I have already posted once this morning on hate-fuelled politics.
I have to do so again. The Telegraph has reported Reform's hate-fuelled Budget proposals, about which they say:
[Nigel Farage] and Zia Yusuf, Reform UK's head of policy, will set out £25bn in spending cuts they say will fill the fiscal hole without any tax rises for working people.
Their plans include almost completely eradicating the foreign aid budget with a cut of more than 90 per cent, and much higher NHS surcharges for foreigners.
Those policies alone would raise £15bn, they say, with the remainder coming from plans to scrap Universal Credit for foreigners, deport foreign criminals and reform disability payments.
So, Reform's plans are to:
- Hate foreigners.
- Destroy Britain's soft power in the world.
- Encourage migration, refusing to help people stay where they are.
- Make the NHS and health a migration battleground, forcing doctors into impossible ethical situations and most likely leaving that service massively denuded of staff, not least because maybe 30% of them are themselves migrants, or closely related to those who are.
- Increase poverty and so the risk of crime.
- Punish the disabled, and those who they consider different in society, who they think are eugenically abnormal and so should be treated as "others" in the same way that "foreigners" should be, putting them together as objects for hate.
This is toxic. And the media is lapping it up.
How long is it before we really do live in a fascist state? Or are we already there?
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The reference to reform of disability payments is just slipped in at the end likely so that it gets missed. But, it is a further example of what Ref**k will do – they will just ‘other’ groups one-by-one, blame them for all the ‘ills’ of society, vilify them and create hate about them all whilst they enrich themselves and the donors. It started with those claiming benefits and still does and now includes immigrants, the trans community, those who are neurodivergent and the disabled. And it won’t stop.
And all Labour want to do is ape Ref**k on immigration. No, you morons, make people’s lives better. Don’t make a section of it immeasurably worse.
Craig
I am afraid we already live in a fascist state where people are living in fear. The majority of the political parties are far right, including the current government. We now have to watch as the policies fail and hate gets worse before people look for something different. I heard someone say, “when things are good in the UK, racism is mild and when they are worse, it explodes”. The storm is just beginning and it will be a case of counting the damage afterwards.
Fear now sits at the centre of UK life, cutting across age, income and politics. Older people worry about care costs and pensions; younger and low-income households fear insecure work, unaffordable housing and shrinking public services. Concerns about immigration and crime often grow out of this wider insecurity, becoming symbols of deeper anxieties about wages, stability and social cohesion. Added to this are fears about failing institutions, rapid technological change and climate instability.
When these pressures build together, they create a climate of permanent unease. Anxious citizens demand defensive politics, and defensive politics delivers short-term fixes that rarely address the underlying causes. This cycle erodes optimism, trust and the ability to plan for the future.
Breaking that cycle requires the government to focus on reducing everyday insecurity rather than exploiting it. That means strengthening income floors, stabilising pensions and care, investing in functioning public services, and communicating policy clearly and honestly. Restoring competence in institutions, lowering political volatility, and giving people a real voice all help rebuild confidence.
If fear is allowed to dominate, society retreats. If it is actively reduced, people regain the sense that their country is moving forward with purpose.
….which is why Zack Polanski’s call to ‘make hope normal again’ is so radical and really speaks to the moment. Hope is the antidote to fear.
In a fascist state people disappear at night never to be seen again. We are not there. Though this government has totally failed at convincing the population, especially its own voters, what it is trying to achieve. They blame the Tories, while doing the same thing.
I am sorry, but that is a false criteria.
‘How long is it before we really do live in a fascist state? Or are we already there?’.
Yes, we are and we have been.
Hannah Arendt felt that fascism was always present in any population. I would liken fascism to a bouncing betty mine that just pops up and explodes when touched. The fascism bouncing betty has been touched by self imposed economic hardship (austerity), twisted identity politics, broken promises and the never ending rolling back of the state.
What is worse is that the establishment thinks they can manage fascism as a tool to distract us from what they are up to. Hate is something that anyone can lose control of – that is the truly scary bit. And when you put that together with a chaos loving financial sector you realise that fascism is possible.
We lack statesmen/stateswomen who can see the bigger picture. The reasons for the large number of asylum seekers is rarely discussed. Much is due to war and that is mainly internal conflict often driven by ethnic division as well as politics. It is not all caused by western interventions but in some cases it has and we carry some responsibility beyond our obligation as human beings.
Many are displaced by climate change. That is best addressed by working together
The developing world is hobbled by debt repayments. Countries like Zambia have to cut back spending on education and health in order to pay New York and London high rates of interest and to get foreign currency to trade with other countries. I don’t think I get much of the money sent here.
If the states could be relieved of even some of that burden, there would be more opportunities for their people and less push to seek a better life elsewhere.
Europe has collective schemes to support refugees in places like Turkey and Lebanon but it is not a long term solution. IMO we need concerted and connected action by the advanced economies to support development in stable countries which can then accommodate many of the refugees and give them a future. That would help the host states as well.
To achieve that the richer states need to increase the aid budget, not cut it. Too few people are aware that the West takes more from Africa than it gives in aid. And, perhaps, that crooked elites bank allegedly huge sums in western banks. Which makes them complicit.
The western countries would need to take more seriously the training of their own population and reduce the poaching of skilled people needed in their home countries. For example, we need to train doctors and nurses at public expense not miring them in debt while we continue to keep down their salaries -resulting in doctors on strike.
These things are interconnected and we can’t ‘solve’ problems in isolation.
Where are the people to articulate these truths and act upon them?
Thabnks
You get it.
Why don’t they?
Could it be deliberate?
We are already in a Fascist sate and Reform with fuse us to the USA like the 51st or 52nd state – sadly I have lost my optimism for the future..
Reform is entirely consistent in its approach to mental health and neurodivergence, as shown in Richard Tice’s recent LBC interview. A classic example of moral regulation of labour in action. Unfortunately, loads of folk will fall for it, cos they think nobody should be getting money for nowt.
The ‘moderate’? elder statesman Ken Clarke was on R4 recently talking about the forthcoming budget – it was all very moderate and civilised in tone – but was all about balancing the books – nothing about the consequences . But he was proposing spending cuts and tax increases – which could have devastating effects not so different from Reform’s proposals.
Harold Macmillan would be classified as far left these days.
We cant be a fascist state yet surely but we are certainly in 1984 -the Ministry of Truth doesn’t allow us to hear any economic alternatives, other than ‘there is no money’.
Agree with you on Clarke and MacMillan.
I read the proposals by Reform another way. I read them as the very wealthy showing they are happy to force hardship on others rather than lose one iota of their wealth. They are the ones backing Reform, in the media, in donations; it is the wealthy donors that Farage is courting, looking to be the next Conservative Party. Unfortunately, voters will lap it up. It’s a simple narrative. We won’t tax the working man, we don’t need to; it’s those Others (insert minority of choice) who need to be stopped from taking your money. The budget black hole narrative also plays into their hands. We can’t spend more; we’re balancing the books. Meanwhile, foreign aid won’t stop; it will just go to sympathetic regimes instead.
The Guardian has just featured firsthand accounts of Farage’s racism and anti-Semitism as a teenager at Dulwich College.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2025/nov/18/deeply-shocking-nigel-farage-faces-fresh-claims-of-racism-and-antisemitism-at-school
Farage previously dismissed stories of marching and singing the Horst Wessel song as youthful high spirits.
Today’s reports take this to another ️, and show his inexcusable malevolence.
Today’s reports take this to another ️level,