The Reform UK Party (latest nigel farage vehicle) is it to be laughed at or not

[Kaka Tim]

True, and a surprise to everyone. But I don't think their ten million voters are going to be peeled away easily.

But the far right have been in or around that sort of vote share for over 20 years - (think they made the last two for the presidency on two previous occasions). So this is the third time that the wider french public have united to keep them away from power - suggesting that their is a cap on their support that they stuggle to break.

 

[skyscraper101]

Back in his Ukip days wasn't there some polling that Farage was less popular than Ukip in general?

He's ultimately benefited from years of national decline in living standards, cost of living etc, and enough people actually buying that their problems were ultimately the fault of immigrants and Brexshit being able to solve everything. Remarkably people are still buying into it.

 

[Kaka Tim]

So as for ReFuk - firstly (as in france) they fell well short of what many feared. Some polls had them above 20% and in front of the vermin. However they only managed 14% on as low turnout election where the main priority of the voters was to kick the fuck out of the tories.
Falange has said he will be turning his guns (or should that be gums?) on the labour party - but the right is going to spend the next five years tearting lumps out of each other as the ReFuk and the Tories duke it out for the RofC vote. The last government spent its time banging about pro-nouns, woke, immigration and boats as part of it culture war with itself and ReFuk - but the new government (and the media and lib dems and the greens and the left) will be arguing and debating about the economy, housing, the environment, the NHS and the cost of living - subjects on which neither ReFuk or the vermin have anything credible to say other than to try and blame it all on immigration.
Yes - there is a possiblity they could build on their support - but I would not be surprised if they tread water - or go backwards. Certianly they will continue to be the home of the gammon vote but their appeal is very demographically limited. Also they're is no real coherant ideology other than pub bore whinging - Falange and Tice are small state thatcherites - but a lot of their members are defeintly not. PLus the numbers of egos and wingnuts in their ranks suggests a high likelyhood of spats and fallouts - to be eargerly explioted by the tory rump. The tories avoidance of complete meltdown means they are probably strong enough to reists calls for a merger and farage ending up leader.
Next election there will likely be some major disapointment with labour - but the challenge to Labour in seats where ReFuk are second may see tactical voting reducing their impact (agaian - see france). Tory vote may pick up - but not by much - if anything its the lib dems and greens who may do better at explioting that - they have better organsaions, broader appeal, far more councilors and a motivated, younger membership.
To grow - ReFuk need to rebrand themselves as something that is going to have an appeal beyond some bitter old fuck in great yarmouth shouting at black people on the telly and speed cameras.

 

[redsquirrel]

But the far right have been in or around that sort of vote share for over 20 years - (think they made the last two for the presidency on two previous occasions). So this is the third time that the wider french public have united to keep them away from power - suggesting that their is a cap on their support that they stuggle to break.

That's not true at all. They have broadened, deepened and extended their support over the last 20 years.
It is true that anti-hard right forces are larger and that the French system works against the RN, but the fact that they have done so wall and continued to grow over decades illustrates the threat they pose.


EDIT: French Presidential elections below, Assembly elections here - this time around the RN more than doubled the number of votes they took.

	1st Round		2nd Round
Year	Right bloc	FN/RN share of right vote	FN/RN
2007	46%	25%
2012	41%	39%
2017	46%	48%	33.9%
2022	37%	63%	41.5%

 

[Dogsauce]

This could be a high point because it was a low turnout, but Reform voters will have been more likely to turn out as they are motivated (cf Brexit) so the percentage achieved may be disproportionately higher than their wider national support.

There’s also the fact that this was not a close run election, so those who are perhaps on the right side had the luxury of choosing a far right option knowing it wouldn’t matter. If it was a closer-run thing some of those might have dropped back to supporting the Tories knowing it might matter. Same may be true of the green vote to some extent.

There will also be stuff going on internationally that will affect things at the next election, whether money/support from the likes of Putin or Orban will still be around in five years to bolster the authoritarian right in Europe, whether social media becomes well-regulated or remains a cesspit of misinformation and manipulation, whether billionaire libertarians are still throwing money at politics to escape accountability.

 

[pbsmooth]

have we had this?

lots of chatter that nobody can verify some of the Reform candidates even exist!

 

[urbanspaceman]

Look at the photo closely. I think it is AI-generated. People on X are finding many (up to 20%) of Reform candidates are fake, which seems quite illegal

 

[pbsmooth]

oh. just about real

 

[bluescreen]

How tragic that he had to fake up an entire image rather than just faking up a pale blue tie.

Do you reckon some of these candidates had to scrub their entire media presence for some obscure reason?

 

[hash tag]

Farage wanted Britain out of Europe while he was a European minister. I wonder how this might translate now he is an MP.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I have a google news tab for local news in this area, set-up for latest reports in time/date order, I often put in another search term, like 'Farage' just now.

7 out of the 10 links returned on the first page are GB News articles, obsessive twats.

 

[pbsmooth]

I have a google news tab for local news in this area, set-up for latest reports in time/date order, I often put in another search term, like 'Farage' just now.

7 out of the 10 links returned on the first page are GB News articles, obsessive twats.

I was wondering what sort of influence GB News could claim in all this. They have given these loons a platform - not just the web but social and YouTube - and they get a decent audience unfortunately. I see them crop up in Google and YouTube more and more no doubt as a result of some misplaced attempt at being unbiased.

 

[cupid_stunt]

The Independent has come up with an article on where Reform won their biggest vote share, and provided a clickable map to see their exact vote share in each area, together with a graph showing the drop in the Trory's vote share, against Reform's gains.

Reform gained over 19 per cent of the vote in 102 seats, spread over the country but largely concentrated in East Anglia and the Midlands. [plus Kent]

Crucially, Reform’s largest 100 swings in vote share are all in formerly Conservative seats.

Reform came second in at least 55 seats, largely those where Labour won; ousting the Conservatives from a possible second place.

* Clickable map via link below.

In fact, some of the highest swings in favour of Reform correlate to huge drops in the Conservative vote, as shown below.

In Clacton, where Mr Farage won a seat for the first time, Reform took 46.2 per cent of the vote; while the Conservatives lost 44 per cent. There were similar numbers in Reform’s four other gains.

Mapped: Reform won five seats, but made gains in hundreds

Reform support ate into the Conservative vote

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Bingoman]

5 MPs and Lee Anderson is made chief whip

 

[Lurdan]

I think we can be confident that he will be 'Mr' Whiplash not 'Ms'.

 

[moochedit]

5 MPs and Lee Anderson is made chief whip

I wonder who'll be in their shadow cabinet?

 

[tim]

Farage wanted Britain out of Europe while he was a European minister. I wonder how this might translate now he is an MP.

He was just an MEP, not a minister.

 

[bemused]

Farage moaning about some bloke who left parliament five years ago ... finger on the pulse there

 

[Ax^]

 

[SpookyFrank]

...ethnic majority in the uk have been made to feel they should pipe down and make space for literally any minority so that perhaps understandably many run sobbing into the arms of the far right.

Must've missed this bit.

The idea that making space for others necessarily diminishes yourself is a lie, one that gets a huge amount of traction from the right.

We're not going to fix any of this if we trot out as fact the idea that not being racist, not being homophobic, generally not being an arsehole are things that come at a grave cost. The only way that would be true is if your main goal in life was to be an arsehole. And if people with that mindset are thwarted by the rest of society trying to be decent, I'm not going to shed any tears for them.

 

[tim]

You're confusing Fascist cunts with upper class twits. 30p Lee is many things, but he's not posh.

 

[tim]

The one Reform vote that I don't get is in Liverpool, where they came second in some wards. So you hate the Tories...but you're voting for a party who are led by Nigel Farage and are the Tories on steroids?

Bridget Hitler was a Scouser and the Orange Lodge were very active when I lived there in the 1980s.

 

[Karl Masks]

Look at the photo closely. I think it is AI-generated. People on X are finding many (up to 20%) of Reform candidates are fake, which seems quite illegal

Elements of Elon in that face surely. Refuk's vote share increased in the Uncanny Valley

 

[mojo pixy]

Must've missed this bit.

The idea that making space for others necessarily diminishes yourself is a lie, one that gets a huge amount of traction from the right.

We're not going to fix any of this if we trot out as fact the idea that not being racist, not being homophobic, generally not being an arsehole are things that come at a grave cost. The only way that would be true is if your main goal in life was to be an arsehole. And if people with that mindset are thwarted by the rest of society trying to be decent, I'm not going to shed any tears for them.

This may all be true, but millions of people aren't seeing it, and their moon appears to be ascending. I think 'the Left' needs to offer them something other than scorn, if it wants to become relevant to them. Sadly "the rest of society" doesn't really appear to be particularly trying to be decent, and one of the reasons why is that progressive, left-wing ideas have been losing traction for decades. That traction needs to be regained, by making arguments people feel are relevant to their hopes and fears. Reform seem to be doing that, for better or worse, meanwhile the Left looks shattered and incoherent. It's easy enough to rail against that in an echo chamber like this where abuse is considered a bit of an in-joke, but outside in the country, I think we need to do better.

Or not, and come 2034 who knows where we'll be.

 

[Pickman's model]

This may all be true, but millions of people aren't seeing it, and their moon appears to be ascending. I think 'the Left' needs to offer them something other than scorn, if it wants to become relevant to them. Sadly "the rest of society" doesn't really appear to be particularly trying to be decent, and one of the reasons why is that progressive, left-wing ideas have been losing traction for decades. That traction needs to be regained, by making arguments people feel are relevant to their hopes and fears. Reform seem to be doing that, for better or worse, meanwhile the Left looks shattered and incoherent. It's easy enough to rail against that in an echo chamber like this where abuse is considered a bit of an in-joke, but outside in the country, I think we need to do better.

Or not, and come 2034 who knows where we'll be.

Extracting the final faragists from their sewer refuges

 

[Ranbay]

Wonder if all his new followers will have the momentum for 5 years of social media and paying £25 a year, or if they will tail off and then he will drag more of them in closer to the elections in 2029 (assuming the UK is still here then)

 

[mojo pixy]

Extracting the final faragists from their sewer refuges

I'd like to think so but I fear, like the underpants gnomes in south park, we're stuck on step 2...

1. Have good ideas for a happier, healthier society
2. ??
3. A happier, healthier society

 

[Ranbay]

I'd like to think so but I fear, like the underpants gnomes in south park, we're stuck on step 2...

1. Have good ideas for a happier, healthier society
2. ??
3. A happier, healthier society

 

[Bus Honeygun]

I think I have our solution:

1) Use all the water running off our mountains for hydro-electric power, thus making us totally energy independent.
2) Stay neutral and not get involved in any costly wars.
3) Set ourselves up as a kind of 'no questions asked' banking centre with massive gold reserves.

Hey presto, with all that money saved and acquired we can spend it all on public services and infrastructure.

We're Switzerland, right?

 

[Lotte]

Must've missed this bit.

The idea that making space for others necessarily diminishes yourself is a lie, one that gets a huge amount of traction from the right.

We're not going to fix any of this if we trot out as fact the idea that not being racist, not being homophobic, generally not being an arsehole are things that come at a grave cost. The only way that would be true is if your main goal in life was to be an arsehole. And if people with that mindset are thwarted by the rest of society trying to be decent, I'm not going to shed any tears for them.

Also, you can be part of a minority group AND be white and working-class. You can be white, working-class and disabled or LGBT, for instance. If you mean ethnic minorities, if you mean 'too many blacks and Asians' coming to the UK, just say that, you know?