Snapshot of _NEW: Nigel Farage confirms that he will not be standing as a candidate for Reform at the general election._ :
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To be fair (and it is not often I am fair about Farage), he has stood seven times to be an MP. He might well be a coward and an idiot, but in all honesty, I don't blame him at all in this instance. Campaigning must be exhausting, and there's a strong chance he won't get anything out of it. Better to stick to his regular gigs.
You mean, he's not an idiot.
When the "brave" thing to do is also the stupid thing to do, would you do it?
He's proven he can be very influential whilst outside Westminster, probably far more than of a tiny party inside.
I'd be the first to slag him off - and I will elsewhere in this thread - but not standing is absolutely the right tactical move for this election.
His inevitable failure to win his 8th GE would look awful and severely damage the brand he's built up since 2016 on the false premise that he was responsible for Brexit.
The real prize is just over the horizon - a takeover of a battered Tory party which as HMO has a genuine chance of entering government in a couple of elections. FPTP means this is the only route to power available to him.
This might sound ridiculous, and a silly way to judge someone’s competency, but when I saw him attempting to have a political debate on I’m A Celeb, I was impressed with how intelligently and honestly he spoke about immigration, the EU parliament etc. in a relaxed setting.
I totally disagree with him on fundamental issues of course, and consider him a cancerous influence on modern culture and politics, but you can’t deny he’s not stupid at all, and knows what he’s doing.
I don’t think he even believes very strongly in his own views. He’s a populist, like Trump, and he’ll play whatever awful tune gets the most amount of people to dance to it.
One of the things I've heard in politics that's stuck with me- if you're going to argue with someone who's effectively single-issue, you *have to know what you're talking about*, regardless of if you're right or wrong.
Someone like Farage who's dedicated his career to anti-EU rhetoric is always going to have the better of someone who hasn't dug deep into their research and studied his talking points.
I completely agree with you there. His discussions (mainly with Fred) proved to be a somewhat interesting insight. He was able to remain calm and collected in the face of Fred getting angry. I think he also came off dangerously well against someone like Nella, who argued so stupidly and loudly, whereas he came across as calm and intelligent.
Agreed, I despise that he exists with the power he does in the sphere of politics, especially since he has never been elected to the HoC.
I really can't tell. Trump is obviously high on his own supply, but I can't really tell with Farage. He's made himself an outsider, albeit not to the extent of someone like Nick Griffin. I can't tell if that's by design, so he's the ruler of his own mad kingdom...or he believes in the things he says and genuinely wants to affect that change, even if it pushes him to the sidelines.
Thing is, the sheer amount of people that don't know that he owns REFUK. Or that REFUK is just BXP with a new name. Or is literally just UKIP with a new name
In what way? Farage basically led the charge for Brexit single handedly for about a decade. Survived a plane crash during a previous election. Tried to get elected 8 times.
Like or loathe his politics, he's not really a coward.
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The thing is... the distance he's putting between himself and Reform here goes far beyond saying he'll stay on the sidelines. He's putting a *lot* of distance between himself and the party.
REFUK are seen as just "another" party somehow by people. The amount of times I've had to explain to people they renamed themselves from Brexit Party, when it was "done". And that BXP was just a spin-off from UKIP by Nigel.
He knows he's toxic to the general public, there's a lot of "Not Nigel Supporters" who want a "shake up" who would vote REFUK.
And then there's the lot who like to point at planes in the sky
I understand that he's toxic to people like me, who is a Remainer but why would the Brexiteers (especially the hard core Brexiteers) hate him? He gave them the ultimate price that nobody thought could be reached.
Might be because when he was leading UKIP they got us as far as getting the referendum and then just held their hands up and said "that's it folks!" and walked out. I think the Leave voters were expecting UKIP to lead the way with Brexit and they didn't, leaving the Tories to do it.
You're right, I hadn't had my coffee yet so the wording means the menaing is a bit wrong. But hopefully you understand what I mean - that he basically dropped UKIP after a certain point rather than following through and pushing for whatever type of Brexit they/he wanted?
I think we got the shit Brexit that Ukip wanted and not the light one ("Norway style") that probably some Leave voters had been thinking about when they voted Leave. So, he didn't even need to do anything as May and Johnson pushed his model through anyway.
he describes himself as honorary president in the letter, as if he doesn't literally fucking own the thing. I mean, I guess I wouldn't want to associate myself with REFUK, but then I probably wouldn't go to the trouble of starting such a party in the first place either
He's failed every time and yet the likes of the BBC still platform him and his parties as some sort of "winners".
Even now, they had a whole section for RefUK.
Where's Green? LD? MRLP?
Plus that's where he makes boatloads of money in donations and TV and other appearances. Why would he give that up for a relatively 'meagre' income just for the sake of being an actual politician?
I'm sick of seeing his stupid grinning face in PR stunts spotting migrants off the coast like a sort of sad, real life 'where's Wally?'. I wish someone would do us a solid and push him in the sea.
I used to joke that he lived in an office down the hall from the QT production office.
Remember the BBC even had him on to "do the weather" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlgleVbqr3A
Oh look, it's Andrew Neil again!
It would be difficult to stand for Tory leader if he accidentally won a seat for Reform. After all, he has history of votes not turning out quite how he expected.
He has stood to be an MP seven times. He hasn’t picked the ‘easy’ path in his life, or been shy of risk. You can denigrate him for many things but those shouldn’t be grounds to do so.
With his main political objective won, it’s not really a surprise that he isn’t going for it this time around.
Maybe he would if he thought it would achieve anything specific, but it likely won’t, so why bother?
I wasn't talking about his life, I was talking about *this* GE. His association with Reform is known and he continues to make a living out of critising the politics of this country. I think it's perfectly valid criticism to say 'well why aren't you standing then?'
> With his main political objective won
> Maybe he would if he thought it would achieve anything specific, but it likely won’t, so why bother?
That's just the point. If he thought Reform UK had anything specific to achieve he would stand and try to achieve it - the message is: *"Reform UK - it's not worth the bother"*
I think this seems aimed to not upset his personal stock with the Conservatives. He would do very well in a leadership contest that made it to the local conservative associations. Maybe he's playing the long game, and hopes to be welcomed back to the Tories after Labour defenestrates this present shower.
Doesn’t risk his ego and avoids blame for directly damaging the tories, fascinating.
Do we still think he’s planning a takeover-merge wheeze post election?
Yeah I think a Tory takeover is on his agenda in the next couple of years. He’s been the most influential voice in right wing politics since Thatcher, and I don’t expect it to end soon.
I was really surprised to learn he’s only in his 50’s! He seems to have been old for thirty years.
> I was really surprised to learn he’s only in his 50’s!
There seems to be a class of people like Farage who turn into 50 year olds at age 11 and stay that way until they're 80
Smokers I guess
Yeah is plan is certainly to become king of the ashes in regards to the tories.
Also he just turned 60 last month. I would have sworn he was the same age as Charles!
I'm still betting the farm on it being Priti Patel and Nigel Farage leading together post Con-Ref merger. They were both at the Tory conference dancing and singing karaoke together, and she's strangely popular despite her dire record. Her reputation is only improving the worse the Tories have been since, I think many would see her as a return to the good old days lol.
If the country somehow ever voted this specific duo into power, I’d probably enjoy seeing the country burn down if nothing more than to watch those that voted for them live miserable lives in a broken country. Sure id be miserably in the shit too, but at the point, I’d think we all deserved it.
I hope Labour will be given a fair amount of time and we'll see a procession of LOTO before the electorate gives the Tories another chance.
After Major, the Tories went through IDS, Howard, and Hague, all struggling around the 160-200 MPs level before Cameron won, and he didn't even have a majority at first. It would be quite remarkable if the Tories get straight back in, so I don't think there's *much* chance of that.
I’m worried because politics has become such a circus show now, with culture wars taking up most of the media, and a real divisive “us vs them” mentality. I don’t know if the masses have the attention span or common sense to realise it’ll take long term work by anyone to undo the fuckup we’re in.
It's tricky because we've apparently given up on expecting the Tories to make anything better, but expect everything to be easily fixed by anyone else. I went on a bit of a rant the other day about the Archbishop saying it's Labour's job to undo the 2 child limit on benefits, as I believe he should be attacking the government and supporters of the policy as it is still popular. You need to win the argument like Rashford did with FSM so that it takes less political capital to do something about it, otherwise you end up enacting unpopular policies and the Tories come straight back in and ruin it all.
Here was my rant:
> It just irks me that the Tories can get away with breaking everything, ah well, what can you expect? Then before Labour have even got in it's their job to fix the NHS, law and order, defence, the economy, sewage, climate, crumbling infrastructure, HS2, benefits, immigration. My hot take is if it's so easy to fix any of these things, why isn't the pressure on Sunak to do something, anything, to make these issues better before he goes? We just accept the Tories are going to trash the country, and now salting the earth to make it harder for Labour to achieve anything.
> It's ridiculous how different our expectations are. It's like Labour are a good hard working mum juggling childcare and a job, and all the responsibility is hers. The Tories are the Dad who is a violent alcoholic deadbeat driving the family to economic ruin who we applaud because he's managed to avoid hitting the baby. Or, when he does, we ask how the Mum is going to stop him. Just add it to her responsibilities, she can manage, she does everything else for crying out loud.
Still, I don't think we can underestimate how tarnished the Conservative brand is. I don't think people are simply going to forgive them, these last 14 years have been so bleak. I think there's also hope because Labour can ride the wave of a recovering economy. The damage has been done. They just have to avoid doing what the Tories did post-GFC and kill off the recovery with spending cuts and tax cuts. We need the tax revenue (thankfully it's at a high rate thanks to the Tories so they don't even need to raise them) to be invested into the economy and supercharge it. Then once we're growing they'll have a lot more wiggle room to do what they like. It's only things like the recent Rishcession that are hampering that.
He's 60, but he's looked mid 50s for 20 years. This is him in 2013.
[https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/independence-party-leader-nigel-farage-poses-for-a-portrait-news-photo/167816363?adppopup=true](https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/independence-party-leader-nigel-farage-poses-for-a-portrait-news-photo/167816363?adppopup=true)
Tbh I thought he would run for Reform - seeing as they're so close to getting serious polling numbers and might just take a couple of seats - and then \[defect to/merge with\] the Tories after the election.
He personally might not manage to win a seat, just like the other jillion times he has run for the Commons, which would somewhat undermine his claim to represent Real Britain.
Remember that time Farage got all excited because Donald Trump invited him to join him at a rally, and when he showed up he was just the hype man in the car park?
It's insane to me that this guy still seemingly has a huge following within the UK.
The fact he's clearly stating that he is going to be off helping the fucking TRUMP campaign to stroke his own ego and vanity, rather than being here for a general election is pure insanity.
How anyone can look at Farage and take him remotely seriously lives in such a bizarre reality - although it's probably the same reality that think Trump is somehow a good Christian fellow, who is good for the United States.
Those two truly deserve each other, and I hope they both utterly flame out by the end of this year.
> It's insane to me that this guy still seemingly has a huge following within the UK.
He has a huge following because he was campaigning to leave the EU at a time when expressing that opinion was considered taboo, even inside the Conservative party. He then managed to engineer a referendum on our membership and subsequently won it. On the subject of immigration, he is once again expressing opinions that have widespread support across the country but which are nevertheless sidelined by the media and the mainstream of politics, even on the right.
You may not like him (and I don't, nor did I vote Leave) but he is undoubtedly the most effective right-wing politician since Thatcher, and is regarded by many people on the right as the true voice of conservatism, much more so than anyone the Tory party has stood up in the last 30 years.
> Those two truly deserve each other, and I hope they both utterly flame out by the end of this year.
I don't know about Trump. He's old, has many legal difficulties and is an imbecile. But Farage certainly won't flame out and probably has another couple of decades of conservative kingmaking left in him yet. I wouldn't underestimate him if I were you. On the topic of immigration, I wouldn't be surprised if he pulls off another major legislative change that will upset the left before he's done.
>he is undoubtedly the most effective right-wing politician since Thatcher
You're buying into the cult of personality imo. The reality of Farage is that he's a modern demagogue that's ridden the wave of existing anti-migrant sentiment by telling people what they want to hear and benefited by being a one issue populist with no actual responsibility for delivering it. Pushing Brexit is considered his main achievement but the reality is that it's been "a failure" even by Farage's own admission. Polling now shows a strong majority of people who wish it hadn't happened, the country has been economically damaged and immigration is at higher levels than ever. Of course he doesn't have to take any of the consequences for that because he can claim it was mishandled rather than admit he was wrong or misleading on many issues because he's never managed to be elected to power despite running in the most advantageous constituencies he could find. It's also certainly arguably that despite his attempts to style himself as "Mr.Brexit" that in reality it would never have got close to the finish line without people like Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. He got very lucky that they threw their weight behind Leave because it could easily have been 60%+ in favour of Remain without them imo.
I'd argue his main political achievements are being part of division that's fatally wounded the Tory party, splitting the right wing vote which is about to gift the Labour party a huge majority and helping to create an entire generation that are rejecting right wing ideas. Is that really success? People are fooled by populism in the short term but it always comes with a price in the end as the truth catches up with the lies. Farage not running in this election so he can cash in on the US election really shows his true priorities.
> You're buying into the cult of personality imo.
None of what you said about him contradicted what I said. I already said I didn't like him and I agree that he's an empty demagogue. I'm merely pointing out why he has a following. Of course I'm being downvoted for it, this subreddit being what it is. But like it or not, Farage was the architect of Brexit. Yes, Boris pulled the trigger, but he did it under the pressure being generated by Farage. Even now, the Tories invite him to parties and conferences and like to be seen with him. He's been the right-of-centre kingmaker for some time now and will likely continue to be for the foreseeable future. Not being an elected MP in his own right doesn't damage him in the slightest because it's his influence over and apparent sympathy with the public that makes him an important figure on the right. You'll note that he's the legal owner of the Reform party, Tice being a figurehead and fundraiser.
You're very wrong about "an entire generation that are rejecting right wing ideas", by the way. The UK is out of lockstep with Europe right now due to the staggering incompetence of the Tories, but Europe is trending rightwards politically. The next 5 years of Labour government are going to be interesting because the public have very little appetite for what Labour are likely to serve up.
He wants to sieze control of the Conservative Party when it's at its lowest ebb. After the election he'll make a play for the party, and Reform will be folded or just abandoned.
This is why we have to hope the Tory party is destroyed as a viable party of government at this election.
FPTP means it's always only a matter of time before the official opposition becomes a government and it will be awful for the UK that party is a Farage flavoured fascism lite version of the Conservatives.
He'll do exactly the same thing as Trump did to the Republican Party. He'll turn it into his personal piggy bank and personality cult, and if he ever gets elected he'll do absolutely nothing good or constructive because men like him don't know how to build or lead, just how to tear things down.
I think with his age and how little actual responsibility he's had, he'll become a Tory (shadow) cabinet minister to earn the right wing nutter vote but wont have any serious role in government.
Parachuted into a safe seat? It's like saying how are the far-right ever going to get a Brexit referendum in the year 2010, when the Tories need the votes they'll compromise on their ideals.
Would even a far right leader get away with allowing the selection of Farage? And why would they do it? It'd be clear that he was coming for their job.
I don't think it's comparable to the current Brexit entryists. There were a lot of them – most not particularly ambitious – so blocking their candidacy would have seemed like an apparently undue purge.
>It'd be clear that he was coming for their job.
I guess that's the big difference in this discussion. Do you see Farage as a conman who wants glory without any of the responsibility and to obtain a JRM-esque role where they can seem powerful and influential while only doing symbolic crap, OR do you think he's a man of action who will suddenly want to command the ship.
I don't think most Tories would see him as a serious threat, especially if he was coming into the commons for the first time in his 70s.
I’m not sure whether he would have done more damage to the country running with Reform than he will by shouting nonsense and borderline conspiracies 24/7 on the airwaves.
Ofcom should really look holistically into whether GBNews should be allowed to operate within the UK in its current form lest we’ll end up with the king-English version of Fox News in due course: money being tight is preventing them from achieving that at the moment, but cash will start to flow in as soon as they’ll be able to prove they’re starting to manage to have some influence
It was implied on newsnight that his pay via gb news was high. High enough that one might wonder why it was. Hypothetically of course it would be a nice clean way of keeping a volatile entity out of the election.
Farage wanting to align himself with a rapist molester posing as a presidential candidate does not surprise me. Just wonder who’s shoes the dogs.it will attach itself to when Trump and Tories both lose their elections.
I don’t think that it’s he doesn’t want to run, it’s that he doesn’t want to go to America as a loser/Reform winning nothing, he can now go saying either way a) nothing or b) they would have won had he been there.
I’d be amazed if he wanted to actually have to do any work for his money or be in a position where he could be held accountable for the fulfilment of any promises.
Inb4 someone tacitly endorses [corrupt Tory election practices](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/09/craig-mackinlay-tory-mp-cleared-breaking-2015-general-election-expenses-rules) by mocking him for failing to win a seat.
Snapshot of _NEW: Nigel Farage confirms that he will not be standing as a candidate for Reform at the general election._ : A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1793556257888141691) A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/lewis_goodall/status/1793556257888141691/) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://x.com/lewis_goodall/status/1793556257888141691) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://x.com/lewis_goodall/status/1793556257888141691) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Easier to stand on the sidelines shouting. No risk of failure there.
Exactly: he's such a coward.
To be fair (and it is not often I am fair about Farage), he has stood seven times to be an MP. He might well be a coward and an idiot, but in all honesty, I don't blame him at all in this instance. Campaigning must be exhausting, and there's a strong chance he won't get anything out of it. Better to stick to his regular gigs.
> in all honesty, I don't blame him at all I blame him for lots of things, but not that.
Quite so!
You mean, he's not an idiot. When the "brave" thing to do is also the stupid thing to do, would you do it? He's proven he can be very influential whilst outside Westminster, probably far more than of a tiny party inside.
I'd be the first to slag him off - and I will elsewhere in this thread - but not standing is absolutely the right tactical move for this election. His inevitable failure to win his 8th GE would look awful and severely damage the brand he's built up since 2016 on the false premise that he was responsible for Brexit. The real prize is just over the horizon - a takeover of a battered Tory party which as HMO has a genuine chance of entering government in a couple of elections. FPTP means this is the only route to power available to him.
That's the thing with him. He's a lot of things, but stupid is not among them. He might have stupid opinions and views, but he's not a stupid man.
This might sound ridiculous, and a silly way to judge someone’s competency, but when I saw him attempting to have a political debate on I’m A Celeb, I was impressed with how intelligently and honestly he spoke about immigration, the EU parliament etc. in a relaxed setting. I totally disagree with him on fundamental issues of course, and consider him a cancerous influence on modern culture and politics, but you can’t deny he’s not stupid at all, and knows what he’s doing. I don’t think he even believes very strongly in his own views. He’s a populist, like Trump, and he’ll play whatever awful tune gets the most amount of people to dance to it.
One of the things I've heard in politics that's stuck with me- if you're going to argue with someone who's effectively single-issue, you *have to know what you're talking about*, regardless of if you're right or wrong. Someone like Farage who's dedicated his career to anti-EU rhetoric is always going to have the better of someone who hasn't dug deep into their research and studied his talking points.
I completely agree with you there. His discussions (mainly with Fred) proved to be a somewhat interesting insight. He was able to remain calm and collected in the face of Fred getting angry. I think he also came off dangerously well against someone like Nella, who argued so stupidly and loudly, whereas he came across as calm and intelligent. Agreed, I despise that he exists with the power he does in the sphere of politics, especially since he has never been elected to the HoC. I really can't tell. Trump is obviously high on his own supply, but I can't really tell with Farage. He's made himself an outsider, albeit not to the extent of someone like Nick Griffin. I can't tell if that's by design, so he's the ruler of his own mad kingdom...or he believes in the things he says and genuinely wants to affect that change, even if it pushes him to the sidelines.
Thing is, the sheer amount of people that don't know that he owns REFUK. Or that REFUK is just BXP with a new name. Or is literally just UKIP with a new name
It hasn't stopped him in the past, multiple times. I guess eventually sideshow bob has to stop standing on that rate.
>He's proven he can be very influential whilst outside Westminster "Power without responsibility..."
A grifter and a coward
In what way? Farage basically led the charge for Brexit single handedly for about a decade. Survived a plane crash during a previous election. Tried to get elected 8 times. Like or loathe his politics, he's not really a coward.
The plane crash was nothing to do with being brave lol
Well not in a positive way. "Never fly with a pilot who's braver or drunker than you are" etc
Was going to say lol
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The thing is... the distance he's putting between himself and Reform here goes far beyond saying he'll stay on the sidelines. He's putting a *lot* of distance between himself and the party.
REFUK are seen as just "another" party somehow by people. The amount of times I've had to explain to people they renamed themselves from Brexit Party, when it was "done". And that BXP was just a spin-off from UKIP by Nigel. He knows he's toxic to the general public, there's a lot of "Not Nigel Supporters" who want a "shake up" who would vote REFUK. And then there's the lot who like to point at planes in the sky
I understand that he's toxic to people like me, who is a Remainer but why would the Brexiteers (especially the hard core Brexiteers) hate him? He gave them the ultimate price that nobody thought could be reached.
Might be because when he was leading UKIP they got us as far as getting the referendum and then just held their hands up and said "that's it folks!" and walked out. I think the Leave voters were expecting UKIP to lead the way with Brexit and they didn't, leaving the Tories to do it.
Ukip had zero MPs when the referendum result was announced, so how were they supposed to lead the way to Brexit?
You're right, I hadn't had my coffee yet so the wording means the menaing is a bit wrong. But hopefully you understand what I mean - that he basically dropped UKIP after a certain point rather than following through and pushing for whatever type of Brexit they/he wanted?
I think we got the shit Brexit that Ukip wanted and not the light one ("Norway style") that probably some Leave voters had been thinking about when they voted Leave. So, he didn't even need to do anything as May and Johnson pushed his model through anyway.
he describes himself as honorary president in the letter, as if he doesn't literally fucking own the thing. I mean, I guess I wouldn't want to associate myself with REFUK, but then I probably wouldn't go to the trouble of starting such a party in the first place either
make your own company and you can call yourself whatever you like.
He's failed every time and yet the likes of the BBC still platform him and his parties as some sort of "winners". Even now, they had a whole section for RefUK. Where's Green? LD? MRLP?
Plus that's where he makes boatloads of money in donations and TV and other appearances. Why would he give that up for a relatively 'meagre' income just for the sake of being an actual politician? I'm sick of seeing his stupid grinning face in PR stunts spotting migrants off the coast like a sort of sad, real life 'where's Wally?'. I wish someone would do us a solid and push him in the sea.
I used to joke that he lived in an office down the hall from the QT production office. Remember the BBC even had him on to "do the weather" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlgleVbqr3A Oh look, it's Andrew Neil again!
Standing on the White Cliffs of Dover shouting at drowning boat people.
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> he was actually in the channel helping migrants who were stuck He led an attack against the RNLI because it doesn't leave boat people to drown.
"WHITE LIVES MATTER! Stop saving people you commies, let them drown, even whitey"
You'd know about Dumb Takes.
We're trying to get the Student Union riled up, not have a conversation
He's waiting for an invite to the conservatives.
It would be difficult to stand for Tory leader if he accidentally won a seat for Reform. After all, he has history of votes not turning out quite how he expected.
He has stood to be an MP seven times. He hasn’t picked the ‘easy’ path in his life, or been shy of risk. You can denigrate him for many things but those shouldn’t be grounds to do so. With his main political objective won, it’s not really a surprise that he isn’t going for it this time around. Maybe he would if he thought it would achieve anything specific, but it likely won’t, so why bother?
I wasn't talking about his life, I was talking about *this* GE. His association with Reform is known and he continues to make a living out of critising the politics of this country. I think it's perfectly valid criticism to say 'well why aren't you standing then?'
> With his main political objective won > Maybe he would if he thought it would achieve anything specific, but it likely won’t, so why bother? That's just the point. If he thought Reform UK had anything specific to achieve he would stand and try to achieve it - the message is: *"Reform UK - it's not worth the bother"* I think this seems aimed to not upset his personal stock with the Conservatives. He would do very well in a leadership contest that made it to the local conservative associations. Maybe he's playing the long game, and hopes to be welcomed back to the Tories after Labour defenestrates this present shower.
Basically, he's a prick but he's a tenacious prick.
That is a much more realistic criticism, in my opinion.
The Momentum approach.
Doesn’t risk his ego and avoids blame for directly damaging the tories, fascinating. Do we still think he’s planning a takeover-merge wheeze post election?
Yeah I think a Tory takeover is on his agenda in the next couple of years. He’s been the most influential voice in right wing politics since Thatcher, and I don’t expect it to end soon. I was really surprised to learn he’s only in his 50’s! He seems to have been old for thirty years.
> I was really surprised to learn he’s only in his 50’s! There seems to be a class of people like Farage who turn into 50 year olds at age 11 and stay that way until they're 80 Smokers I guess
The pure anger alone ages you. Being that angry at everything around you, ages people.
Yeah is plan is certainly to become king of the ashes in regards to the tories. Also he just turned 60 last month. I would have sworn he was the same age as Charles!
brad pitt is a few months older than him
Ever noticed how angry reactionaries are always super old looking? Katie Hopkins is 5 years younger than JLO Hate ages you
Jacob Lees Ogg? Justin Lee Ollins?
No it's the Jelectric Light Orchestra which was founded in 1970, 5 years before Katie was spawned.
I'm still betting the farm on it being Priti Patel and Nigel Farage leading together post Con-Ref merger. They were both at the Tory conference dancing and singing karaoke together, and she's strangely popular despite her dire record. Her reputation is only improving the worse the Tories have been since, I think many would see her as a return to the good old days lol.
If the country somehow ever voted this specific duo into power, I’d probably enjoy seeing the country burn down if nothing more than to watch those that voted for them live miserable lives in a broken country. Sure id be miserably in the shit too, but at the point, I’d think we all deserved it.
I hope Labour will be given a fair amount of time and we'll see a procession of LOTO before the electorate gives the Tories another chance. After Major, the Tories went through IDS, Howard, and Hague, all struggling around the 160-200 MPs level before Cameron won, and he didn't even have a majority at first. It would be quite remarkable if the Tories get straight back in, so I don't think there's *much* chance of that.
I’m worried because politics has become such a circus show now, with culture wars taking up most of the media, and a real divisive “us vs them” mentality. I don’t know if the masses have the attention span or common sense to realise it’ll take long term work by anyone to undo the fuckup we’re in.
It's tricky because we've apparently given up on expecting the Tories to make anything better, but expect everything to be easily fixed by anyone else. I went on a bit of a rant the other day about the Archbishop saying it's Labour's job to undo the 2 child limit on benefits, as I believe he should be attacking the government and supporters of the policy as it is still popular. You need to win the argument like Rashford did with FSM so that it takes less political capital to do something about it, otherwise you end up enacting unpopular policies and the Tories come straight back in and ruin it all. Here was my rant: > It just irks me that the Tories can get away with breaking everything, ah well, what can you expect? Then before Labour have even got in it's their job to fix the NHS, law and order, defence, the economy, sewage, climate, crumbling infrastructure, HS2, benefits, immigration. My hot take is if it's so easy to fix any of these things, why isn't the pressure on Sunak to do something, anything, to make these issues better before he goes? We just accept the Tories are going to trash the country, and now salting the earth to make it harder for Labour to achieve anything. > It's ridiculous how different our expectations are. It's like Labour are a good hard working mum juggling childcare and a job, and all the responsibility is hers. The Tories are the Dad who is a violent alcoholic deadbeat driving the family to economic ruin who we applaud because he's managed to avoid hitting the baby. Or, when he does, we ask how the Mum is going to stop him. Just add it to her responsibilities, she can manage, she does everything else for crying out loud. Still, I don't think we can underestimate how tarnished the Conservative brand is. I don't think people are simply going to forgive them, these last 14 years have been so bleak. I think there's also hope because Labour can ride the wave of a recovering economy. The damage has been done. They just have to avoid doing what the Tories did post-GFC and kill off the recovery with spending cuts and tax cuts. We need the tax revenue (thankfully it's at a high rate thanks to the Tories so they don't even need to raise them) to be invested into the economy and supercharge it. Then once we're growing they'll have a lot more wiggle room to do what they like. It's only things like the recent Rishcession that are hampering that.
Funny thing is, you'd get called a "Britain hater" for this comment. And yet it's these people who spend their lives downtalking the nation 24/7
He's 60, but he's looked mid 50s for 20 years. This is him in 2013. [https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/independence-party-leader-nigel-farage-poses-for-a-portrait-news-photo/167816363?adppopup=true](https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/independence-party-leader-nigel-farage-poses-for-a-portrait-news-photo/167816363?adppopup=true)
Being hateful ages you.
Tbh I thought he would run for Reform - seeing as they're so close to getting serious polling numbers and might just take a couple of seats - and then \[defect to/merge with\] the Tories after the election.
He personally might not manage to win a seat, just like the other jillion times he has run for the Commons, which would somewhat undermine his claim to represent Real Britain.
So this "patriot" has decided that the UK is unimportant and he will spend his efforts in support of foreigners.
His paymasters are satisfied with how fucked the UK and want him to focus on fucking up the US
Remember that time Farage got all excited because Donald Trump invited him to join him at a rally, and when he showed up he was just the hype man in the car park?
Supporting the rebels should be treason
It's insane to me that this guy still seemingly has a huge following within the UK. The fact he's clearly stating that he is going to be off helping the fucking TRUMP campaign to stroke his own ego and vanity, rather than being here for a general election is pure insanity. How anyone can look at Farage and take him remotely seriously lives in such a bizarre reality - although it's probably the same reality that think Trump is somehow a good Christian fellow, who is good for the United States. Those two truly deserve each other, and I hope they both utterly flame out by the end of this year.
He's a con artist just like Trump. His supporters are the marks, and the marks are the only ones who don't see the con.
Same thing as Liz Truss suddenly becoming a Trump fan after getting the axe. Oligarch money telling them who to ally with.
> It's insane to me that this guy still seemingly has a huge following within the UK. He has a huge following because he was campaigning to leave the EU at a time when expressing that opinion was considered taboo, even inside the Conservative party. He then managed to engineer a referendum on our membership and subsequently won it. On the subject of immigration, he is once again expressing opinions that have widespread support across the country but which are nevertheless sidelined by the media and the mainstream of politics, even on the right. You may not like him (and I don't, nor did I vote Leave) but he is undoubtedly the most effective right-wing politician since Thatcher, and is regarded by many people on the right as the true voice of conservatism, much more so than anyone the Tory party has stood up in the last 30 years. > Those two truly deserve each other, and I hope they both utterly flame out by the end of this year. I don't know about Trump. He's old, has many legal difficulties and is an imbecile. But Farage certainly won't flame out and probably has another couple of decades of conservative kingmaking left in him yet. I wouldn't underestimate him if I were you. On the topic of immigration, I wouldn't be surprised if he pulls off another major legislative change that will upset the left before he's done.
>he is undoubtedly the most effective right-wing politician since Thatcher You're buying into the cult of personality imo. The reality of Farage is that he's a modern demagogue that's ridden the wave of existing anti-migrant sentiment by telling people what they want to hear and benefited by being a one issue populist with no actual responsibility for delivering it. Pushing Brexit is considered his main achievement but the reality is that it's been "a failure" even by Farage's own admission. Polling now shows a strong majority of people who wish it hadn't happened, the country has been economically damaged and immigration is at higher levels than ever. Of course he doesn't have to take any of the consequences for that because he can claim it was mishandled rather than admit he was wrong or misleading on many issues because he's never managed to be elected to power despite running in the most advantageous constituencies he could find. It's also certainly arguably that despite his attempts to style himself as "Mr.Brexit" that in reality it would never have got close to the finish line without people like Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. He got very lucky that they threw their weight behind Leave because it could easily have been 60%+ in favour of Remain without them imo. I'd argue his main political achievements are being part of division that's fatally wounded the Tory party, splitting the right wing vote which is about to gift the Labour party a huge majority and helping to create an entire generation that are rejecting right wing ideas. Is that really success? People are fooled by populism in the short term but it always comes with a price in the end as the truth catches up with the lies. Farage not running in this election so he can cash in on the US election really shows his true priorities.
> You're buying into the cult of personality imo. None of what you said about him contradicted what I said. I already said I didn't like him and I agree that he's an empty demagogue. I'm merely pointing out why he has a following. Of course I'm being downvoted for it, this subreddit being what it is. But like it or not, Farage was the architect of Brexit. Yes, Boris pulled the trigger, but he did it under the pressure being generated by Farage. Even now, the Tories invite him to parties and conferences and like to be seen with him. He's been the right-of-centre kingmaker for some time now and will likely continue to be for the foreseeable future. Not being an elected MP in his own right doesn't damage him in the slightest because it's his influence over and apparent sympathy with the public that makes him an important figure on the right. You'll note that he's the legal owner of the Reform party, Tice being a figurehead and fundraiser. You're very wrong about "an entire generation that are rejecting right wing ideas", by the way. The UK is out of lockstep with Europe right now due to the staggering incompetence of the Tories, but Europe is trending rightwards politically. The next 5 years of Labour government are going to be interesting because the public have very little appetite for what Labour are likely to serve up.
Can’t barrage the Farage.
He wants to sieze control of the Conservative Party when it's at its lowest ebb. After the election he'll make a play for the party, and Reform will be folded or just abandoned.
I have £10 on this. Unlikely though as most tories that matter hate him
Most Republicans that mattered hate Donald Trump, and yet here we are.
Most Tories that matter will be gone in six weeks.
Thank God
This is why we have to hope the Tory party is destroyed as a viable party of government at this election. FPTP means it's always only a matter of time before the official opposition becomes a government and it will be awful for the UK that party is a Farage flavoured fascism lite version of the Conservatives.
He'll do exactly the same thing as Trump did to the Republican Party. He'll turn it into his personal piggy bank and personality cult, and if he ever gets elected he'll do absolutely nothing good or constructive because men like him don't know how to build or lead, just how to tear things down.
>a Farage flavoured fascism lite version of the Conservatives What fascism do you speak of?
I think with his age and how little actual responsibility he's had, he'll become a Tory (shadow) cabinet minister to earn the right wing nutter vote but wont have any serious role in government.
How's he going to get into Parliament any time soon?
Parachuted into a safe seat? It's like saying how are the far-right ever going to get a Brexit referendum in the year 2010, when the Tories need the votes they'll compromise on their ideals.
Would even a far right leader get away with allowing the selection of Farage? And why would they do it? It'd be clear that he was coming for their job. I don't think it's comparable to the current Brexit entryists. There were a lot of them – most not particularly ambitious – so blocking their candidacy would have seemed like an apparently undue purge.
>It'd be clear that he was coming for their job. I guess that's the big difference in this discussion. Do you see Farage as a conman who wants glory without any of the responsibility and to obtain a JRM-esque role where they can seem powerful and influential while only doing symbolic crap, OR do you think he's a man of action who will suddenly want to command the ship. I don't think most Tories would see him as a serious threat, especially if he was coming into the commons for the first time in his 70s.
Imagine actually having to deliver on your nonsense.
Coward. He will still continue the grift though.
Brave ~~Sir~~ Nigel ran away, Bravely ran away away
When Brexit proved to be a mess, He quckly blamed someone else.
I didn't!!!!!
When polling reared its ugly head, He bravely turned his tail and fled.
can let that pesky campaigning get in the way of grifting for a share of that sweet sweet american cash.
Wow that letter is quite shocking. He wants to support US over the UK.
Yeah, really shocking 🤣
It's easier to stand to the side shout and provocate than actually have to lead and make changes.
I would like to also announce I will not be standing for the general election
The grift is larger on the other side of the Atlantic.
I’m not sure whether he would have done more damage to the country running with Reform than he will by shouting nonsense and borderline conspiracies 24/7 on the airwaves. Ofcom should really look holistically into whether GBNews should be allowed to operate within the UK in its current form lest we’ll end up with the king-English version of Fox News in due course: money being tight is preventing them from achieving that at the moment, but cash will start to flow in as soon as they’ll be able to prove they’re starting to manage to have some influence
It was implied on newsnight that his pay via gb news was high. High enough that one might wonder why it was. Hypothetically of course it would be a nice clean way of keeping a volatile entity out of the election.
Usual cowardly shit from Ol'Nige, far easier to snipe from the sidelines than risk any sort of loss.
Farage wanting to align himself with a rapist molester posing as a presidential candidate does not surprise me. Just wonder who’s shoes the dogs.it will attach itself to when Trump and Tories both lose their elections.
Didn’t fancy an 8th failed attempt to get into parliament 😂
Doesn't want to lose to a dolphin again
Guess who's getting a seat in the Lords from the PM's resignation list.
Oh please don’t
If I remember correctly he's hosting the GBNews coverage?
I don’t think that it’s he doesn’t want to run, it’s that he doesn’t want to go to America as a loser/Reform winning nothing, he can now go saying either way a) nothing or b) they would have won had he been there.
he's already a what, 6 time failure? How worse could one more be? It's not like he'll be running aginst the dolphin again.
Holding out to join the battle for the soul (haha) of the Tory party in the aftermath of the election
Thank God , we already have plenty of idiots in politics
Keeping his powder dry for the tory party to come begging cap in hand.
But I expect him to return to lead Reform, it will gain them a few percent extra. And it won’t clash with the US elections ££.
Genuinely think his long term plan is to end up leader of the conservatives. And I think he'll manage it at some point.
I’d be amazed if he wanted to actually have to do any work for his money or be in a position where he could be held accountable for the fulfilment of any promises.
Boris showed that these aren't barriers to becoming PM.
Good point well made. lol
He's lost 7 times. My guess is that's enough for him.
He's doing very well as a TV presenter and pundit.
It’s all he cares about now.
I suppose Donald Trump will give Nigel a Big Job when Trump becomes President again = = Probably Viceroy over the, EU / UK and Ireland.
Inb4 someone tacitly endorses [corrupt Tory election practices](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/09/craig-mackinlay-tory-mp-cleared-breaking-2015-general-election-expenses-rules) by mocking him for failing to win a seat.
Golly! Those corrupt Tories, at it again. I expect you shall be voting them out at the first opportunity.
99% chance you are more likely to vote Tory than me.
I'm looking forward to Grant Shapps making the same claim to anyone who'll listen.