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

[Elpenor]

Farage's company are now claiming to be the second UK party in terms of membership.

Must have been a popular stocking filler

 

[brogdale]

Must have been a popular stocking filler

Sadly true, it would seem.

 

[Sasaferrato]

I think the government needs to go much more on the attack against Reform. The idea that they'll be able to 'out-argue' them is laughable, because they don't give a shit about legitimate arguments. The way their campaign will work is that Farage completely makes up a tweet saying 'Ahmed got off a boat from Islamistan 2 months ago and raped 5 little British girls and now he's living in a luxury mansion receiving £2000 a week benefits and the police refuse to investigate him in case it seems racist', gets retweeted by Musk going 'WTF Britain, you have to get this corrupt, woke government out and take your country back!' Liked 5 million times by people, none of whom will ever see or believe any information about 'There is no evidence for this story whatsoever'

To be fair, 'tell lots of lies and get elected' has worked for the current government. How does Farage differ from Starmer in terms of veracity?

 

[PTK]

To be fair, 'tell lots of lies and get elected' has worked for the current government. How does Farage differ from Starmer in terms of veracity?

Can you give three examples of the lies that the Labour Party told in order to get elected?

 

[teqniq]

Can you give three examples of the lies that the Labour Party told in order to get elected?

Only three?

 

[Cloo]

To be fair, 'tell lots of lies and get elected' has worked for the current government. How does Farage differ from Starmer in terms of veracity?

I'd say in terms that most of his lies don't generate pushback towards vulnerable groups (thought that said, Wes Streeting's have)

 

[Sasaferrato]

Can you give three examples of the lies that the Labour Party told in order to get elected?

We have visitors just arrived. I'll get back to you, prompt me if I don't.

 

[JimW]

We have visitors just arrived. I'll get back to you, prompt me if I don't.

Starmer's thought police move quick!

 

[Rob Ray]

I'm going to attempt to reply to all these vaguely civilly, while noting I at least waited a day and actually observed that goodwill thingy.

Oh, I do think self-appointed Forum police are simply brilliant!

Forum policing comes in many forms. One is telling people how to behave. Another is telling people off for voicing honestly-held criticisms. Urban is not a space that insists on faux-friendliness, and attempting to dragoon people into staying silent when they're annoyed is being a self-appointed Forum police.

Incredulous laughter is the only thing a fascist grifter like Nige deserves

It's what liberals have been doing for 30 years. His current position on the back of that is MP, former MEP, architect of Brexit and leader of a rapidly growing proto-fascist party that within the last year broke the Tories while setting up nicely for the biggest swing in local politics that the far-right has ever achieved. So perhaps laughing at him isn't the only thing we should be considering.

Exchange "American Electorate" for "Reform voters" and you're not too far away.

Britain is not the US, the British electorate have different cultures to the US and the US political system has very different monetary and political pressures to the British one. We can't afford to be dismissive and lazy in comparing one with the other, otherwise we simply won't understand what's happening, let alone have any chance of formulating ideas to counter. You may think we're shit at countering now, but that merely makes it more important not to intentionally hobble ourselves.

I know it's unpalatable for the right-on types

It's not about being right-on, it's about respecting where you are and what it's there for. You want to post zesty memes for liberals to clap at go to Imgur or Bluesky, or the memes section of Urban (you can even set up your own meme thread for that matter), but that's not the general function of the politics board.

Like I said, stale and stodgy and things need shaking up around here, because whilst you're all agreeing with each other and being inoffensive, they are rising in popularity.

Again, I don't know who you think you're talking to but if you've spent five months here and think everyone prior to your arrival agrees with each other and never gets into arguments you're being wilfully blind.

 

[ska invita]

 

[JimW]

Now Farage is entitled to challenge Badenoch to single combat for possession of the withered claw of Thatcher.

 

[PTK]

View attachment 456759

This is a story of the decline in party membership. I remember when the Conservartive Party had more than one million members, in the 1970s.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

That's really more of a sign of the degree to which political parties just aren't popular movements anymore isn't it. That's significant in lots of ways but I don't see the supposed crossover here is particularly, good publicity for them but beyond that?

 

[Rob Ray]

Also a sign that they don't need to be to the same extent. It used to be that mass membership directly reflected a need for feet on the ground in a given community, that's really no longer the case. Promo has been centralised, automated, virtualised and professionalised to the point that Starmer, for example, was quite happy to fuck off most of his "ground game" advantage ahead of the election and Corbyn's enormous membership base was totally unable to provide the necessary in new Labour MPs. Reform need it for legitimacy, but Labour and the Tories already have that through their seats and Establishment presence.

 

[PTK]

Also a sign that they don't need to be to the same extent. It used to be that mass membership directly reflected a need for feet on the ground in a given community, that's really no longer the case. Promo has been centralised, automated, virtualised and professionalised to the point that Starmer, for example, was quite happy to fuck off most of his "ground game" advantage ahead of the election and Corbyn's enormous membership base was totally unable to provide the necessary in new Labour MPs.

I don't think that the Conservative Party encouraged people to leave. It think that this is something to do with a decline in political engagement in society.

 

[Rob Ray]

Oh I'm not saying the Tories want it to happen, but they don't need it not to. Or at least that has been the case in the short term - long term there's a good case to be made that the decline has been key to the extent of their ideological collapse.

 

[Serene]

This is the lovely Nigel Farage. The photographer gave him a message before he went to support the Boxing Day hunt. It wasnt me, I saw it online.

 

[PTK]

This is the lovely Nigel Farage. The photographer gave him a message before he went to support the Boxing Day hunt.

View attachment 456764

I notice that the traditional British two-fingered salute has been replaced by the US one-fingered salute. What is Nige going to do to Revive Our V Signs?

 

[ska invita]

That's really more of a sign of the degree to which political parties just aren't popular movements anymore isn't it. That's significant in lots of ways but I don't see the supposed crossover here is particularly, good publicity for them but beyond that?

Yes but I see it the other way around, glass half full, that Reform are more in the spirit of a membership movement party.
As was Corbyn's Labour which saw membership balloon to what was it, half a million IIRC

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Yes but I see it the other way around, glass half full, that Reform are more in the spirit of a membership movement party.
As was Corbyn's Labour which saw membership balloon to what was it, half a million IIRC

The membership has absolutely no input into anything though does it. You'd get more by joining the National Trust or something. And that's surely a requirement for a genuine membership based party.

 

[ska invita]

This is the lovely Nigel Farage. The photographer gave him a message before he went to support the Boxing Day hunt. It wasnt me, I saw it online.

View attachment 456764

Thats in Downe, funnily enough ive seen him there on boxing day before must be a regular thing for him
though he was just having a pint outside a pub then
still dressed like a squire though

Also a sign that they don't need to be to the same extent. It used to be that mass membership directly reflected a need for feet on the ground in a given community, that's really no longer the case. Promo has been centralised, automated, virtualised and professionalised to the point that Starmer, for example, was quite happy to fuck off most of his "ground game" advantage ahead of the election and Corbyn's enormous membership base was totally unable to provide the necessary in new Labour MPs. Reform need it for legitimacy, but Labour and the Tories already have that through their seats and Establishment presence.

Tories and Labour actively don't want members I expect - always voting the wrong way for the correct leader

 

[ska invita]

The membership has absolutely no input into anything though does it. You'd get more by joining the National Trust or something. And that's surely a requirement for a genuine membership based party.

They voted in Starmer to lead Labour and Liz Truss etc

 

[PTK]

Yes but I see it the other way around, glass half full, that Reform are more in the spirit of a membership movement party.
As was Corbyn's Labour which saw membership balloon to what was it, half a million IIRC

The Labour Party under Corbyn did indeed become larger than it had been, although not as large as it had been in the 1960s and 1970s. However, I think that the rate of active participation in Labour Party meetings under Corbyn was lower than in the 1980s. This was a product of centralisation. Once upon a time, you had to have acual contact with local Labour Party members to join. Your subs were collected locally. Now, you can join online, and never ever actually come into contact with other members. I imagine that Reform has a similar model.

 

[ska invita]

The Labour Party under Corbyn did indeed become larger than it had been, although not as large as it had been in the 1960s and 1970s. However, I think that the rate of active participation in Labour Party meetings under Corbyn was lower than in the 1980s. This was a product of centralisation. Once upon a time, you had to have acual contact with local Labour Party members to join. Your subs were collected locally. Now, you can join online, and never ever actually come into contact with other members. I imagine that Reform has a similar model.

I don't doubt it - we are where we are - fact is people are signing up to Reform, a party named in 2021, and it now has more members than the Tories and double the Greens. It is significant.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

They voted in Starmer to lead Labour and Liz Truss etc

I meant wrt Reform specifically, sorry if that wasn't clear.

 

[Rob Ray]

I don't doubt it - we are where we are - fact is people are signing up to Reform, a party named in 2021, and it now has more members than the Tories and double the Greens. It is significant.

Mostly in terms of money and symbolism tbf, the extent of its support base we kind of already knew and its voters-to-membership ratio has only recently come into line with the Greens, who are most parallel in terms of being a minority party looking for legitimacy/income via member growth.

Reform: 4,117,610 votes / 132,000 members (31.2 votes per member)
Greens: 1,944,501 votes / 53,000 members (36.7 votes per member)

 

[Dystopiary]

Which is exactly the response I expected.

Like I said, stale and stodgy and things need shaking up around here, because whilst you're all agreeing with each other and being inoffensive, they are rising in popularity.

At least Cloo seems to get it - the Left needs to push back and take control of the "immigrant scrounger" narrative. Take Back Control, even!

Perhaps we need another complex 3-word slogan to make the point: "Immigration Is Good?"

I'm genuinely not sure what you mean by "the left". Cloo specifically said the government; let's be clear - the current government of the Labour Party, despite its name, is right wing.

 

[ska invita]

Mostly in terms of money and symbolism tbf, the extent of its support base we kind of already knew.

It is a brand new party though, there are still lots of people you could stop in the street who wont have heard of Reform, I'd bet. The question is how much can it grow into a "movement". God knows there are rich bastards lining up to fund it and make it one

 

[danny la rouge]

Incredulous laughter is the only thing a fascist grifter like Nige deserves.

I have no ethical or moral problem with laughing at Farage. It’s fine, but it’s worth remembering that laughing at him, at BoJo, at Trump seemed rather to play into their hands.

Also, there’s a difference between laughing at Farage and superior, condescending laughter at people who vote for him. It’s not going to win people over to do what that article you quoted did. It’ll only confirm what they think of “the metropolitan liberal elite”. You don’t think you’re part of the metropolitan liberal elite, but that doesn’t matter. If you just confirm the stereotype you may as well be.

I know it's unpalatable for the right-on types on here

You’re referring here to the link you posted. But just taking it as a wider comment about not using discriminatory language.

It’s just about creating a space we’re comfortable in. We’ll make mistakes. It’d be amazing if we didn’t: we’ve all got a lot to unlearn. But we can try.

 

[teqniq]

I don't doubt it - we are where we are - fact is people are signing up to Reform, a party named in 2021, and it now has more members than the Tories and double the Greens. It is significant.

Significantly depressing, alas.