Here's what Nigel Farage is up to this weekend.

[RobinInTheCrabApple]

Nigel Farage is flying more than 3,000 miles to speak at a pro-Trump U.S. think tank.

For around 12 hours’ work this Saturday the Reform UK leader is expected to collect £27,856.88 from the Club for Growth, a Washington-based anti-tax lobby group that has pledged to work closely with Donald Trump ahead of the 2026 U.S. midterms.

This group helped raise £120m for Republican candidates in the 2024 election.

So while people in Clacton deal with rising costs, poverty and cuts Farage is being paid the equivalent of many people’s yearly salary to give a single speech in America.

You gotta love the hypocrisy of the right. Spend all their time moaning about "Never here Keir" will bending over backwards to defend the hide and seek champion of politics.

Said it before and I'll say it again. We need to just split the country in two, lefties to one side, righties to the other and be done with it. The right side can enjoy their world of no universal healthcare, no workers or human rights, no environmental protections etc., etc and the left can reclaim that part of the country in a decade or so.

@KeepPumping

So you can't name a single Brexit benefit then? I'm shocked

Indeed. They put themselves forward to represent those people. Nobody made them do it. They get paid well enough. If they have a lot of time for other work they aren’t doing it properly.

For those asking what has the UK lost through Brexit
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7847/

You do realise that was our money to start with? The UK was one of the largest net contributors to the EU budget.

Farage isn't Leader of the Opposition

He might as well be for all the fuss people make over him.

The UK is still paying the EU, so called Brexit divorce bill.

There has not been a loss of GDP - GDP has grown. The research paper you are referring to claims that GDP may have grown 6-8% higher than it is now - and considerably higher than either France or Germany which seems unlikely.

As for immigration, I see that there were anti-asylum protests across the Netherlands last month (your home country);

https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/71372/rioting-leads-to-fire-in-asylum-facility-in-the-netherlands

It's my country of birth, my home country is the UK

I condemn those riots, don't you?

Not as much as we would have paid in contributions - at least £60 billion since 2020. NB The Brexit divorce bill includes £8.9 billion for our standard contribution in 2020 during the transition year when we were still members of the single market etc. We would have paid that anyway.

We would have paid that anyway

And would have benefitted. Now we don't

The Netherlands paid more per capita or proportion of GDP if you want to do some more whataboutery

My mistake - I've seen you refer to 'my country' when discussing football (not the UK).

I condemn those riots, don't you?

Obviously.

This research paper?

“The Economic Impact of Brexit
Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Pawel Smietanka, and Gregory Thwaites
NBER Working Paper No. 34459
November 2025
JEL No. EO
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the impact of the UK's decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) in 2016.
Using almost a decade of data since the referendum, we combine simulations based on macro data with estimates derived from micro data collected through our Decision Maker Panel survey. These estimates suggest that by 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time. We estimate that investment was reduced by between 12% and 18%, employment by 3% to 4% and productivity by 3% to 4%. These large negative impacts reflect a combination of elevated uncertainty, reduced demand, diverted management time, and increased misallocation of resources from a protracted Brexit process. Comparing these with contemporary forecasts - providing a rare macro example to complement the burgeoning micro-literature of social science predictions - shows that these forecasts were accurate over a 5-year horizon, but they underestimated the impact over a decade.”

Or rather, not England

Yes - NBER Working Paper No. 34459

A working paper so not peer reviewed - apart from this review;

What the NBER gets wrong on the 'Economic Impact of Brexit'

https://julianhjessop.substack.com/p/what-the-nber-gets-wrong-on-the-economic

You make a big thing about where duncin was born every time Brexit is mentioned. Not occasionally. Every time.

As if that magics up some invisible Brexit benefits.

It doesn’t disguise that it’s made the country poorer.

You will be gobsmacked when I tell you we have an England flag waving during football tournaments.

Comments like that is why it hasn't surprised me to see you fighting Farage's corner.

Julian Jessop of the IEA? The same IEA that campaigned for a hard Brexit and Truss?

What a lot of cut and paste on this thread.

He certainly missed the official photos for 2009 - 2014, however the correct number of people appear to be there (25), perhaps someone dropped out;

Committees 7th parliamentary term (2009 - 2014) PECH
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/archives/7/pech/members

Also, I note that Farage previously stated that UKIP always sent a substitute to the meetings (PECH) at least.

That’s 15 years of doing nothing and taking the money.

To be fair, Farage was voted in to be a disruptor, to force the UK's exit from the European Union and the Common Fisheries Policy - something he achieved.

You make a big thing about where duncin was born every time Brexit is mentioned

Not very often in fact. In any case, she is an EU citizen - she's biased!

Julian Jessop, who was invited to give evidence at the Treasury Committee several months ago, discussing the future of the OBR (chaired by Meg Hillier) - that Julian Jessop.

I imagine that both Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage pay staff to cover constituency work for them.

He certainly gets a lot more airtime and press coverage than Badenoch. Although not so much since the £5m issue as he has mostly gone into hiding.

As I said that doesn't magic up the Brexit benefits.