To think Farage surely has to go

[OneKookyShark]

So Farage has some dodgy private company set up to avoid paying tax. Is he being pressured to resign as head of Reform? Of course not. Because he’s an entitled privileged man.

The double standards are incredible really. Here’s the story https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/05/nigel-farage-uses-private-company-to-pay-less-tax-on-gb-news-earnings

While I think Rayner had to resign, why are the same standards not being applied?

I think you'll find the Telegraph, Mail and Sun believe Liz Truss's budget - yes, that one- was a Truly Conservative budget that was welcomed wholeheartedly. Can't think why the markets disagreed. Although it may be because, as she says, 'The Elite Establishment' was out to get her.🙄

Or alternatively:

A left wing working class woman from a council estate should be allowed to keep her job after lying and illegally evading taxes, whereas
A right wing middle class man from a privileged background should be sacked and prosecuted for legally avoiding and reducing his tax bill.

Why not just cut to the chase and imprison anyone deemed to be far right?

You really are a true believer aren’t you ?

Ah thank you, yeah let's get more of that

A true believer in what?

If it was just that she’d be still in the job she had. No one could defend the £40k tax dodge so she was out.

I hate HATE Farage. If you're really naive enough to think he's a 'man of the people' and he's going to gallop in and save you then god help you, I feel sorry for you. He wouldnt spit on you if you were on fire. He's entirely out for himself, it's so completely painfully obvious. Endlessly chopping and changing governments does no one any favours. I don't support any party anymore but I'd honestly rather drink raw sewage than ever put a cross next to that self serving, slimy fucker's name.
I can't imagine what it must be like to be BAME right now, it's like a nightmare and I'm so sorry for the abuse they are facing from morons egged on by this twat. I'm absolutely disgusted at what we've become and I'm ashamed to be British - which is ironic given the flag waving bollocks doing the rounds.

She resigned because she broke the ministrial code.

Makes a difference, doesn't it?

Nicely put CheerfuĺBunny, entirely agree.

Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of anyone's tax affairs Farage set up Reform as a limited company, not a political party as the same type as Labour and most of the other parties, so it's not as simple as him just resigning or being forced out.

The Structure of Reform has changed a little since it was set up, but it appears that it is now owned by a company which is part owned by Farage. It is doubtful whether he could be forced out as leader.

👀

100% this! 👏👏

Seems The Mirror is struggling with the concept of legal and illegal... 🤔

Well we have just found one who doesn’t have a decent tax adviser.

It is saddening that the choice of politicians is ‘using every possible way to legally avoid tax’ and ‘too incompetent to find a tax adviser so accidentally not paying tax’.

If you pay into a pension, have an ISA, or buy something at duty free, you’re avoiding tax. Avoiding tax (where it is legal to do so) isn’t a problem, and the Government even, and rightly, encourages it in many circumstances (otherwise ISAs wouldn’t exist).

I may not love the man but all Farage is doing is availing himself of the ability to manage his tax affairs in the most efficient legal way possible.

Thats completely different to tax evasion which is not paying tax that’s legally required.

AR didn’t “make a mistake”. Literally, a quick google shows very clearly that in her circumstances, second home stamp duty is payable. That is undeniable. The valuation of said home also looks somewhat iffy as does the fact that she claimed to be “doing it for her children” whilst buying a property hundreds of miles away from them. If she needs to be near her London office, she has a grace and favour apartment for that.
I couldn’t give a fig that she’s a Northern woman and working class. I am too, but I pay my taxes.
But as for Reform? Anyone who reads their manifesto and can use a basic calculator can see it’s all pie in the sky. So I don’t know where we go from here?
Personally, I think we need a budget, now. Delaying until November is just increasing uncertainty and speculation. Just tell us so we know!

Angela Raynor 😂😂

Angela Rayner had a genuinely complicated stamp duty situation which has been spun incorrectly by the press and many posters.

She was buying a main home to live in with her partner, but also post divorce had a trust set up so she could protect her disabled child’s future provision. Yes she should have taken proper advice but trusts are very complicated. It would be easy to think the Hove flat would be her only main home. I agree politicians should err on the side of caution. She should have paid the maximum amount even if it was arguable. But her situation is no where near as bad as the following examples :

•	Farage’s constant shabby murky dealings. It is not just his property ownership arrangements.  We have short memories has everyone forgotten the detail of the illegal funding of a £450k “gift/loan” from Arron Banks? 
•	The blatant Tory profiteering from dodgy Covid contracts worth billions.
•	Or what about Rees-Mogg profiting millions from pushing for Brexit whilst planning for his firm to bet against the pound to profit hugely from the ensuing chaos?

It has always been the case that there is a huge double standard. Labour are held to higher standards than the Tories. Always.

My theory is that there’s a class psychology involved. There’s a misplaced belief that the Tory masters may show shrewd sharp practice but they will do right by the underclass who serve them loyally. It’s sort of viewed through a distorted lens, like an aristocrat looking after staff on a country estate ( ‘ Ee’s tough but fair is t’master’. Ee may beat us but Ee puts food on t’table. ). Whilst any members of the ‘underclass’ who rise up to power are resented for getting above themselves.

So yes , led by the right wing press, the consensus will be to simplify and therefore exaggerate Angela Rayner’s messy one off stamp duty situation, but then turn a constant blind eye when Farage or many Tories profit handsomely at public expense.

She’s literally resigned because she did wrong, and yet still people are trying to protect her.

You’re conflating tax avoidance with tax planning.

Tax avoidance is bending the rules of the tax system to gain a tax advantage that Parliament never intended. It often involves contrived, artificial transactions that serve little or no purpose other than to produce a tax advantage.

Tax avoidance is not the same as tax planning. Tax planning involves using tax reliefs for the purpose for which they were intended. For example, claiming tax relief on capital investment, saving in a tax-exempt ISA or saving for retirement by making contributions to a pension scheme are all legitimate forms of tax planning. While such actions may reduce the total amount of tax paid, they are not tax avoidance, because they involve using tax reliefs in the way that Parliament intended when it passed the relevant legislation.

The rayner situation does make sense as to why Labour are so reluctant to go after high earning tax evaders. They're inside the house!

I voted labour. and i think rayner has been very very stupid and had to go. I think the best way to improve the country would be to go after the billions lost in tax evasion and fraud every year.

You’d not get far as a Labour MP trying to convince people she should stay. There’s a reason no one would after her attempts to blame Verrico failed.

She's gone because she's a gobby Lefty Northern 'working class' single parent woman who was taking up a place that rightfully belongs to any weak chinned Rupert of any political persuasion. Having driven Boris Johnson into a frenzy by crossing her legs when across the House from him, her Mata Hari charms were too much for the collective Right who kingly named her the ginger growler. Just for starters. I'm sorry to have lost her . She'll be back.

Tax planning is to avoid tax. What are you taking about?

Labour are reluctant to tax the wealthy more as even though they have not done anything on personal taxation yet, there are constant reports in the press of wealthy people leaving the country or deciding to invest in business elsewhere.

The problem is that the super rich individuals and corporations control the world and governments can only do so much. What they fear is countries joining up and working together to harmonise taxation so there is nowhere to hide their money, or people coming together to rise up against them.

Hence all the divisive politics and constant pointing the finger elsewhere.