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.

Kier Starmer has a country to run. Garage seems to spend his time thinking of new excuses for being given £5m. Bit different.

StarlightLady
as well as having children who have opted for EU passports

You talk about Farage's children, but how many children would rather have what Starmer's children got instead? What was it, concert tickets and a private chat with Taylor Swift for both children, his son having access to Arsenal's hospitality box with dad (no doubt including food and refreshments/autograph signing with some of the players), not to mention the luxury penthouse flat near Covent Garden for GCSE studying and afterwards. I would rather have all that than save 20 minutes at passport control on holiday.

The Brexiteer Jessop. If you’re going to decry perfectly legitimate research at least provide a credible alternative.

Presumably Farage’s kids have got access to £5 million from their Thai crapto mate.

He is equally qualified to give his assessment (I see he has a first class degree in economics from Cambridge, an MPhil in economics also from Cambridge, plus relevant professional experience). I am happy for you to link to other peer reviews on that paper instead. He obviously is credible otherwise he would not have been invited to give evidence to the Treasury Committee - although perhaps Rachel Reeves has run out of ideas.

Kier Starmer has a country to run

Not for long looking at the Makerfield polls.

This hasn’t worn well.

https://brexitcentral.com/why-investment-should-rebound-after-brexit/

And how is that MP in any way responsible for her husband's actions?

We are all biased.

You were a EU citizen when you voted leave.

I see the damage Brexit is causing the UK and want better.

Good grief, the delusions emanating from that article.

My DB lives in Farage's constituency and voted for Reform.

He's so pissed off with his MP's attitude to his constituents, he says he won't be voting for him next time.

I hope and his fellow disaffected Reform voters move to Restore. My cup would runneth over if he was deposed by Lowe’s party.

It seems a perfectly sensible and well-balanced article to me.

(Obviously written before Covid struck).

That tells me all I need to know.

I’m not at all surprised—he sells himself and the country to the highest bidder and for pennies in some cases. Self service is No.1 on his list of priorities. He’s an utter grifter and snake oil salesman—it’s incomprehensible that this is not self evident to most. He’s exploiting the people in most need for his own gain—slinging culture war bait whenever his popularity begins to wane. Culture wars don’t pay the bills or make lives better—except for him and his super rich funders. He’s despicable and belongs in the dustbin of history.

This weekend Farage is busy retweeting Vance's comments on the UK

Sovereignty?

I think we must be reading a different article.

Well, it acknowledges that investment was knocked sideways by Brexit but it sneaks in the truly idiotic view that Brexit could have been any different. I'm sure that view will also be pedalled by some on here but nobody with any contact with reality believes that Brexit was going to do anything other than knock GDP & investment. You can't introduce barriers to the worlds largest trading bloc and our nearest neighbours and benefit.

At least the public recognises that we will need closer relationships with the EU - Trump & Putin together have done marvellously at cementing that opinion.

We'll just have to be rule takers.

He doesn't sneak anything in - he talks about needlessly prolonged Brexit uncertainty deterring business investment (the article was written in August 2019 when MPs were still arguing with each other in the Commons). If I remember correctly, the paper in your link also refers to the protracted nature of the process causing business uncertainty, as do the OBR. I bet you haven't even read the paper you linked to.

I have read the full paper. The NBER doesn’t claim that the negotiations were ‘needlessly’ drawn out.
It took the time that it did because the referendum was back of a fag packet stuff and there was no clear route to Brexit that was universally agreed upon.
The idea that it was the implementation of Brexit that was faulty not Brexit itself is exactly the delusion I referred to.

I have read the full paper

How did you access it?

It took the time that it did because the referendum was back of a fag packet stuff and there was no clear route to Brexit that was universally agreed upon.

It took the time it did because half of our MPs were not willing to accept a democratic vote, not to mention the various legal challenges from Gina Miller et al.

Reform are increasingly running out of steam. Their choice of candidate in Makerfield is bizarre. I assume they thought “ordinary bloke” and “local” might have a similar effect to Hannah Spencer in Denton and Gorton; unfortunately the “ordinary bloke” they’ve chosen is totally out of his depth, with a devious social media past (which he seems weirdly unable to explain).

There was no universally agreed version of Brexit - it was left deliberately blank in order for people to draft their own ideal version.

You can’t implement what doesn’t exist. Of course Parliament should debate the significant trade offs involved in creating new trade barriers. Sovereignty.

I don't think the Reform candidate is doing badly in the polls at all - rather the Greens, Lib Dems and Conservatives have all collapsed, not to mention Restore are in the mix. I wonder if Keir Starmer will go to the backbenches after he is toppled.

Brexit was a simple vote between remain and leave.

Vote leave won and the UK left the EU