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There are local elections coming up soon in the UK.

I, personally, will be voting Green.

If you live in the UK, and you are considering voting Reform, DON'T.

Reform is simply the new face of the BNP, the National Front, the EDL and Pegida.

Reform is a racist party run by rich white men, trying to trick the working classes into giving up their rights to hand money to rich white men. They will dismantle the NHS, abandon our environmental goals, hand money to rich white men, and do NOTHING for poorer people.

If you are considering voting Reform, talk to me. PM me. Comment here. I will tell you why you should change your mind.

America is now a white nationalist fascist dictatorship and Farage would like the UK to be the same.

As luck would have it I'm also voting Green.

Lindsey Green is the Conservative Party candidate in the area, and remarkably enough is one of the few surviving Conservatives who seems to want to make an effort and do a half decent job of it. Ultimately when it comes to local elections the priority is someone who gives a damn about the area. Ideally she'd be an independent, but you can't have everything

It will be an interesting election. Obviously Jamie saying Farage wants a nationalistic fascist dictatorship is merely the latest in a long line of amusingly ridiculous lies, but the idea of electing a load of untested people whose main focus is national politics into local positions sounds... well frankly it sounds as mad as voting for a party of supposed environmentalists who are vehemently anti-nuclear.

Place your bets and spin the wheel i

Octavious wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 22, 2025 11:48 pm

Obviously Jamie saying Farage wants a nationalistic fascist dictatorship is merely the latest in a long line of amusingly ridiculous lies.

Alright, perhaps it would be fairer to say that what Farage wants is money, and to help his cronies enrich themselves, and for gullible people to fawn over him, and to bask in the public's attention?

A lot of his supporters want a white nationalist state, the evidence of that is in ready abundance.

Farage himself is a racist and holds racist white nationalist views. This is a matter of record.

One of his former teachers at Dulwich College (an expensive elitist south London private school) recalled that he “marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler Youth songs”.

Farage is a well-known admirer of Enoch Powell, who gave the infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech. Farage asked Powell for his support in a by-election in 1994, and acted as Powell's driver during 1993. Of meeting Powell, Farage wrote: “That meeting, with a man who had achieved so much and sacrificed so much for his principles, awoke all sorts of aspirations in me which I had not even acknowledged before. It inspired me.”

Throughout his long political career, Farage has regularly made racist statements directed at a range of minority groups.

The founder of UKIP, Alan Sked, claimed that when he objected to Farage’s decision to drop the ban on former National Front members, Farage responded by saying, they "shouldn’t worry about the nigger vote. They will never vote for us."

In 2014 on LBC Radio, Farage said: "I was asked if a group of Romanian men moved in next to you, would you be concerned? And if you lived in London, I think you would be." Upon being asked whether he would object to living next door to German children, he replied: "You know what the difference is."

That same year, Farage claimed that parts of Britain were "like a foreign land". He had also said he disliked hearing people speaking other languages (than English) in public in the UK.

When asked in another 2014 interview with Newsweek Europe who he thought should be allowed to come to the UK, he said: "People who do not have HIV". During the 2015 general election campaign, he deployed misleading statistics about foreigners with HIV in a TV debate, implying that immigrants would bring HIV to the UK.

During the EU referendum, Farage produced the 'Breaking Point' poster, which was widely compared to Nazi propaganda.

Farage has defended the use of racists slurs such as "Chinky" and "Paki".

Farage has increasingly targeted Muslims and non-white migrants. Following the Westminster terrorist attack, Farage described a "fifth column living inside these European countries" on Fox News. "If you open your door to uncontrolled immigration from Middle Eastern countries, you are inviting in terrorism," he said. Farage also made "fifth column" comments in the wake of the 2015 Paris attack.

During the last UK general election, a broad sweep of ultra right extremists including Tommy Robinson, Britain First, Patriotic Alternative and the Homeland Party, all urged their supporters to vote for Reform UK.

Mark Collett, the leader of the neo-nazi Patriotic Alternative group, stated (enthusiastically) Farage's rhetoric was now "more explicit than the BNP at its height."

There is plenty more but that gives you the general measure of the man. He is a racist arsehole who appeals to racist arseholes who want a UK run by white men, for white men.

Now I'm curious. How are you going to convert these "racist arseholes" voting Reform?

One problem with Jamie’s critique is that it lumps together genuine racism with potentially non-racist policy concerns, which can push some voters further toward parties like Reform.

Farage being quoted as calling people slurs is obviously disgusting. While any particular instance is debatable (and no doubt about to be debated by Oct), I think it takes strongly motivated reasoning to think that every such instance is a lie and that the Reform isn't at least partly animated by racism. For the Reform voter who doesn't view themselves as racist, Jamie's list should make them reflect on who they're electing.

But what, in Jamie's view, would be an acceptable critique of mass immigration?

Many earnestly believe that mass immigration from Muslim countries, without much expectation for assimilation, really does change the character of a nation. It's not progressive or charitable to describe this as a "fifth column" - but what should be done when a growing share of the electorate have non-liberal views on women's rights and LGBT rights?

On a university trip to Europe I was surprised when I heard unrepentant racism against Roma people coming from European liberals. It's totally unacceptable for anyone, let alone the state, to treat an individual differently because of the group they come from. But what can/should the state do about groups the develop toxic cultural habits?

There are real issues here, but in response the centre and left of politics continues to indulge a broken strategy which can be summarized as "do nothing and denigrate anyone suggesting there's a real problem". That works fine for educated elites, government workers, etc., who benefit materially from mass immigration, only interact with assimilated immigrants, and are totally shielded from the real frictions caused by mass immigration.

I worry that the real power behind Reform (and similar movements elsewhere) is the unspoken prohibition on taking these issues seriously in politically center and left spaces. The means only the "hard right" will make these points and will win over some share of genuine non-racists. People who are told their policy preference for assimilation is "racist" will inevitable tune out other accusations of "racism", even very warranted ones against bad actors like Farage.

learnedSloth wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 4:35 pm

Now I'm curious. How are you going to convert these "racist arseholes" voting Reform?

It's very unlikely that I can.

I know however, from speaking to enough people, that there are people who are not racist, and who have simply been misled by elements of Reform's populist rhetoric. Which, after all, is deliberately misleading on many counts.

Those people are often horrified when they realise how extreme right, and explicitly racist, are the positions held by Farage and a considerable portion of Reform's leaders and candidates.

I had a positive, listening, hour-long conversation last week, with a female friend who is not very politically engaged and was likely to vote Reform because her dad told her she should. She has changed her mind. It is possible.

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 6:04 pm

One problem with Jamie’s critique is that it lumps together genuine racism with potentially non-racist policy concerns, which can push some voters further toward parties like Reform.

Farage being quoted as calling people slurs is obviously disgusting. While any particular instance is debatable (and no doubt about to be debated by Oct), I think it takes strongly motivated reasoning to think that every such instance is a lie and that the Reform isn't at least partly animated by racism. For the Reform voter who doesn't view themselves as racist, Jamie's list should make them reflect on who they're electing.

But what, in Jamie's view, would be an acceptable critique of mass immigration?

Many earnestly believe that mass immigration from Muslim countries, without much expectation for assimilation, really does change the character of a nation. It's not progressive or charitable to describe this as a "fifth column" - but what should be done when a growing share of the electorate have non-liberal views on women's rights and LGBT rights?

On a university trip to Europe I was surprised when I heard unrepentant racism against Roma people coming from European liberals. It's totally unacceptable for anyone, let alone the state, to treat an individual differently because of the group they come from. But what can/should the state do about groups the develop toxic cultural habits?

There are real issues here, but in response the centre and left of politics continues to indulge a broken strategy which can be summarized as "do nothing and denigrate anyone suggesting there's a real problem". That works fine for educated elites, government workers, etc., who benefit materially from mass immigration, only interact with assimilated immigrants, and are totally shielded from the real frictions caused by mass immigration.

I worry that the real power behind Reform (and similar movements elsewhere) is the unspoken prohibition on taking these issues seriously in politically center and left spaces. The means only the "hard right" will make these points and will win over some share of genuine non-racists. People who are told their policy preference for assimilation is "racist" will inevitable tune out other accusations of "racism", even very warranted ones against bad actors like Farage.

This is a genuine and complex question and I acknowledge it. I will reply when I have time to give it the attention it merits.

To clarify, I want to acknowledge that what you're pointing to is real and should be the primary concern. Reform attracts and emboldens white nationalists. Farage’s history is not something that can be easily dismissed. You absolutely need a moral core when confronting that kind of politics.

But there’s also a related problem: the political center and much of the left have failed to develop a meaningful vocabulary for discussing integration, liberal values, and national identity. On a wide range of important issues—immigration, assimilation, official languages, free trade, foreign aid—voters are often choosing between left-wing denial and disdain, or right-wing agendas that exaggerate these problems in service of genuinely noxious and/or economically incoherent “solutions.”

The people most aware of this dilemma are working-class voters, who don’t have the luxury of ignoring these issues and who often, and not wrongly, feel looked down on by the political left.

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 6:04 pm

and no doubt about to be debated by Oct)

Lord, no. A time consuming and utterly pointless exercise . Just have to look at the weakness of the opening point. An old teacher supposedly accused him of singing Hitler Youth songs? I have literally never known anyone who has known any Hitler Youth songs (because why would they?) but for this story to be credible both Farage needs to know them and the teacher needs to know them in order to be able to recognise them. Add to this the fact that the British populist right in Farage's youth was rabidly anti German and the whole thing seems completely ludicrous. An angry young Farage telling German tourists to "fuck off back to Deutschland, you Kraut twats" would at least be in the realms of plausibility... Farage fantasising about being a Nazi boy scout is not

No, this sounds very much more like a story of a teacher who found the young Farage to be something of an insufferable prick taking the opportunity to take some petty vengeance.

But it hardly matters. People like Jamie will be convinced regardless, but would never vote for Farage anyway. And as this thread has already produced more dubious slurs that would get you banned from the main forum than we've had for at least a year, it's probably wise to wind things down early

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 7:39 pm

I had a positive, listening, hour-long conversation last week, with a female friend who is not very politically engaged and was likely to vote Reform because her dad told her she should. She has changed her mind. It is possible.

Mate, if you were talking to me for over an hour about the dangers of voting for the wrong party I'd likely tell you I was changing my vote too

In all seriousness, though, I'd have thought it would be relatively easy. Reform is a protest party and its voters largely don't know or don't care about its policies. A load of he said she said crap about Farage's past is going to do far less good than simply bringing their policies into the spotlight. It's like there's a load of people who vote Green because they consider themselves environmentalists and who haven't the foggiest idea what the party actually represents

It was unfortunately predictable. Jamie made a long post with many good points against Farage, but that list included one point that was debatable. Instead of engaging with the many other provable (and proven) points on the list in good faith, Oct decides to dismiss out of hand one circumstantial claim - which, of course, may itself be true. Having dismissed this single instance apparently substitutes for an argument against the entire body of evidence that suggests Farage has views on race most modern people find icky.

Not that it would have mattered. If cornered with something like video evidence, Oct could have retreated into "I don't trust that source", "he was just joking", or "slur x isn't actually so bad, as a school boy we all sang a song about that one".

Since Oct is a quibbler, maybe it's better to make a logical argument rather than a factual one? I confidently claim that the most-right and most anti-immigrant party in any democracy will attract racist leaders and racist voters - that doesn't invalidate their entire project nor tar all of their supporters, but it's obviously a real problem that Reform has had to publicly deal with.

Bert, what are you on about? I've told you that I've no interest in debating the merits of Farage with Jamie. I picked apart his first point as an example because it was the first one on his list. I could easily argue against the other points if I wanted to, but I don't. Jamie will not change his mind, nor have I any interest in trying to. Whether Jamie loves Farage or wants to dance on his grave will have no impact on me whatsoever.

And from your perspective I'm pretty sure you're not all that interested in a debate between someone who thinks Farage is the coming of Satan and someone who thinks he's an effective political opportunist at the head of a party of amateurs. So what is the point? These are English local elections. Unless you happen to live near an area they're happening they don't matter one jot, nor do they provide any indication over what might happen in a general election. Whether or not Farage admired Enoch has very little impact on pothole repairs and how often bins are collected

Jamie made what appear to be several good and evidenced points about Farage's views. If these points are profoundly mistaken I'd be curious to know why, but it's nobody's job to explain it to me — my own Googling suggests there some veracity to Jamie's claims. I think it matters whether Farage is a racist because he's a significant-enough political figure to be a barometer for how much outright racialization we accept in our politics, and because of the parallels to a growing anti-immigrant movement in my own country.

You may think it's just about bins, but then why do national- and ideology-focused parties like Reform and Green invest in them? Reform is contesting 99% of seats. Surely the parties think they matter for some grander purpose (visibility, brand recognition, building a volunteer base, etc.)

You're right that as a voter I'd be extremely averse to electing a local official, with local responsibilities, whose ultimate aim seemed to be the green transition or ending most non-white immigration. Seems like the Conservative party dominates this level of government for a reason.

I don't recall Jamie including any evidence. I'm not saying that they never happened, but unless we look them up ourselves it is literally just Jamie saying it was so. Or, to put it more accurately, it is usually Jamie saying that some incredibly unsavoury character says it is so. But if you are really keen on it, I'll run through the points briefly.

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 12:52 pm

Farage is a well-known admirer of Enoch Powell

No idea if this is true, but it feels true. Lots of people on the right are, in much the same way that lots of people on the right admired Thatcher. The left tends to see them as hate figures because the left really loves a good hate, but the right will not be at all bothered. Most normal people won't give a damn

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 12:52 pm

Throughout his long political career, Farage has regularly made racist statements directed at a range of minority groups.

I'm not seeing anything here except Jamie's opinion

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 12:52 pm

The founder of UKIP, Alan Sked,

A not particularly savoury character with an axe to grind attacks Farage's reputation. Nothing to see here.

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 12:52 pm

In 2014 on LBC Radio, Farage said: "I was asked if a group of Romanian men moved in next to you, would you be concerned? And if you lived in London, I think you would be." Upon being asked whether he would object to living next door to German children, he replied: "You know what the difference is."

Gosh, genuine evidence that Farage knows the difference between a group of Romanian men and German children. Stop the presses!

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 12:52 pm

That same year, Farage claimed that parts of Britain were "like a foreign land".

This is true and a genuine concern. The creation of ethnic ghettos is a clear symptom of failing integration. Your typical left wing activist will often go off on one about Brits living in Spain at this point, which is completely irrelevant. That is for Spain to choose how to deal with. If I was Spanish I wouldn't like that either.

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 12:52 pm

When asked in another 2014 interview with Newsweek Europe who he thought should be allowed to come to the UK, he said: "People who do not have HIV". During the 2015 general election campaign, he deployed misleading statistics about foreigners with HIV in a TV debate, implying that immigrants would bring HIV to the UK.

The health of immigrants from parts of the world with particular concerns is a genuine issue. NHS health tourism was also a prominent story at the time, and putting a lot of pressure on the system. At worst all this is is a"politician gets figures wrong" story, which happens every bloody day to all parties.

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 12:52 pm

During the EU referendum, Farage produced the 'Breaking Point' poster, which was widely compared to Nazi propaganda.

The Left's enthusiasm for comparing everything they don't like to the Nazis has long been a problem for them, and Jamie is right to highlight it.

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 12:52 pm

Farage has defended the use of racists slurs such as "Chinky" and "Paki".

Again, a Jamie opinion supported by nothing and with no attempt at context. Not worth discussing. The only person I have encountered using such language for years is Jamie in this thread.

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 23, 2025 12:52 pm

Farage has increasingly targeted Muslims and non-white migrants. Following the Westminster terrorist attack, Farage described a "fifth column living inside these European countries" on Fox News. "If you open your door to uncontrolled immigration from Middle Eastern countries, you are inviting in terrorism," he said. Farage also made "fifth column" comments in the wake of the 2015 Paris attack.

Yes. Farage has attacked immigrants who have come here specifically to cause the country harm. This is a pretty big issue across Europe.

Anyway, must dash. Time waits for no man

I appreciated this back-and-forth, thank you.

If you think there's nothing wrong with Enoch Powell then I think you might just be totally unperturbed by racial prejudice. He stridently opposed the UK's 1968 Race Relations Act, which was considered beyond the pale even by his co-Conservatives, who kicked him out of their shadow cabinet and never gave him another prominent role thereafter. Powell's stance was undoubtedly popular in 1968 - it was also racist, abhorrent, and not the sort of thing that most well-intentioned politicians in the 2020s celebrate, with the notable exception of Farage, who can quoted saying many positive things about Powell if you bother to google it.

You won't believe the circumstantial reports of Farage using slurs - fair enough. But he went to bat to defend a word I won't repeat, as apparently you're rather sensitive about these things: https://news.sky.com/story/farage-defends-ukip-candidates-chinese-slur-10378308 It doesn't seem like a crazy proposition to say that Farage is not especially fussed by such language.

Several other points are a matter of tone, rather than transparent evidence of racism. Reform leans on old racist tropes in its rhetoric on immigration: characterizing immigration as invading hordes of brown folk (the infamous "breaking point" poster), focusing on their dirtiness (claiming they're spreading HIV), comparing them unfavourably to white foreigners (of course there's no problem with German immigrants), etc. In each case, someone who is extremely charitable will say "but these are real issues" without technically being wrong. But if I were a new Pakistani immigrant to the UK I wouldn't be in anyway confused about what an ardent Reform supporter thought of me lol.

Both Romanian and German foreigners are white the last time I checked.

Farage was, obviously, pro-Brexit, and one thing EU membership enshrined via treaty was a preference for white European immigrants over Commonwealth immigrants. I have never understood how the Remainer side managed to portray the Brexit side as the racists when by every objective measure the EU strongly favoured pro-white immigration policy.

Powell was a man of his time. Judging him by today's standards would be ridiculous. He was not a monster, nor were the views he expressed unusual at the time.

I dare say Farage is more tolerant of such language than a lot of people. For older generations such words were in common usage regardless of whether any offence was intended.

Obviously many Roma have light skin, but it's being extremely dense to pretend they aren't treated differently from Anglos and West Europeans. Surely your confusion here must be performative.

As for Brexit: the Leave campaign, driven by figures like Farage, didn't propose ending EU free movement in favor of non-white immigration from the Commonwealth. They proposed tighter overall restrictions, with clear anti-Muslim and anti-African undertones. That many Leave voters were ultimately deceived in regards to the volume and racial composition of post-Brexit immigration flows misses the point - Farage and other Brexiters campaigned on a strategy that is well summarized by the "breaking point" poster.

Powell was condemned as a racial bigot even by many of his Conservative peers in his own time. This isn't like judging someone in 1700s from a modern perspective - the man was a contemporary of MLK. If he had his way, he would have been the UK's Jim Crow - a politician whose legacy we aren't typically confused about. And Farage's admiration for Powell is not some qualified historical curiosity - it's an enduring admiration for Powell's views well into the 21st century.

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 25, 2025 8:56 pm

Obviously many Roma have light skin, but it's being extremely dense to pretend they aren't treated differently from Anglos and West Europeans. Surely your confusion here must be performative.

They're all white foreigners. There are virtually no white foreigners treated worse than the Germans in the UK. If you think more eastern Europeans have it worse then you are just plain wrong.

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 25, 2025 8:56 pm

the Leave campaign, driven by figures like Farage, didn't propose ending EU free movement in favor of non-white immigration from the Commonwealth.

The leaders of the leave campaign were generally in favour of a points based immigration system favouring the most skilled. The Remain campaign were heavily in favour of a pro European immigration system, which is inevitably proof white

Esquire Bertissimmo wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 25, 2025 8:56 pm

Powell was condemned as a racial bigot even by many of his Conservative peers in his own time

The perception of Powell clearly varies massively across the Atlantic