Is Reform as bad as the BNP?

[Silviasilvertoes]

Off the back of another thread, how does Reform compare to the BNP? I loathe Farage and haven’t taken much notice of his manifesto (contract!) as I don’t want his nonsense in my head, but DM keeps telling me what’s ‘good’ about him. She has previous form for voting UKIP and thinking Johnson was much maligned and a generally nice chap. She reads the Heil every day, so I generally let discussions about politics go over my head otherwise I’d lose my cool.

I think the problem with this is that to solve the issues at the moment we need to rejoin the SM and CU. And doing that without rejoining isn’t without issues either. Namely that we’d have to follow EU rules without getting a seat at the table.
There isn’t an easy solution to this that takes us back to pre 2016 but I’m not sure ignoring the elephant in the room isn’t helping either.

Farage is a populist of course, and he certainly can command an audience. I think sometimes people look at his confidence and bonhomie and think that he would be a good leader. White working class people in that poor part of Sheffield say they felt left behind. It's those people who will turn to Reform.

I don't think Reform are as bad as the BNP, but I do know that quite a lot of people are voting for them.

France has already made it clear that they won't accept push backs to France and will not accept them back.

If France would take them back, we'd already be doing that. Instead we have the ludicrous Rwanda scheme.

Farage is lying.

They wouldn't have us without us giving up the pound and moving to the euro. That won't happen in a month of Sundays, so we had best get on with working out some other deal. It's a good job we have such a strong negotiating team 🤦‍♂️

I think we would have been better just walking away when we left and saying "well, if you want a deal, our door is open". They probably would have offered us better than we got under BoJo.

I wonder what Kier Starmer's team's negotiating skills are like?

Reform wants to end ‘non-essential immigration’. I think when challenged on the numbers on that it turns out to be quite a lot. Given that the current net migration figures already include all the people who would count as ‘essential’, it may not be a big difference.

David Lammy has already been working at building relationships with EU players. That’s how Keir Starmer was at the D Day commemoration and scored the photo with Zelensky.

I seem to recall Ben Habib saying that they should be left to drown.

Is this what Reform voters want?
I am struggling to understand.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them do, if Facebook and X are anything to go by. Habib is co deputy leader of Reform and advocated leaving asylum seekers to drown in an interview with Julia Hartley - Brewer earlier this year. If that's what Reform voters are prepared to endorse I don't think it reflects very positively on them.

I agree with you, there is a significant difference. Though it is the difference between treading once on dog mess with shoes on (Reform) or several cowpats without (the BNP).

@LlynTegid this is why I love politics on MN. At some point, you know someone will sum it up perfectly.

So how do you account for all the Reform candidates with far right racist posts on social media? To say nothing of the ones who say we should have entered into a treaty with Hitler before WW1?

As in a no deal Brexit? That would have worked out considerably worse for us that them. It would have been us crawling back for a deal. There’s a reason we’ve been rolling all sorts of stuff and haven’t fully left yet. It isn’t because the EU need us. They are over Brexit.

Doesn’t matter how good Starmer’s negotiators are. There’s no cakeism. and there won’t ever be. It’s more a question of what is the least worst consequence of doing something incredibly daft.

I know they are over Brexit now, but at the time it might have worked. Might have. There was a brief moment when they didn't want other countries to follow suit, and in that moment it just might have been better than slowly demonstrating that we didn't have a clue.

In any negotiation, the will that weakens first strengthens the other. We certainly weakened first.

I take your point though, that window was very small. We are now a shining example of reasons not to leave. Which, of course, many of us knew already.

But the best way to stop other countries following suit was to play hardball surely? Why would they have given any ground at all if no negotiations had happened? That would just have been the No Deal Brexit that we spent time and money preparing for in case it brought the country to a standstill.

They may well not have. It was something that flitted through my mind. I can't see that it would have ended any worse than it has.

As I said, there was a moment when it might have worked. Since the best option was to stay, it most likely wouldn't have.

Oh look, another Reform candidate with connections to the Kremlin.🤔 How stupid is this man who thought Salisbury would be up for hearing what a decent chap Vladimir Putin is?🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/24407670.reform-uk-salisbury-candidate-says-putin-seemed-good/

He seemed a bit confused. I'm wondering under what circumstances he met Putin. Definitely the wrong place.

I bet loads of people will still vote for him, and what's worse, agree with him. Its been known for years Farage was a massive great Putin fan. These people have spent years painting our friends as our enemies all the while cosying up to our actual enemies.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c7227027mdnt
Reform? Racist comments? Nigel is shocked.

O poor Nige, he must be feeling really let down. Hey, stupids, you're not supposed to say it out loud. I wonder how many bets NF has made on the GE in varying forms. Didn't he lose money by betting on Brexit vote and winning by mistake?

😂😂😂

You might as well vote for Combat18.