Letter to the FT that stingingly sums up Brexit and the shit creek we now find ourselves in. A terrible idea (naive, prejudiced and uninformed) that has deeply divided us and left us poorer and less secure… but unwilling to face up to the damage we’ve done to ourselves. While the EU moves on.

“Over half (54%) of exporters in a survey of almost 1,000 businesses – the majority of which were small and medium-sized firms – said the (Brexit) trade deal negotiated by Boris Johnson’s govt… was not helping them” Paying a v high price for Brexit ‘sovereignty’. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Tory MP Matt Vickers' car crash encounter with @lewisgoodall.com on #Brexit. LG: Do you accept you damaged the economy? MV: No. LG: Are you saying Brexit has been good for business? MV: It's created opportunities. LG: What about all the evidence? MV: You need to come up north. Huh? 😵‍💫 ~AA

“We have sacrificed our national success because of our fear of immigration. And now, if Farage has his way, we'll do it all over again” Superb, important analysis of the profound harm Farage does to our country in his rabidly racist and egotistical bid for power liveapp.inews.co.uk/category/407...

It's almost as if people have contrived to turn immigration into an obsession

Reform politicians double down on their racism because they’re proudly racist. Farage won’t apologise for his or his party’s racism because he needs his racist voters on side. Reform is racist. Farage is racist. Don’t call for apologies. Call them what they are. app.independent.co.uk/2025/12/20/2...

The worst, most dishonest prime minister we’ve ever had, rocks back and forth in his Daily Mail cubbyhole spewing out idiotic bilge to kid himself that he and his disastrous Brexit weren’t an almighty national fuck-up. A deeply pathetic threat from an abject failure of a man.

Reform tried to dismiss questions on Farage’s racism, saying they should be asked about the ‘substance’ of their policies instead. Unsurprisingly, their policies are shit too. “The trouble with power is that it’s exposing, both politically and personally” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

As soon as the racist bunting went up and St George crosses were being daubed everywhere, we knew. This was a far-right funded migrant-intimidation campaign, pretending to be about national pride. Never felt less proud. And many have never felt less safe. Disgusting of politicians to endorse it.

Dog-whistle and factually incorrect. Ladies, raise your hand if you were sexually assaulted by a boy at school? I’d wager this or a family member is most women’s first experience of sexual violence

It’s exactly this kind of dismal, prejudiced bollox from the Daily Mail that’s got us into the ruinous Brexit mess we’re in. What a moronic response to us rejoining Erasmus and all the benefits that brings. If they’re really worried about cost, they should push to cancel Brexit altogether.

Great to have such an enthusiastic support for rejoining Erasmus from the Vice Chancellor of Oxford University on #t4today No stupid questions about whether this was anti-Brexit. Just unequivocal celebration of the chance to broaden our horizons again. A step on the road back to sanity.

“What disturbs us is less what happened years ago, hurtful as it was, but rather your refusal to acknowledge your past behaviour or apologise for it” If Farage was made to acknowledge his past behaviour or apologise for it, his career would have ended years ago. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Urging Trump to destroy the BBC is unforgivable. Truss, Badenoch & Farage would rather betray this country than offer the BBC or the British government their support against a narcissistic foreign liar and a threat to democracy. It’s an appalling betrayal. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/trump-...

Uk to rejoin Erasmus scheme - set to be confirmed formally tomorrow www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Ego-fluffing despotic narcissists does not work. You just become a whipping boy, a target for their next outburst. You cannot contain this. Or appease it. It’s just deferring your losses. It’s never actually winning. What a cowed and isolated country we are now, if we have to beg not to be punished.

Would be very reassuring to know how the majority of Brits are reacting to the news of Trump suing the BBC for $Bns. A: “Oh just fuck off” Or B: “Good for him” My money is on A. I can almost hear us all shouting it at the news this morning.

So, Trump sues the BBC for $5Bn and puts the technology deal with the UK on hold until the US gets more concessions. Anyone still deluding themselves about that “special relationship”? No. Just the tedious parade of simpering MAGA dickheads - led, of course, by the traitorous Farage.

Rob Reiner: “Silence in the face of authoritarianism is complicity. Speaking out is a patriotic act. Democracy doesn’t defend itself. It requires participation, vigilance, and courage from ordinary people."

WTF are we doing here, BBC?

this is not behavior becoming of a FIFA Peace Prize recipient.

“At a press conference this morning, Danny Kruger said Parry was “a very distinguished public servant” and even suggested his remark may have been taken out of context” Not sure a context exists that could excuse him. Reform: what a bunch of racist wankers. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/reform...

Farage “draws his power not from the sheer force of his arguments and personality, but increasingly just how recklessly the immigration issue has been handled by the political establishment… there is now a little bit of his poison everywhere” How a country fails. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This is fucking grim. Somebody invented a white guy, an "IT professional" named Edward Crabtree, who stopped the Bondi shooting and spread it all over the internet, which was picked up by AI agents and slop aggregation sites. The real hero is a fruit stand owner named Ahmed el Ahmed.

“If this is the level of shamelessness [Farage’s] media supporters are willing to stoop to when he is a mere fourth party opposition politician, just imagine the levels they will descend to should he ever get a real whiff of power” It just *must* not happen. www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-farage...

2016 Daily Mail: We want foreigners out! We don’t care if it makes us poorer. Brexit means Brexit! 2025 Daily Mail: Foreigners are leaving Starmer’s Britain because this country is poor and shit! This country would be so much better off without this hypocritical, incendiary, irresponsible rag.

Just so we're clear, one incident of alleged anti-semitism by a musician = a major national scandal that should be roundly condemned. Multiple incidents of alleged anti-semitism from the man leading the race to run the country = a load of nothing that should be completely ignored

‘Reforming’ or leaving the ECHR…A raising of false expectations, based on populist dishonesty. A demonisation of immigrants to mask the failures of government. Lies about sovereignty. A cynical refusal by politicians and media to tell us the truth. So very Brexit. www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec...

If handing someone their arse, was a video clip

Just an observation… but if Farage *was not* now a racist - genuinely… then he would really want to make up for the hurt he caused as a schoolboy bully. Definitely not make it worse. Instead, he’s angry and accusing. So, he is racist. And raging with anyone who says so. Or thinks that’s a problem.

Losers Gullis and Ben Bradley, now possibly disgraced Scott Benton will join Reform. Farage admits his party lacks experience. But recruits the morons and the pisstakers to make up for that. Reform: Loitering around the Tory bins seeing what bits of their stinking rubbish they can recycle.

This is good news. In the midst of a lot of bad. But it does highlight how very hard we have to work to fix things, now we’ve slammed the door in our own faces. Bit by bit, clawing back a weaker version of the benefits we used to enjoy before a bunch of liars insisted we should throw it all away.

Nothing says "smash the political establishment" quite like begging the Prime Minister to put your mates in the unelected House of Lords.

“It is the Brexit playbook:… It did not work then and it will not work now. Because once you agree that rights are the real obstacle, you have already handed victory to those who want rid of them altogether.” Important read on blaming the ECHR for govt failure. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Brilliant piece by @labourlewis.bsky.social on why the Nigel Farage racism allegations matter. If we end up rewarding a politics based on the instincts of a racist schoolyard bully, we should't be surprised at what follows bylinetimes.com/2025/12/10/n...

Not sure how long Farage is going to get away with this sort of thing…. Long enough to get into No.10 where he can fully screw the country over? Or could he (for love of god) be investigated before then? Racism aside (which should end his career), he’s just so bloody corrupt… (Private Eye)

Labour’s shift away from “immigration is good but it needs to be managed” to “it is bad” is a gift to essentially everyone they compete with, because it means that they don’t have the right position to be able to attack *anyone*.

I can’t help thinking that when, in future, people ask what UK political leaders said as it became undeniable that US saw European liberal democracy as its no1 strategic foe, Starmer and others will regret that the answer is “not much, shuffled awkwardly, looked at their feet”.

Letters in the Times - expressing disgust at anti-immigrant racism and the “Trump doctrine”- a meddling, authoritarian plan to undermine European democracies in order to have us all at the mercy of his USA or Putin’s Russia. For all our sakes and futures, that *must* not happen.

Tories “won’t go on the record saying Farage is unfit to lead the country, even if they suspect it to be true, because they also suspect they may be propping up his government, or pleading for jobs in it, by the end of the decade” They never stop letting us down. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Interesting that the BBC will call National Rally "Far Right" (in an article about Bardella meeting Farage) - when they would never use that term for Reform. Their policies are very similar. If anything Reform's are more authoritarian.

We despair that the rightwing keep shifting the Overton Window further right. They never suggest that leaving the ECHR is impossible or not the right time. They just demand it. And we end up discussing it. It’s time the left pushed back. Not put up ‘can’t do’ barriers to our own hopes and aims. 👏

Today's customs union vote is entirely symbolic, it's true. But what does it symbolise that no one is now arguing *for* Brexit? thecritic.co.uk/regr...

Creasy was presumably setting the pitch here for pro European lab MPs to not support the Lib dems’ customs union bill today. They will tell us forever that it’s all too hard. It’s time they showed bravery, admit Brexit is a disaster, change the record & aim higher www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

So, Farage who’d previously failed 7 times to be an MP, decided that in Clacton he’d rely on his old Brexit friends - cheating (and racism) - to get him his win. With millions now pouring into Reform, it’s beyond time to properly investigate this grubby little man www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The calls from America this weekend to "abolish the EU" are for one simple reason: the EU is the only thing that can keep European nation-states from becoming Russian or American vassals.

Staggering - the effort and resource *still* being invested in keeping the Brexit shitshow on the road. No one’s held to account. No one’s fallen on their sword. No one’s got the guts to really speak out. So, on we go, protecting this huge and ruinous lie, because telling the truth is too difficult.

Given a) Farage's past; b) the expanding story about Russia and former MEPs; and c) media enthusiasm for "what influence is being bought?" questions, if anyone to left of Mussolini is gifted so much as a cup of sugar, why is Reform facing no such questions about Friday's £9m crypto-bro donation?~AA

The Farage Tax: What The UK Pays For One Man's Ego GDP down, investment down, wages down - but Farage’s influence? Higher than ever www.bearlypolitics.co.uk/p/the-farage...

Because of course Henry had got the full roll call from Dulwich College and of course Trevor Phillips couldn’t even be bothered to read the stories he’s writing about