Farage is leader of the opposition

What about Thatcher, Blair, Cameron?

They were party leaders with majority governments behind them. As for Liz Truss, the damage done was undone within 3 months. It’s only the economically illiterate that think interest rates today are down to blink and you miss it Liz Truss premiership and not due to half a trillion of money printing to pay for covid lockdowns.

All of them, as important as they were, Compared with a one man band who single handedly led the country to Brexit.

It takes an incredible amount of naivety to think that parliamentarians are solely responsible for shaping the way the this country is run. For decades, Lobbyists and in the last 30 years single issue campaigners like Farage have been steering the political debate to a large extent.

Again, rational people don’t allow their dislike of someone to cloud their view of reality. Asking the media to ignore him is childish wishful thinking.

I'd love to see them go head to head in a debate !!

I agree that the not admitting who you will vote for could be a factor - it was for the Brexit polls.

Reform's vote is spread too thinly across the country.

They probably will get a decent number of votes. UKIP did too, once upon a time.

That doesn't translate into seats though. 1, at most.

Now, whether or not you think that is right is another matter, but that is how it is under FPTP.

😂

Not a chance in hell.

Farage is a grifter who cares about two things only: his media profile and his bank account.

If he wins the Clacton seat (which is a reasonable assumption) his constituents will soon find out that his field of fucks is entirely barren with regard to them. Anyone voting for him - or one of his merry band of swivel-eyed loons - in the belief that having a Reform MP will in any way improve their life, is going to be sorely, sorely disappointed.

He was a shit, lazy, self-interested MEP and he'll be a shit, lazy, self-interested MP, and a shit, lazy, self-interested Leader of the Reform-atives. He lives to stir the pot, nothing else.

They have a working contract (just had a look).

To be honest it doesn’t read as “we hate foreigners “, it addresses stuff that has just been fudged around in the last few years.

Like I said, if there is no damage in illegal immigration let’s have those discussions to shed light on it. Show up what a tit Farage is.
Unfortunately any talks thus far with our current leaders don’t seem to address or change anything.

Many threads on MN have come to a conclusion that a European health insurance system is inevitable at some point, that the NHS is beyond repair in its current form. Again, have real conversations about how the NHS can be sorted would be good right about now. As it is the “plans” (in the loosest sense of the word) I’ve heard/read so far have no substance and no real way of showing how improvements are actually going to be achievable. But it needs thrashing out, not dismissing because someone’s saying something unpopular.

Farage is absolutely a bandwagon grifter, but he appears to have listened to people’s concerns and appears to be willing to take them seriously, which is more than can be said for Sunak and Starmer. Tories have had 14 years to make a dent on the mess we’re in. Starmer has had 4 years of being leader of the opposition. We don’t have a lot to show for it. Maybe if things weren’t such a shambles there wouldn’t be such a public appetite for Reform.

To be clear I am not voting Reform, I’m not right wing in any way. However I feel like I’ve learned from the Brexit shitshow that it’s not enough to put up with lazy polarisation. That way chaos and destruction lies.

Exactly this. People underestimated Brexit... and that worked out well didn't it!?

Yes, apparently, Reform are ahead of the Tories in the polls... and bear in mind those people will be the ones who are admitting it! The actual number could be a LOT higher...

I say 'ignore' Farage at your peril.

Love him or loathe him, he is a heavyweight in our politics. I won't be shocked if he becomes PM one day.

Farage undoubtedly has had a big impact on politics... in the destructive asteroid sort of way. Creates chaos and buggers off to America rather than attempting to do anything constructive re brexit.

I sort of hope he does get elected, finds himself an MP with as little influence as any other minority party backbencher and a requirement to do constituency surgeries.

Reading their "contract" now.

Tax cutting
Don't believe in climate change - because CO2 is needed for photosynthesis
Stop paying benefits if you don't take a job
They don't umderstand Northern Ireland and trafe
Social Care - TBC

I think some detailed examination of their policies is needed

Really?

Come on now. Thatcher. Blair. Cameron. 3 just for starters. Argubly Liz Sodding Truss given how much damage she did in a month. Farage is a minor footnote.

And do try to read properly. I said if the media started ignoring him, he'd go away. He lives on the massively disproportionate airtime he gets compared to what he deserves, spewing out his hateful shit whenever someone so much as points a camera at him

Even if he gets elected, he's going to be an MP of 1 for reform. He'll have no power or influence whatsoever to enact his batshit ideas about zero net migration.

He certainly won't sit on any commitees and if he acts anything like he did when he was an MEP, he probably won't bother turning up most of the time anyway, the lazy prick.

Have they published their manifesto yet? So far Farage's policies seem to be 'we hate foreigners ' and replace the NHS with an insurance based system.

Nigel Farage is getting support based on a single issue - immigration.
The conservatives only have to also say that they will also commit to net zero migration (people come and people go but those two things cancel each other out) and they will win those votes back as Reform isn't a rounded party just single issue.

Farage is right that the British public voted Brexit largely on the principle of being able to control our borders. We are now able to (to a large extent in terms of legal migration) but have chosen not to.

The main parties not committing to reducing immigration is why Farage will get votes. For a lot of people the concern is directly the connection between more people and lack of housing. I believe the population increased by 750,000 last year. Labour are committing to building 150,000 homes a year I believe so if immigration levels continue even as they are and don't rise, housing which is already in crisis won't keep pace with the number of people coming.

In the televised debate Stephen Flynn for the SNP said that he/the SNP want more immigration to fill jobs. I don't know how widespread the housing crisis is in Scotland but I do know that Edinburgh has a huge housing crisis. I don't expect Scottish people who can't find a home to rent or don't know how their children leave home want to vote for someone that would like to increase immigration. I think parties declaring they want more immigration are deluded if they think people are going to vote for that policy.

People say it is easy or a cheap shot to blame immigrants for lack of housing. I'm not "blaming" anyone for anything but as we have a housing crisis with tens of people going for every rental surely we don't want to increase our population?

I also believe that encouraging people to move here to care for our aging population etc is just a pyramid scheme as those people will in turn age and we will have to ship in ever more people to care for them also.

We have structural problems in caring for and supporting our children/elderly and ill/disabled now that it takes 2 salaries to afford and run a home and both parents are having to work full time until 60 plus. If we could return to affordable housing based on one third of one wage then people would be able do more caring for their own family rather than having to outsource everything.

When it comes to election day, I dont think his rhetoric will count for much.

If the Tories had got some of their policies "past the post" immigration, NHS etc then they may have been in with a chance but they dont seem to have taken governing seriously.

That said I fear Labour even more.

We do have an ageing population. What does he think the best way would be to tackle that? How would he find social care to do it when there are fewer people available with a decreasing younger population?

He'd better have an answer for that if he ends up representing Clacton.

He is a perennial chancer, taking advantage of preference falsification.

Many people have been talking about this extremely passionately for a long time - in no way is this a Farage issue. There was the AV referendum before there was a Brexit referendum - it didn't really tackle the issue of FPTP the way people wanted and was unsatisfactory but it shows that the subject has been contentious and something that Lib Dems and the Greens and their supporters feel strongly about along with other smaller parties who actually have some MPs. Farage has failed to get elected seven times. He's been rejected by voters over and over again. There is no reason he should feel entitled to a head to head debate at all - there are plenty of other elected representatives in the queue ahead of him.

Hiya Nige

I think he needs to be asked some serious and detailed questions.

We do have an ageing population. What does he think the best way would be to tackle that? How would he find social care to do it when there are fewer people available with a decreasing younger population?

There are many people who are economically inactive - is that a problem?

The UK is going to get a more varied climate with more extremes because of climate change - what would he do to ensure Britain is prepared for that?

High Streets lack investment - how would he level up?

All he does is say immigration is too high and Net Zero is bad.

It's easy to say such things. So what would his plans be for the UK ?

I'd love to see him debate someone with the straightforward honesty and command of the facts to present the opposite view to his racist anti-immigrant bile, and demonstrate why it's exactly that.

So not Keir Starmer then.

I agree. Love him or hate him, Nigel Farage has highlighted the fact that we are virtually a two party nation and have been for a long time. That is not democratic in my opinion.

^ this exactly

I can still see tories doing a deal with him at the last minute. Remember that the ERG type of Tory is supportive of Trussonomics which itself is Farage’s wet dream too. As the old saying goes they are 2 cheeks of the same arse. Look at Tory MPs like Andrea Jenkyns who are putting his photo on their campaign literature.
What concerns me is when ex labour red wall brexity types realise what they’ve bought into. Certainly not left wing economics and more conservative social opinions.
This could be massively destabilising for the country…..

He's not being ignored. He's getting tons of press and people are talking about him. But he isn't leader of the opposition. So he can't have the debate he's asking for. No one is ignoring him by saying he is not an MP, he is not leader of the opposition and he has no right to a televised one to one debate with Starmer.