Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Look at it this way, the divorce will probably create a great album.

Just like Shakira

[HVC]

Look at it this way, the divorce will probably create a great album.

Just like Shakira

Of all the things ive learned about you over the years i think you being a shakira fan might be the weirdest

[Sheilbh]

What can I say, I spent several months in South America that coincided with her Hips Don't Lie era.

Every bar would play it, one to two other songs and then play it again in Spanish. It's either like Clockwork Orange aversion therapy, or you end up a fan.

[crazy canuck]

Absolutely nothing wrong with being a Shakira fan

[HVC]

Absolutely nothing wrong with being a Shakira fan

Oh I like her music, especially her spanish stuff, I just didn't see it as something that would sway shelibh's hips

[crazy canuck]

Absolutely nothing wrong with being a Shakira fan

Oh I like her music, especially her spanish stuff, I just didn't see it as something that would sway shelibh's hips

 

It just shows how open-minded he is

[Norgy]

I see Farage has resigned as MP, but will stand in the by-election. 

[Sheilbh]

Yeah there are various financial scandals which he's being (rightly) hounded over. This is him trying to seize control of the narrative. Back me or sack me to his constituents.

Worth noting he only won 45% in 2024 so if Restore stand (which I very much assume they will) it might be winnable if the anti-Farage vote consolidates/votes tactically. In that seat it means voting Tory so might not happen. There have been reports he feared the parliamentary standards commissioner would find against him which would automatically trigger a recall election, and that he wasn't sure he'd win.

I also get the appeal of this politically for Farage. I see the logic. But it's not going to stop the reporting on the financial stuff which will continue in a drip drip drip way - this is not going to resolve the issue. I saw that Jacob Rees-Mogg, who I suspect is far more connected with that world than most, has said he understands there's more to come on the financial scandals, that a lot of the source is from within Reform and that their are people in Reform who think they'd be leading it better than Farage. I've no idea who he could mean but note that the Tories have become considerably more stable and Reform considerably less after Jenrick and Braverman jumped ship.

I'd say he is really not handling the questioning about these scandals well and I've been saying it for a while but there's just something off about him and Reform recently, particularly with a challenge further from the right - something's not quite working or they know worse is yet to come or they're just not sure what to do/how to deal with Restore basically doing to them what they did to the Tories.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I was very tempted to go on a pub-crawl in celebration when Jenrick and Braverman defected to Reform, I am sure that in the long run their defection will help destroy Reform and be great for Britain.

But what should the other parties do? I guess Martin Bell is too old. Maybe the other parties can simply boycott the election and give Count Binface a clear run?

Whatever happens this is a further opportunity to reveal what a two-faced piece of shit Farage is to even the most ignorant voter.

[HVC]

Russia should really pay their operatives better. If they have to resort to other Financials shenanigans to get paid they'll get caught and Russia will have to find new ones.

[Josquius]

A people vs the establishment by election.

Best of luck to the people in defeating that miserable personification of the establishment.

Hopefully non cunts can unite behind a single candidate.

[Norgy]

I am still wrapping my head around the idea that Britain apparently has room for a party further to the right than Reform.

The question is whether Farage really wants to be prime minister. His career reminds me of Carl I. Hagen of the Progress Party in Norway. He managed to get the populist vote and break up how trade union members voted, championing populist causes and anti-immigration policies. His politics were similar, though, Hayek liberalism, low taxes, spending cuts except on said causes. He had no real desire for cabinet positions, or to make his party palatable to the anti-Labour opposition. He just loved the game and all circus.

[garbon]

What a self indulgent move.

[Sheilbh]

Reform's ex-chairman and home affairs spokesman (I will not acknowledge there absurd conceit of having a "shadow cabinet") is a British-Pakistani Muslim. They don't support a burka ban because it's illiberal and Islamophobic and reject talk of "remigration". Farage refuses to have anything to do with Tommy Robinson (which is, with the rest, why Musk et al have backed Restore - in the UK there's a strong class angle to this too) and also explicitly ban anyone with any association with the BNP from joining the party. Even at a European level, Farage always refused to sit in the same group as the FN - he would always say he admired Marine Le Pen but wouldn't join a European group with her. There is absolutely space to the right of Reform in British and, indeed, in most European politics.

There's always been an apres moi, le deluge side to Farage's pitch - that he contains and channels otherwise dangerous forces into "mainstream"/respectable enough. politics. It's why Restore is such a challenge. He is a populist who does that by indulging those elements but always with some plausible deniability. And I think in the UK there is a strong class/taste element in play with all this - broadly speaking Farage needs to win the curtain twitching, status conscious, Daily Mail/Hyacinth Bucket strand of voters who are very put off by thuggish, football hooligan adjacent vulgarians like Robinson and now there's a party explicitly pitching for them. It's sort of the implicit tension in that pitch - you can't pretend to be holding back worse alternatives if your not attractive to them in the first place.

That sounds like a good comparison - I don't think Farage really wants to be PM. I'm not sure he even really wants to be an MP - which involves making financial declarations and lots of boring meetings.

FWIW this is part of why I can see the argument for an early election for Burnham.

[Sheilbh]

What a self indulgent move.

FWIW I think this could be a thing. I think there's a Brenda from Bristol attitude to elections from voters and I think there is evidence in by-elections of voters punishing whoever caused it. It might not but I wonder if local sentiment will be pretty pissed off.