There are moments in political history that are mad, crazy, bonkers, seemingly beyond imagination, and then there was yesterday, when Nigel Farage stood up and said that he was going to abolish most human rights in the UK — all to achieve his racist desire to supposedly deport 600,000 people a year from the UK, when there is no evidence whatsoever that there are 600,000 people illegally living in the UK, or that he could deport them even if there were.
What Farage wants us to believe is that people in the UK do not care if the people he sends back to the countries they came from are tortured or murdered on their return.
What he also wants us to believe is that we do not care if these people are deported without any right to legal appeal, meaning that a significant number of mistakes will take place.
And he also wants us to believe that no one in the UK cares about any other aspect of our human rights legislation, which does, in summary, provide us with 16 core protections, as follows:
-
Right to life – Article 2
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Prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment – Article 3
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Prohibition of slavery and forced labour – Article 4
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Right to liberty and security – Article 5
-
Right to a fair trial – Article 6
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No punishment without law – Article 7
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Right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence – Article 8
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Freedom of thought, conscience and religion – Article 9
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Freedom of expression – Article 10
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Freedom of assembly and association – Article 11
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Right to marry and found a family – Article 12
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Prohibition of discrimination (in enjoyment of Convention rights) – Article 14
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Protection of property – Protocol 1, Article 1
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Right to education – Protocol 1, Article 2
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Right to free elections – Protocol 1, Article 3
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Abolition of the death penalty – Protocol 13 (and Protocol 6 in peacetime)
He also wants us to believe that we are indifferent to the fact that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights would mean that our defence agreements with European countries would almost certainly become null and void, and that peace in Northern Ireland would probably have to be forgone, because the Good Friday Agreement is based upon that convention.
What he clearly believes is that we are so deeply racist in this country that none of those other things matter, so long as we can apparently expel people from the UK without them having any right to appeal against that process in any way, whatever the consequences for them might be.
And he believfes that we wuill accept this even though the system was set up precisely to end the tyranny of government witnessed during the Second World War, a tyranny he is now willingly embracing and endorsing because he is indifferent to the consequences of his actions, and so would be a party to murder, torture, abuse, and the systemic killing of people returned from the UK to their countries of origin.
That is what he wants us to believe.
But is he right? Can the people of the UK be persuaded to believe that they should give up all their rights, peace, and international relations, and accept the tyranny of any government that might be imposed on them here in the UK, simply because they so hate people they think are different from themselves that they find them unacceptable in our communities, even when they undertake valuable work in the UK precisely because many of those who will be deported under his scheme are legally working in this country now as a consequence of having made completely legal asylum applications that have, to date, been respected in law.
What do you think? Do you think Farage could persuade the UK to live in a state of tyranny to achieve this goal? This might be the most important question of our time, since he could shape our politics for years and decades to come.
I feel that reasonable, sensible, thinking people will not be persuaded by Farage. But that is not the question I am asking. Do you think others might be? That is what I want to know, because this is the question that matters. Might you please let me know?
Could Farage persuade people to give up their own human rights so that he might expel migrants from the UK?
- I fear he might although I wish it were otherwise (68%, 428 Votes)
- Yes (20%, 129 Votes)
- No (10%, 63 Votes)
- I don't know (2%, 11 Votes)
Total Voters: 631
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The extremely nasty English strain of ” we hate johnnie foreigner” has been
reactivated.
The gutless continued promotion by the BBC, other radio stations and the press of garage without any criticism continually stokes the flames.
One term Kier is utterly useless and will deserve his place in history for doing nothing and allowing the far right to take power.
Why are the Heritage Foundation and other right wing groups allowed to peddle such destructive garbage without question.
But he isn’t doing nothing. He is encouraging it by constantly attacking the “strangers” supposedly living amongst us; by accelerating societal breakdown by increasing inequality; by maliciously othering people of different countries and cultures in order to “justify” taking bellicose stances against them in deference to the warmongering antics of the USA (note Albanese’s tribute act yesterday). He is fully a member of the “Oh What a Lovely World War III” party (with ethnic cleansing and genocide as a cherry on top to entice the “patriots”).
Agreed
Mr Fairhall, I agree with the main points of your post. However, I’d add an observation to this comment: “The gutless continued promotion by the BBC, other radio stations ………..”
The UK media is nothing if not incestuous, the people infesting it have very similar backgrounds (educational etc). In a previous comment I noted that for most part they despise UK citizens (or regard them as imbeciles/serfs/peasants to be groomed) & Fart-rage is there as part entertainment/part news generation.
The idea that at any point the medai would start to question politicos of any sort, to any depth will never happen because this would cause UK citiizens to start to question narratives. Thus Fart-rage is treated as a legitimate politico – as opposed to a lying bumptious rabble router.
Fart-rage & his ilk are a symptom – the cause (for his & others “popularity”) is the entire media eco(sicko?)-system which supports/legitimises the ghastly midget. & in this criticism I include, for example, Ian Hislop – who was an enabler of both Fart-rage and Johnson – by giving them media space on e.g. HIGNFY. UK media – rotten to the very core – & fascisms enabler.
(Note: Spitting Image – one of the writers: Ian Hislop – it popularised Thatcher – almost normalised her – by turning her from something divisive, evil and hateful to “amusing”).
Mike’s comment here is such a core problem in our slide into facism. Our national press is simply a giant vehicle for manufacturing consent for neoliberlism, and for the self-perpetuation of the tiny incestuous elite benefitting from it. Until the press actually functions as it views itself, punching up not down, I don’t think the nation at large will ever be able to break free of the spell of indivualism, capitalism, and othering that’s wrecking the country.
Much to agree with.
I was listening to commercial radio station yesterday when a caller phoned in a said the Fart-age was a racist. The host immediately interrupted the caller and said that she could not say that because Fart-age had not been proved to be a racist. At which point the call was ended by the host.
With the free media and broadcasters acting in this no wonder we have the far right making such strides in the UK?
Of course he’s racist. That’s absurd.
This ranks up there with the BBC saying that we cannot describe what is happening in Gaza as a genocide because no court has legally declared it as such.
It is as if broadcasters are trying to find reasons for not pointing out that fascism is happening in plain sight.
I doubt that Farage will get majority support for this from the British people, but he knows he does not need that.
FPTP gave us a Lab government with just 20% of the total vote.
Reform must be licking their lips at the prospect of the same happening for them at the next election.
Polls suggest it could. And that is before the new Corbyn party splits the “progressive vote” further.
Reform have the advantage of having only one other “right wing” opponent in the discredited and hopeless Tories.
I would not be surprised if they do a pre-election deal to put up only one candidate per constituency to destroy the progressive vote at the next election.
20% might be enough for Farage to take away all human rights and no doubt replace them with a “Common Sense” Bill.
The dismantling of the state will begin soon after.
Every need will be put into the hands of private money.
The state will have a “policing” role only.
I think it’s just a question of the colour shirts those policing it will wear, brown, black or blue.
People need to wake up, because you don’t get a second chance under fascism.
Some do get a second chance.
But many will have died before that happens.
This is precisely why I jump in here and just said ‘Yes’ to your poll.
Again, reading Fintan O’Toole, racism is ingrained in English society. It is held back only by equality, the thin veneer of civilisation.
The more inequality we will have – and more is on the way – the more people will be attracted to fascism as a recourse. We seem not to care about inequality anymore in politics, yet I remember discussions about social exclusion etc., and wonder what the hell happened.
Well – I know what happened, but it still staggering to actually be here on the cusp of a world where lives will increasingly be nasty, brutish and short.
Much to agree with
MarP, I don’t see the Corbyn/Sultana party-in-the-making as “splitting the ‘progressive’ vote further”. There is virtually no “progressive vote” (whatever that is) so they will probably be the only possible home for such voters. They will clearly be able to cooperate with Green Party members and those truly independent politicians who haven’t already joined forces with the new party. The remaining Labour MPs will have to choose between either joining the new part or losing their seats, because nobody is going to vote Labour now that Starmer and Macavity have destroyed its political purpose.
Absolutely – what is progressive about a Labour Party that is enabling fascism? And at the next election no doubt they will have the cheek to tell us that a vote for anyone else is a vote for Farage.
That is the biggest worry. With no constitution and failed FPTP, Farage will be able to do whatever he wants if he wins on 22 or 23 per cent of the vote (on the 50 per cent turnout). Anywhere else it would be impossible. His only worry in this regard will be NI – but he’ll be the first to agree to Irish unification to achieve what he wants in GB. Scotland? Unfortunately not. Too rich to be let go.
Yesterday seemed to me the first unequivocal opening salvo in a political civil war waged by Farage on behalf of the extreme far right. I find it hard to believe that, back in the 1970s when Enoch Powell was still around, anyone spouting this racist bile would be given any publicity for their repulsive views. It’s straight out of the National Front playbook. But today, Farage is to be seen everywhere in the mainstream media and his views given a wide airing without challenge. I fear that our pusillanimous political brand managers lack the strength of character, principles and talent to effectively counter Farage. He could easily be taken down if he was not allowed to spout his nonsense without question. I would like to ask him: what happened to the summer of discontent and riots that he was predicting? Why, having been banging on about leaving the EU, he has never produced a credible plan for implementing it? How come, as a wealthy public schooled former metals trader in the City, he claims to speak for the ordinary man and woman in the street? When is he going to begin acting like an elected representative of Clacton as opposed to behaving like a media tart that loves sucking up to Trump and spends more time in Texas than Essex? How can he reconcile being a so-called man of people when his declarations on the House of Commons register of interests showing him earning hundreds of thousands of pounds since the general election? Having since his recent ridiculous Tik Tok video of him rapping: Nigel Farage – serious politician or opportunistic grifter? Unfortunately, with the BBC and mainstream media giving him a free ride, and a deeply unimpressive political class unable or unwilling to take him on, dark days lie ahead. His views will receive a disproportionate amount of coverage and we all saw how that worked with Brexit.
On another, but related matter, I found the absence of media reports of the Notting Hill Carnival telling. When things go wrong the media have a field day but when it goes well the media keeps quiet.
So many good questions.
Yes, I really do fear that he could persuade people to vote to do this. He, and others in Reform, are getting so much air time be it the BBC, Sky or their two media mouthpieces (one starts with G (channel 236 on Freeview)) and the other with T (can’t remember the channel number for that)) to spread their toxic, vile, nasty hatred without any challenge or push back it seems.
And four years is a long time to spread that message.
Extremely worrying.
Craig
Agreed
But four years can also make people realise what a terrible message it is.
As I mentioned yesterday, in reform led County Durham they are making so many mistakes that people are becoming wise to them.
On Newsnight last night Victoria Derbyshire was trying to goad Tice into saying he wants women and girls to be sent back to Afghanistan to be murdered by the Taliban. He wouldn’t say yes or no.
I was worried when listening to Radio 5 early this morning how much vitriol was shown against migrants. Dotun Adebayo was saying that they couldn’t possibly be bigoted because they were listening to him, a Nigerian.
And in the meantime, Gaza appears to have been forgotten about.
Coming to the UK on a work visa makes you a legal migrant. The reform UK proposal might help you as it targets those in the UK illegally.
Being granted asylum mnakes you a legal migrant.
Maybe 15,000 a year, at most, are not legal migrants on this basis.
So, how does Farage come up with 600,000?
And what are you worried about? Most of those 15,000 are deported already.
So, whnt is the issue? Please explain.
According to ChatGtp Farage said 600,000 over the lifetime of a Parliament. Which would be 120,000 a year. Still 105,000 more than the figure of 15,000 which you suggest are not granted asylum and are therefore not ‘legal migrants’. The Home Office are claiming nearly 10,000 ‘returns’ in the year ending March 2025.
So, after mopping up the remaining 5,000, where are the remaining 100,000 coming from?
I’ve so far seen two blogs from lawyers pointing out the legal difficulties and the near impossibility of a Farage government being able to make the necessary changes to the law needed within the lifetime of a Parliament. The BBC also ran an article on the same lines. I can’t see this being a goer in any way.
On the other hand, I have encountered a number of people on social media who seem perfectly happy with the idea of leaving the ECHR. Many have been keen on this notion since voting to leave the EU…They are indifferent to the implications for themselves and their families.
His pesentation yesterday referred to both options – which was typical Farage.
The rest, I note – but fear law may not have much to do with this. See what Trump is doing.
Don’t feed the troll!
For those in the voting public who don’t believe Brexit was a sufficient punishment beating: ladies, gentlemen and others – welcome to version 2.
Presumably when they can’t fill their 600000 pa quota, they’ll throw in the cripples, wrinklies, tree huggers and work instead. After all, if you’re comfortable with the genocide of people of colour there are absolutely no barriers to throwing the “rest of us useless eaters” under the bus.
This is exactly what the Nazis did.
The English and Welsh voted to leave the EU and damaged their own interests and the UK’s economy in the process.They may very well be susceptible to dual citizenship F*****’s arguments once again.
F***** is feted by the BBC and the rest of the media and has been for years. How many times has he appeared on BBC Question Time? According to Wiki it’s 38.
I am not convinced that Farage could convince people to “give up” their rights. What he is doing is redefining the word “justice”. It is similar political tactic employed by the Polish political party called Law and Justice. Economic and political intervention is good if it helps particular groups of special interest within society, rather than intervention being good if it is inclusive and helps everybody. It is a type of politics that glorifies Reagan’s anti-communism and also has no problem with using the coercive power of the state to be more radical and exclusionary than the politics of Thatcher.
Noted
One term Kier could:-
1. Give an amnesty to the “illegals” promoting it as we get to know how many there are, give them an NI number ( they pay tax) give them an NHS number as they pay tax.
2. Give the 3.5 million EU citizens with Settled Status UK citizenship. A big positive gesture to the EU and comfort to those with Settled Status.
Of course this will never happen.
I like both ideas
Nigel Farage has no plan just a very big gob and no compunction in using it to spout whatever he thinks will fly with popular public opinion. Therein lies his limitation and that of his project. We should be wary of having as low opinion of our fellow citizens as Farage has as it’s unlikely, with such an attitude, we will convince them of anything better.
Sorry Richard but I forgot to pose a few questions earlier for Nigel. Could you please ask him:
1. According to you, Nigel, I am privileged to live in a Reform run county so when can I expect the potholes outside my house to be filled.
2. Could your tech whiz kid in your DOGE team fix a little IT problem for me? It’s what I pay my council tax for after all. Anyway, my search engine seems to be malfunctioning because it cannot find any reference to Reform’s detailed policies on:
The affordable housing crisis
Development and the planning system and how to concrete over your voters’ beloved green fields
Pollution of our rivers and seas by the privatised water industry.
Economic growth and international trade.
Ukraine.
Continued peace in Northern Ireland (by the way will your proposal to leave the ECHR have any effect on this?)
The worsening genocide in Gaza
Climate change and its effect on agriculture – even Jeremy Clarkson is getting jumpy about this
Overpopulated prisons
The collapse of the justice system
The shortage of staff in the NHS (I know some maintain that we can fill vacancies with indigenous workers but where will they come from? Where are all these pre-qualified (or to quote Boris ‘oven ready’) staff? I know some might say that we can train up young people to do this but with the best will in the world this might take years to happen even if they were of the right calibre and willing)
Inward investment
A fairer tax system and growing wealth inequality
Our relationship with wider Europe
Our armed forces – or don’t we need them so much now that you seem to have struck a deal with the Taliban?
Online safety
Mental health issues
Our relationships with the US, Russia (I know you admire Vladimir Putin so which of his policies would you adopt and why), China, the UN, the EU
MPs earnings outside of Parliament
Regulation of the media.
The underlying problem with my search engine leaves me wondering: are you, in reality, a one trick pony?
🙂
Some thoughts on the unleashed fear of the “other”
Countering the fear of the “Other” requires a multi-faceted approach that works on the individual, interpersonal, and societal levels. The goal is not to eliminate group identity, but to expand our definition of “us.”
1. Intergroup Contact
Interpersonal contact is one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice between groups.
The contact must meet specific conditions:
Equal Status for all
Common Goals: Everyone must work together to achieve a shared objective.
Intergroup Cooperation: They must work with, not against, each other.
Support of Authorities, Law, or Custom:
The contact should be encouraged and supported by leaders or institutions to make participants feel safe.
Contact reduces prejudice by:
Dispelling Stereotypes, Building Empathy and Perspective-Taking, Reducing Anxiety
2. Building Cognitive and Emotional Tools
Fostering Empathy (Perspective-Taking): Actively encouraging people to imagine the world from another person’s perspective. It shifts the view of the “Other” from an abstract category to a human being with hopes, fears, and struggles.
Re-Categorization (The “Common In-Group Identity” Model): This strategy involves shifting the boundaries of “us” to include the former “them.”
Critical Thinking and Media Literacy: Teaching people to recognize manipulative language, zero-sum framing, and dehumanizing rhetoric by asking questions like: “Who benefits from me being afraid?”
Managing Anxiety: Directly addressing and reducing the anxiety around intergroup interaction as knowledge about another culture can reduce the “uncertainty” that fuels fear.
3. Structural and Societal Strategies
Psychology recognizes that individual change is difficult without supportive environments.
Institutional Policies: Laws and policies that promote equality and non-discrimination (e.g., fair housing laws, anti-discrimination policies) create the “support of authorities” needed for effective contact.
Education: Integrating accurate, inclusive history and social-emotional learning (SEL) into school curricula.
Counter-Stereotypical Examples: Consciously consuming and promoting media that portrays out-group members in positive, counter-stereotypical roles.
4 Important Caveats and Considerations
It’s Not Just About “Getting Along”: The Contact Hypothesis requires equal status.
The Role of Leaders: They can either amplify fear or model empathy and unity. Their rhetoric matters immensely.
Addressing Real Grievances: Often, fear of the “Other” is channeled from legitimate economic or social anxieties (e.g., job loss, crumbling public services). Effectively countering the fear requires addressing these underlying issues with real policy solutions, not just psychological interventions. Otherwise, the fear will simply find a new target.
Thanks
All true, the last especially so
Am I to understand that this guy with a net worth on 3.2 million (not confirmed) plus elegability for an EU persion of approximatelt 72,00 (again not confirmed) really worries about the people of this country?
Was he not one of those along with Boris who convinced people to vote the UK out of the EU. We had a bus with a message that a vast sum of money would be available for the NHS???? If Labour got in on only 20% he could make it. Lets hope this time that the fishermen, farmers and all the older generations dont believe a word of what he says and either vote for another party or start the Boomer plus party for common sense.
I also thought it was striking there was no mention of the Notting Hill Carnival – it used to be a matter of national pride that it was the worlds biggest carnival of its kind. During the build up there was some anticipation of trouble in discussions about police and face recognition technology, just as in the build up to some London Gaza marches, which in the end got totally censored becasue there was no ‘trouble’ to report despite hundreds of thousands marching.
Richard, it would have been a very effective counter to ECHR issue, for a BBC presenter to pose some of the actual rights we have, and ask which he would abandon :
Freedom from torture, slavery and forced labour. Right to liberty , security ,fair trial, rule of law, privacy and family life. Freedom of thought, conscience and religion ,expression, assembly and association , freedom to marry and found a family, etc
I wish we could have an ‘action movement’, and a charter to go with it, enshrining rights and outlawing political corruption and dark money and a campaign to get all media and members of all political parties to sign up – and get fair represented on BBC panels instead of the ‘Farage 28 appearances, Corbyn 1’ that we have now.
We are in a very dark place
There will be a video on this, tomorrow
What I find difficult to understand is why Farage is riding so high in the polls at the moment, when voters are expressing regret over Brexit and Trump is unpopular. Rafael Behr in this morning’s Guardian refers to Nigel Farage as the most significant politician in his generation, not with any sense of admiration, but by way of indicating the damage he has done. Farage, I believe, can only claim that status because he has never had to actually implement any of the policies he espouses and bear the responsibility for them. This latest policy bears all the Farage hallmarks. It claims that there is a simple solution to a complex problem and is designed to win votes rather than to be a workable solution. His rhetoric is designed to inflame. There is no “invasion”. Invaders come armed, in warships, not overcrowded leaky dinghies with women and children in tow. The only social unrest is the unrest he is stoking for his own electoral ends. Why do the media ( especially the BBC) collude with him? I hope that what we are seeing is a protest vote against an unpopular government and greater exposure will bring greater scrutiny. We have had one charlatan as PM. We do not want another. Whether or not he has a shot at power could depend on where his votes are concentrated and whether the Tories will ally with him. In %age vote terms at the moment a popular front LIB Dem/Labour/ Green coalition would defeat Reform/Tory, but I hate it that someone expressing the views he expressed this weekend is even considered as having a chance at power. Ultimately he would be a terrible PM. He is a publicist and about as far from a Statesman as you could get. He is pretty brave mouthing off about desperate refugees, but he would be the first to capitulate to Putin and his ilk.
The rise of Farage has been enabled by the complete uselessness of the current Labour front bench, and, let’s be honest, the Lib Dems, who now have 72 MPs, are virtually silent too.
I hope Zach Polanski gets the Green Party leadership because I think he will stand up to Farage more effectively than the Greens’ current leadership, who are practically invisible.
If Polanski wins, there will be full cooperation between ‘Your Party’ and most of the Greens. Alas huge efforts are being made to split the Greens and disruption the formation of the new party. I’m a member of the Greens and attempting to form an alliance locally. As you might guess, in Staffordshire, there aren’t many of us.
It’s the same playbook that was used by Trump last year. Supporters of Farage’s bar stool rhetoric will accept having their freedoms limited, as long as those they hate feel the brunt of it first.
Get rid of the HR Act and it will be open season to bring back hanging- I’m sure Farage’s gang will be eager to do so.
Agreed
Although I haven’t lived there since 1990, I follow UK politics and have a number of very good British friends in the Netherlands.
My answer is: Yes
A nation that allowed itself to be so hoodwinked over Brexit, coupled with intensely weak opposition, is ripe for the picking.
My only positive note is your FPTP system has kept Farrage et al out of parliament in great numbers, unlike here in the Netherlands.
Thankfully we’ve just seen in the Netherlands that you can’t work with fascists so hopefully the newly-formed GreenLeft/Labour alliance will win the october election and the great repair can start.
But it seems the coalition partners are decimated in the polls but Wilders’ voters are too stupid to see he’s the problem.
Which is what potential Reform voters seem to be.
Thanks
Good luck for October
Unfortunately I can’t vote, anywhere.
As an Irish citizen I’ve lived for 30+ years in the Netherlands without needing citizenship, thanks EU!
But as an Irish citizen we can’t vote ‘at home’ if we’re not resident ‘at home’.
Rock and a hard place…
David Allen Green writes on his Substack today about how vulnerable we are to an incoming illiberal government.
“If an illiberal radical government obtains a firm majority at the next general election, and is competent, then as the law currently stands nothing would hamper them in what they want to do and much would help them.”
As he says…..brace, brace
https://emptycity.substack.com/p/yes-an-incoming-illiberal-and-radical
Agreed
Unfortunately, those who support him are blinded by his charisma. I’ve tried to reason with a number of people who think he’s the best thing since sliced bread by suggesting he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing but to no avail. They just keep repeating the mantra that he ‘speaks a lot of sense’. It’s much the same as during the Brexit era when I ended up ‘unfriending’ people because they wouldn’t engage in debate – just blind arguments in favour of it, usually quoting well worn myths regarding ‘stopping those coming over here’.
The saying ‘a discussion is an exchange of knowledge and an argument is an exchange of ignorance’ comes to mind. You simply cannot reason with these people or engage in debate as they will put the shutters up in order to maintain and defend their side of the ‘argument’.
It was very similar with Boris, his followers were blinded by his presence but couldn’t see the motives behind his words or actions.
The sad thing is that we have a lot of people around us who are easily manipulated by a small number of people with the help of major elements of the media, because of that we will always have people like Farage doing what Farage does best… stirring the pot with barely any ingredients in it but convincing people his broth is full of goodness.
I cannot understand why people think Farage is charismatic. For me the creature he most resembles physically is a frog. What is charismatic about that? We have had Brexit, then Johnson, then Truss. Why cannot people wake up and realise they they are being hoodwinked AGAIN!
I think the cruelty (and maybe the stupidity too) is actually the point. I think for many there’s is a kind a joy in sharing that cruelty. I think it provides a dopamine rush which they find intoxicating. I think Farage operates on that basis. I think much of our press does too. I think day by day they cultivate the taste for cruelty. It is deeply destructive and evidences a deep cultural malaise.
“Hot Air Farage” patron saint of the hard of thinking and gopher (errand runner) for the Soft-Fascist rich!
Thank you for the list, I have used it to make a comment in the National telling readers what they may lose. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
Thanks
I suspect Robert Jenrick will be Tory leader by the next election and he will undoubtedly do a deal with Reform.
Interesting that Anthony Seldon on Newsnight last night, said that Farage doesn’t have the intellect to be PM. He also thinks that Farage is not in good health.
Leaving ECHR has the serious international problems you mention and scuppers the Good Friday Agreement.
But Jack Straw’s argument (sorry for mentioning him) as Labour perhaps prepare for a desperate Reform-fox-shooting exercise over leaving ECHR, is that the UK’s HRA incorporates the “rights” into UK law, but leaving ECHR keeps the rights but gets rid of the interference of the “foreign court”.
Summarised as:
“KEEP THE GREAT BRITISH HUMAN RIGHTS, GET RID OF THE NASTY FOREIGN COURT”
I can see that argument being popular although I am sure the next step would be for a Reform fascist government to repeal the HRA as well thus leaving us totally unprotected.
I’m looking for good omnibus arguments against Straw’s proposal on ECHR. I don’t trust either Straw OR Fa***e one iota.
You’re assuming that Farage has even the faintest understanding of what he is doing and in the process give him far too much credit. When it comes to Farage and gauging his understanding of the UK’s unwritten constitution, I highly recommend you check out his speeches pertaining to Northern Ireland both before the Brexit vote and after. I can think of few better examples of this charlatan’s shape shifting than that.
Before Brexit, Farage claimed in a debate with Vernon Coaker that there wouldn’t be border problems after Brexit because the Republic wasn’t in Schengen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c6hKyk2F9s (from around 18:30).
After Brexit, he started making ridiculous, unworkable recommendations to solve the border problem. I seem to recall he even claimed that no one discussed the problem before the vote too but I cannot find any links to that.
The thing with Farage is that he’s a clueless halfwit rather than a fascist. He is genuinely incapable of connecting his wanging on about small boats to the rise of aggressive and virulent fascist movements growing in the country, let alone the legal impracticality of his proposals in a functioning democracy. The man is too stupid to have a plan and seemed genuinely blindsided by the idea that someone like Yaxley-Lennon belonged in the same party. I certainly believe he could destroy our human rights legislation but not deliberately but because of his crass stupidity; frequently he finds himself leading people far, far worse than himself which is what led him to leave UKIP and – in the future – will probably be why he leaves Reform.
If he ever got into number 10 rather than one of the real fascist thugs behind him, then I suspect what would happen is that his whole legislative programme would get gummed up by its impracticality, just like Brexit did with Northern Ireland.
Thanks
I voted no. I do not believe the public will be fooled again by these scoundrels. Farage has no sustainable arguments and he’s probably implode long before any General Election.His record of failure is there for all to see, Brexit being the most obvious. As soon as he comes under pressure, he’ll fold. He has support from the Mail and Express, which is really the kiss of death. Hitler, Johnson, Truss, have all been annointed by these rags posing as newspapers. All failed. In summary, Reform are not serious people and we should attack their ideas which are just not serious ideas.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/27/nigel-farage-rolls-back-on-vow-to-deport-all-small-boat-arrivals-to-the-uk
(the subeditor missed a trick with that headline – I’d have written “Fa***e ROWS back on small boats plan” (sorry)
“couldn’t organise a booze-up in a brewery” springs to mind – which for a beer-swilling-multi-millionaire-man-of-the-people-one-of-us-ex-City-Metals-trading-Trump-sycophant-grifter with a very large, mostly undeserved EU MEPs pension, is really quite damning.
Or as someone once said, “WHA’A PLONKAH”!
(His plans for deporting EVERY small boat arrival and his post ECHR plans for renegotiating the NI GFA agreement rather fell apart at todays “look we’ve got another defector, let’s see how long we can hang on to him” press conference went a bit awry.
Is Farage operating a “one in, one out” policy with regard to his party’s MPs MSPs and councillors (one defects IN, one resigns OUT)?
It’s easy to mock him (he is a mockery after all) but I imagine none of this will dent his support base. Yet.
Yet one does wish, that as the MSM have been giving him a leg-up for the last 9 years, isn’t it time our courageous journalists occasionally put the boot in? (while they still can, without getting locked up or shot)
The ability to manage an occasion at a brewery just passed my lips whilst watching Channel 4 News.
Farage and his ilk have beat you to the punch by adopting the language people want to hear. It’s right there in the name: reform. Constituents feel shafted and want change. They want someone to be accountable. Over here, Trump is still tapping into that energy with all his yapping about Soros. On front page of my digital version of the FT is an article about wanting to charge Soros with racketeering.
But the joke’s on the electorate, because neither Farage nor Trump give a fig about them, or their rights. (1)
Those migrants which people hate so much and want gone? Trump hasn’t gotten rid of them. They’re still there, harvesting our food, processing our meat, cleaning our toilets. He’s just going after the ones who dared to dream of a life outside of full time exploitation. And if Farage follows in Trump’s footsteps, it’ll be more of the same. Don’t believe me? Go read about what the far right has done in Italy. The caporalato are doing just fine.
When I get very cynical, I think on some level people know this — they know they’re being played — and they join up anyway just for the chance to vent and let loose.
(1) Op-ed authors don’t seem to care about rights either, these days. I was appalled to see Janan Ganesh lambasting our focus on Constitutions (which is not, as he implies, just a “liberals” issue). Yes, as it happens, we still want to “promote the general Welfare,” “establish Justice,” and have a Bill of Rights, which protects rights both enumerated and unenumerated.
I am sadly reminded of discussions I had during Brexit, when I said to people “what about ???, we have that as a consequence of being members of the EU” they didn’t believe me, thinking ??? was normality, the way things were, always had been and always would be and “why would leaving the EU have any effect on things like that?”
P.S. I would email my MP if I thought it would help, but since my MP, a Mr N Farage, has never replied to any of my previous emails I think it rather pointless.
Bad luck
It’s worrying that Farage wants to do away with the ECHR, but Starmer is breaking or ignoring the majority all ready. No wonder many say there is a uniparty in the UK.
A very good post, that makes it very clear why people shouldn’t vote for “Mr Grifter”.
Removing the Right To Life, tells you everything you need to know about those who join Reform and their ideology.