This is the fourth in a series of posts on the politics of Nigel Farage and Reform, all of which treat the two as effectively synonymous, as history has proven that to be the right thing to do.
Each post asks the same question - Why vote for reform? - within a different context.
A summary of all the posts to date is provided at the end of the post.
Each post is also appearing on YouTube and other social media platforms.
(And apologies for the obvious editing error at the start.)
Farage vs migrants
Why vote for Reform?
Nigel Farage's big claim is that illegal immigration is Britain's big problem. But my problem with Nigel Farage is that the moment he opens his mouth on this subject, he literally talks nonsense.
As a matter of fact, in international law, which the UK has signed up to, illegal immigration into this country does not exist.
Anyone can arrive in the UK without a passport or any papers of any sort whatsoever and legally claim asylum. That is their absolute legal right in international law, and if Farage says otherwise, he's not telling you the truth.
People have the right to seek refuge from the country where they normally live, where they are at risk of being persecuted, that is why we grant people asylum. We don't do it out of the goodness of our hearts. We do it because we care about the fact that people are at risk.
And so this talk of illegal immigration is wrong because until somebody has had their migration status settled by a tribunal, by an appeal process, by a process, quite literally, then they are here waiting for a decision to be made.
Now, let's also be clear, we have the right to say no to people. And I'm not saying we shouldn't say no in some cases. There are people who will clearly try it on and come into the UK when there is no justification for them to do so. But to claim that this is a massive problem is crazy.
Around 50,000 people a year claim asylum from small boats, and that's just about the only way they can now do it. There isn't a way of doing it by coming on a large boat or on a ferry. There isn't a way of doing it by coming in by plane, and so that's the only option that somebody who wants to claim asylum in the UK has, which in itself indicates that we do not comply with international law.
But Farage claims that this tiny proportion of people coming into the UK - maybe 5% out of the total number of migrants into the UK some years - are the problem - but remember , out of that 5%, 70% have their right to asylum agreed. So we're only talking about 15,000 people a year who arrive here who are then told 'No, you have no right to stay.' And we have arrangements to move those people out of the UK, and we do so, by and large.
The point then is that these people are not the cause of the problems in the UK economy.
Nigel Farage claims that migrants are driving down wages, but that is nonsense. Minimum wages in the UK are higher now than they have ever been because of a move to introduce minimum pay legislation by a Labour government in 1997, which has been increased ever since. Migration is not, therefore, undermining pay, although weak trade unions are, and that's the deliberate consequence of UK government policy.
Nor are migrants causing the housing crisis in the UK. In fact, the exact opposite is true because many of our houses were built by migrants. More people have come into this country to be builders than probably anything else.
The problems with housing in the UK stem from the era of Margaret Thatcher. She told councils to sell their houses and not build replacements. We have, ever since, seen poor regulation of private landlords and bad housing, and excessive prices, and those are the reasons for the housing crisis in the UK, and not migrants.
And poor public services are not created by migrants. In fact, one in three doctors in the UK is a migrant. One in four nurses in the UK is a migrant, and there are migrants working in councils and working in schools, where we need strong public services and would not have them but for these people. Migrants deliver our public services. They don't undermine them.
Migrants are, in fact, making Britain work.
They do the jobs that people in the UK don't want to do.
They are the cleaners, the janitors, the security guards, the care workers, the people who literally care for the dying.
They provide many of the people who work on our transport system because of the anti-social hours that other people don't want.
Migrants are more likely to work than people born in the UK.
The fact is, they not only work, they contribute through taxes, and they contribute more than they take.
So in that case, for Reform to scapegoat migrants is wrong. Migrants contribute, they do not claim. So migrants are here to fill the gaps in our shrinking workforce, and to demonise them hides the truth, fuels division, and spreads hate.
Reform is offering no solutions. It's just offering scapegoats.
Reform in that case is the problem and not the solution. Their politics is about division, and not repair.
Farage wants anger and not answers.
Voting Reform would make Britain poorer, weaker, and more divided.
So let's stop saying migrants are our problem. They're not. They're the solution in very many cases to our problem, and the people who are here are welcome.
Reform is a recipe for hate and decline when we need solidarity, investment, and real reform.
Think about it.
Please don't vote for division.
Please don't vote to make this country poorer.
Please don't vote to throw your neighbour out.
Reject Farage's lies.
Think twice before ever supporting Reform.
Poll
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Might Mr. Farage, like Mr. Trump and Mr.Hitler etc. be using a form of negative herd instinct and, possibly negative status drivers, to unify supporters by making a falsely simple but inaccurate dislike/hate target an attractive substitute for the greater complexity of realities?
Might Mr. Farage be aided by an inadequate manipulative mass education set up and a mainstream media, including the BBC, which seeks smaller-weaker government on behalf of its particular socio-economic constituencies?
P. S. Might the publicity and communication exposure given to Mr Farage and its “analysis-lite” reporting of immigration behaviours by the above, indicate their intention to diminish effective, “democratic” government?
It may. Of course that is possible.
Leaving aside the merits or otherwise of immigration, how will Farage actually stop the small boats crossing from France? I.e., what feasible solution does he propose, beyond soundbites? Shoot at them or to sink the boats mid Channel? Tow the boats back across the mid-point back into French waters? And let the French tow them back again! Or maybe vastly increase the resources to consider asylum claims more quickly? And fly them where when such claims are rejected and appeals disallowed. And what happens to those without passports to prove where they came from, or from countries that refuse to accept them back? Put them in vast tent villages surrounded by barbed wire fences and let them starve to death?
As ever with Farage, he has no genuine, practical solutions other than soundbites. Why anyone continues to be taken in by his snakeoil sales pitch is beyond mindboggling.
There are literally no answers with Farage.
People get taken in by the constant dripfeed. The media breathlessly stenograph Farage’s every brainfart as the Wisdom of Chairman Nige, unwilling to cut themselves off from his cheap, reliable clickbait by subjecting him to proper scrutiny.
I do feel that if we deported Farage the small boats problem would be reduced to manageable proportions, but I think this is one kind of cheap and easy solution he would not like. Perhaps we could have a “one in, one out “agreement with the US. For every Us citizen fleeing Trump’s America they would have to take one of our populists. Life here would be immeasurably improved.
Part of the problem is the excessive publicity given to Farage.
Simon Wren -Lewis last Wednesday
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/
It ends “politicians and journalists were not prepared to ask Farage one simple question. You lied to us once before, and we are all suffering as a result, so why should we believe you again?”
Yes indeed
Agreed
It is not just that Farage and Reform are given excessive exposure it is that they are rarely subjected to negative reporting. I notice for instance that an ex leader of Reform in Wales has just pleaded guilty to bribery charges whilst serving as an elected MEP. eight years ago. I saw not a whiff of this on the BBC. Had it been a politician from any other party I feel sure this would have been headline news. I am almost paranoid now about BBC news reporting. A couple of days ago whilst reporting on a Keir Starmer initiative which had nothing at all to do with the Epstein/Mandelson affair the BBC used archive footage of Starmer showing him alongside Mandelson. Why? The suspicion is raised that somebody is trying to discredit Starmer and using subliminal methods to do it. I hold no particular brief for Starmer, but this looks underhand,
If anything beneficial happens in this country, you can be absolutely certain it will have nothing whatsoever to do with Nigel Farage.
Any problems we have, if they can be solved at all, will require critical thinking and sound economics and not the easy solutions proferred by Reform.
We probably need Starmer to wake up tomorrow and realise why people trusted him to do what a government is supposed to do- protect its citizens from ignorance, want and penury.
In strict father morals the world is regarded as fundamentally dangerous and competitive. Virtually all conservative politicians use fear to some extent, extremists see it as a very valuable tool and use it much more. Another important tool for them is repetition, particularly of short simple ideas, memes, because repetition reinforces neural pathways in the brain associated with the repeated notion. Goebbels had great success based almost entirely on these two techniques.
For our distant ancestors, fear of the outsider was a natural instinct, one knows one own tribe including those in it who one should be wary of, outsiders represented a risk, one couldn’t be sure of their motives even they appeared friendly. If one’s aim is to generate fear, then people from a different tribe are the easiest target.
People entering the country without obeying the rules break another strict father rule of obedience, making them an even easier target. Neither is their plight likely to engender much sympathy, since in the Strict father world if they were obedient and self-reliant, then they would have prospered in their own country. Because they’re not allowed to work initially they require welfare and requiring welfare in strict father morals is evidence of moral weakness. All this makes asylum seekers the perfect tool for the likes of farage
Most people are bi-conceptual, they have a mix of strict father notions and nurturant parent notions in an almost infinite range, but fear will tend to trigger their strict father instincts so conservatives, especially extreme ones, can use fear to make many people more conservative.
Whilst some are amenable to logic if it is demonstrated that their fear is unjustified, most probably are not, moral values and fear are both stronger for many people than logical argument alone.
Populist right – the mass appeal of “strict father” framing https://newsframes.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/populist-right-strict-father-framing/
Political Biconceptualism https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biconceptualism_b_30396
Farage and Reform are an extreme far right party who will carry on taxing the poorer of society to give massive tax cuts to his ultra rich pals and benefactors.
We all remember Farage rushing to the German embassy on the day the Brexit result was declared so that he could obtain a EU German passport.
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