasising around how far right bogiemen are about to take over, you swallow it whole and then regurgitate it here.

Now you're just being patronising.

For a non-British person, my grasp of British politics is just fine, thanks. Have run into people like Farage plenty of times, and one thing they all share - a pathological desire to be noticed. That's a gateway drug to the power lust.

Your country could one day be heading towards far right governance, if it isn't Farage... it could be someone else.

"It couldn't happen here" type of thinking is ostrich thinking.

 

[ElizabethofYork]

Yes, it's completely far-fetched and an obvious scare story.

I hope you're right, but Farage does seem to be extremely popular in some quarters.

 

[andysays]

Now you're just being patronising.

For a non-British person, my grasp of British politics is just fine, thanks. Have run into people like Farage plenty of times, and one thing they all share - a pathological desire to be noticed. That's a gateway drug to the power lust.

Your country could one day be heading towards far right governance, if it isn't Farage... it could be someone else.

"It couldn't happen here" type of thinking is ostrich thinking.

I'm not saying "it couldn't happen here", and your suggestion that I am shows again your tendency to project on to other posters what you imagine they're saying, rather than reading what they're actually saying.

I'm addressing your specific claim that Farage is a possible future PM, on a thread specifically about him.

If you genuinely want to discuss whether Britain

...could one day be heading towards far right governance...

you might want to forget about a bogie-man like Farage, take account of what's actually happening in Britain, and look at what scope the actual political system in Britain gives for further moves towards the far-right.

This is probably not thread for it though, as it's clear to pretty much everyone except Matthew Anconda, Emily Thornberry and you that Farage's future PM prospects are zero.

 

[andysays]

I hope you're right, but Farage does seem to be extremely popular in some quarters.

I'm not disputing his popularity, I'm addressing the idea that he will become PM.

 

[krtek a houby]

I'm not saying "it couldn't happen here", and your suggestion that I am shows again your tendency to project on to other posters what you imagine they're saying, rather than reading what they're actually saying.

I'm addressing your specific claim that Farage is a possible future PM, on a thread specifically about him.

If you genuinely want to discuss whether Britain



you might want to forget about a bogie-man like Farage, take account of what's actually happening in Britain, and look at what scope the actual political system in Britain gives for further moves towards the far-right.

This is probably not thread for it though, as it's clear to pretty much everyone except Matthew Anconda, Emily Thornberry and you that Farage's future PM prospects are zero.

Boris Johnson and Donald Trump were seen as outlier clowns before their elevations to leadership positions.

Quite happy to be completely wrong about my fears.

 

[andysays]

Boris Johnson and Donald Trump were seen as outlier clowns before their elevations to leadership positions.

Quite happy to be completely wrong about my fears.

Actually, some of us saw Johnson as a genuine danger, and someone who had a chance of becoming PM, some time before he actually did. He was at least an MP and had held a few cabinet positions.

But if you want to keep on having Farage as a bogie-man possible PM, maybe you can think about the steps that he would need to go through in order for that to happen.

To get you started, have you actually considered how, when, where he will become a Conservative MP?

Have you even considered whether he has any appetite for standing rather than continuing in his current role as all-round opinionated gobshite?

 

[krtek a houby]

Actually, some of us saw Johnson as a genuine danger, and someone who had a chance of becoming PM, some time before he actually did. He was at least an MP and had held a few cabinet positions.

But if you want to keep on having Farage as a bogie-man possible PM, maybe you can think about the steps that he would need to go through in order for that to happen.

To get you started, have you actually considered how, when, where he will become a Conservative MP?

Have you even considered whether he has any appetite for standing rather than continuing in his current role as all-round opinionated gobshite?

People defect from party to party. Long gone PMs come back to be Foreign Secretary by being made lords. It's not like impediments cannot be overcome.

Steve Bannon reckons he's got the making of a future PM, as well. A disturbing endorsement, but they both have mutual adoration for Trump. And Bannon helped Trump get to the top gig.

 

[andysays]

People defect from party to party. Long gone PMs come back to be Foreign Secretary by being made lords. It's not like impediments cannot be overcome.

Steve Bannon reckons he's got the making of a future PM, as well. A disturbing endorsement, but they both have mutual adoration for Trump. And Bannon helped Trump get to the top gig.

Ooh, Steve Bannon reckons he's got the making of a future PM. Now I really am concerned.

You're a fantasist who wants to focus on a ridiculous bogie man, as if the current reality isn't bad enough. You clearly haven't thought about this, is just a knee-jerk response to some silly shit you've read.

Please don't bother responding to me anymore, I have not interest in continuing to waste my time with someone talking such bollocks.

 

[krtek a houby]

Ooh, Steve Bannon reckons he's got the making of a future PM. Now I really am concerned.

You're a fantasist who wants to focus on a ridiculous bogie man, as if the current reality isn't bad enough. You clearly haven't thought about this, is just a knee-jerk response to some silly shit you've read.

Please don't bother responding to me anymore, I have not interest in continuing to waste my time with someone talking such bollocks.

Ignore is a great function.

And don't forget that Clinton consultants helped your Mr Blair come to power.

Honestly, your naïvety is something else.

But sure, if you don't like non-British posters discussing Nigel Farage on a thread about Nigel Farage, that can be a thing.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Your country could one day be heading towards far right governance, if it isn't Farage... it could be someone else.

"It couldn't happen here" type of thinking is ostrich thinking.

That is some massive goalpost shifting. And misrepresenting the point tbh.

Farage won't ever be PM because he won't ever be leader of a party that's in contention. The Tories don't need him because they have plenty of their own headbangers and he's happy with his grifting outside the party. Now if anyone was arguing a Braverman/Badenoch type couldn't be PM you might have had a point.

 

[andysays]

That is some massive goalpost shifting. And misrepresenting the point tbh.

Farage won't ever be PM because he won't ever be leader of a party that's in contention. The Tories don't need him because they have plenty of their own headbangers and he's happy with his grifting outside the party. Now if anyone was arguing a Braverman/Badenoch type couldn't be PM you might have had a point.

Thank you for putting it more succinctly than I managed, but I suspect he still won't get it.

 

[krtek a houby]

That is some massive goalpost shifting. And misrepresenting the point tbh.

Farage won't ever be PM because he won't ever be leader of a party that's in contention. The Tories don't need him because they have plenty of their own headbangers and he's happy with his grifting outside the party. Now if anyone was arguing a Braverman/Badenoch type couldn't be PM you might have had a point.

Fair enough.

 

[krtek a houby]

Thank you for putting it more succinctly than I managed, but I suspect he still won't get it.

Why on earth does it matter to you?

Claiming you don't want to engage, and still with the little dig. More lies like the allegations of "attacking" a poster above.

Very strange.

 

[GroovySunday]

A future PM, perhaps.

Who knows. I wouldn't rule it out.

 

[krtek a houby]

Who knows. I wouldn't rule it out.

Nothing can be ruled out these days.

Black swans and outliers.

Still disagree with your "authentic" description, what with him being a grifter and all that.

 

[GroovySunday]

Nothing can be ruled out these days.

Black swans and outliers.

Still disagree with your "authentic" description, what with him being a grifter and all that.

Well we don't all have to agree with each other all the time do we. And in anycase I only said that he comes across to alot of people as authentic/honest. I seem to have to keep repeating myself to you, which I'm not going to keep doing.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

dunno really.

would put it as pretty damn unlikely - farrago would have to be accepted as a member of the vermin party, then as a candidate, then win a seat, then get elected leader, and at some point the party would have to win an election.

conservative party leader - seems unlikely but might just happen. PM - even less likely but not sure i'd want to say impossible.

yes - he never won a seat standing for ukip or whatever, but there's the party angle to that. some seats a sack of shite would get elected with the right colour rosette on (and there's a few MPs who illustrate this) and there's some voters who might not be entirely happy with 'their' party for whatever reason but wouldn't vote for a fringe party that might let 'the other lot' in.

whether he would attract more voters than he put off, it's hard to say.

there are people out there who said that any combination of brexit happening, jeremy corbyn becoming party leader, trump becoming president, boris johnson becoming PM, liz truss becoming PM, wouldn't happen...

 

[krtek a houby]

Well we don't all have to agree with each other all the time do we. And in anycase I only said that he comes across to alot of people as authentic. I seem to have to keep repeating myself to you, which I'm not going to keep doing.

Eh? We've barely interacted.

Anyway, he certainly does have that "regular guy" appeal like Johnson does/did. Met plenty of folk who liked the two of them because they were "funny" or worse, "spoke what everyone else is thinking"

 

[Wilf]

Farage's politics and morals are shit but when he says he is up for a fight its not hollow crap.
He has a record of standing up against groups of baying irrelevants and wannabe bullies

'You can say what you want about Pol Pot/Boris Johnson/Berlusconi/Harold Shipman/Nadine Dorries/Prince Andrew, not one of them ever called it Winterval'.

 

[Wilf]

I definitely consider people like Farage to be part of the problem.

His appearance of authenticity is part of the same problem. The fact that other politicians seem bland and managerial is something he thrives off. He has a different flavour but is part of the same shitty project. Unless you own lots of stuff he's your class enemy, full stop. If you go on about him drinking pints or being different to the sunak-starmer hybrid, it just means you've fallen for his drivel.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

That is some massive goalpost shifting. And misrepresenting the point tbh.

Farage won't ever be PM because he won't ever be leader of a party that's in contention. The Tories don't need him because they have plenty of their own headbangers and he's happy with his grifting outside the party. Now if anyone was arguing a Braverman/Badenoch type couldn't be PM you might have had a point.

Farage/Reform present a genuine threat to the Tories as currently constituted. Farage/Reform threaten to take enough votes from their clapped-out technocratic offer to hammer the final nail in the coffin in 'the red wall' seats where the Johnson vote is a) going back to Labour, b) recognising that they are without political representation and therefore won't vote or c) moving to Frage/Reform.

Some of the current noise about Farage is recognition of the dangers of C and no doubt efforts will be made by the Tories to neutralise the threat which could involve offering Farage a winnable seat in exchange for Reform stepping back. It won't be Sunak that would benefit but whoever replaces him in opposition and plans to offer a version of conservatism (culture war + neo conservative economics + populism + incorporation of some of the ideas of the archipelago of think tankers and commentators on the new right) that might convince Farage/Reform that some defence of the existing numbers is also in their interests.

However, the inevitable realignment of the Tories in opposition will involve a number of groups and individuals committed to 'new conservatism'. Farage and Reform will be very much part of that conversation. However, for a number of reasons, it will be Braverman/Badenoch/Jenrick or even Patel who will be the putative leader of the new formation. But, it is entirely possible that Farage will be a player and have a 'role' as the communicator/guarantor of the programme it develops.

As an aside, against a flaccid and useless Starmer led Labour Government sticking like glue to Sunak and Hunt's austerity spending limits it would be a walkover for a united, dynamic, visionary and agressive nascent new right.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

That's the thing... it used to be a joke, but the political landscape has changed so much (not just in your country) it feels that anything (previously dismissed) is possible.

Farage is never out of the limelight, he's a grifter extraordinaire and have no doubt if the gig was in reach, he'd be up for it.

And ... there would be no resistance, apart from a few worthy comrades blaming it all on the liberals.

You're not wrong. Boris Johnson became prime minister. It seems like almost anything is possible.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Farage/Reform present a genuine threat to the Tories as currently constituted. Farage/Reform threaten to take enough votes from their clapped-out technocratic offer to hammer the final nail in the coffin in 'the red wall' seats where the Johnson vote is a) going back to Labour, b) recognising that they are without political representation and therefore won't vote or c) moving to Frage/Reform.

Some of the current noise about Farage is recognition of the dangers of C and no doubt efforts will be made by the Tories to neutralise the threat which could involve offering Farage a winnable seat in exchange for Reform stepping back. It won't be Sunak that would benefit but whoever replaces him in opposition and plans to offer a version of conservatism (culture war + neo conservative economics + populism + incorporation of some of the ideas of the archipelago of think tankers and commentators on the new right) that might convince Farage/Reform that some defence of the existing numbers is also in their interests.

However, the inevitable realignment of the Tories in opposition will involve a number of groups and individuals committed to 'new conservatism'. Farage and Reform will be very much part of that conversation. However, for a number of reasons, it will be Braverman/Badenoch/Jenrick or even Patel who will be the putative leader of the new formation. But, it is entirely possible that Farage will be a player and have a 'role' as the communicator/guarantor of the programme it develops.

As an aside, against a flaccid and useless Starmer led Labour Government sticking like glue to Sunak and Hunt's austerity spending limits it would be a walkover for a united, dynamic, visionary and agressive nascent new right.

I wish I could disagree with you. But I think what you say isn't outwith the realms of possibility.

 

[GroovySunday]

If you go on about him drinking pints or being different to the sunak-starmer hybrid, it just means you've fallen for his drivel.

For the zillionth time, I just said he comes across as more honest compared to the likes of Sunak and Starmer to alot of people. Other people on here think so too. I'm not pro-Farage, or even right wing.

 

[Elpenor]

For the zillionth time, I just said he comes across as more honest compared to the likes of Sunak and Starmer to alot of people. Other people on here think so too. I'm not pro-Farage, or even right wing.

Can you name one?

 

[klang]

For the zillionth time, I just said he comes across as more honest compared to the likes of Sunak and Starmer to alot of people.

sorry, wasn't listening, can you say that again pls?