There seems to be some *confusion* among Reform supporters over Nathan Gill being one of them “But, but, Reform didn’t exist when he took his Russian bribes” “But, but he was in UKIP” “But, but it has nothing to do with Farage, he barely knew the guy” So here’s a little history lesson 👍🏼🧵 1/14

Once more, trying to find the words to convey the horror. Once more, failing to do it justice. #Gaza. #UNGA.

On anti-Faragism, the point of the Lib Dems and Ed Davey finding himself unmarked in front of an open goal www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Brilliant and powerful column by @jonathan-watts.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The “Ed Davey is obsessed with Farage” takes are weird. A) The media is obsessed with Farage B) If the next election looks anything like the polling, it will basically be a progressive/populist bloc election. Labour won’t be Davey’s enemy. They’ll be his path to govern.

From @edwardluce.bsky.social in today's FT.

Imagine being these world leaders and experienced diplomats and just having to sit there and listen to this maniac talking absolute dangerous bollocks for hours. It’s sometimes hard to believe this is real life.

"You had 60,000 people in hotels. At least 59,000 of them weren't going to Rwanda. You didn't have any plan at all for 99% of them did you?" was not a question he was asked on Today

Reform’s vision for the UK - a “white Dubai” - modelled on racial hierarchy, where citizenship is defined along narrow ethnic lines, a place of environmental dereliction, where poor migrant workers live in squalor & massive wealth inequalities are baked in. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Imagine spending years proving you belong here, paying thousands, following every rule - only for Nigel Farage to threaten to tear up your status. This is not policy - it’s cruelty, it’s showmanship, and I for one, am sick to the damned back teeth of it.

Reform are filth. They represent hatred, extremism, ignorance and irresponsibility. They'd make us a wretched vicious hateful little island. If people don't stand up to this, they won't stand up to anything.

Reform will apparently pledge today that they'd abolish indefinite leave to remain - including retrospectively, to people already granted it. Obviously this is a moral abomination but it is also a practical and legal impossibility.

People say there is no difference between the Tories and Labour. There plenty - but not enough I just wish Starmer was as ruthless with the hard right wing placemen in Ofcom, the BBC and other captured quangos and regulators as it is with its own (soft) left wing

Farage does not speak for the majority, but unless we expose his failures, his racism, his populist lies, we risk what is happening in the US happening here. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Latest New Statesman column on an iron law of politics… governments don’t become accident prone by accident: www.newstatesman.com/uncategorize...

The Labour MP for East Thanet, Polly Billington MP, has written to the Reform Leader of Kent County Council to express her concern about Reform in Kent’s "continued endorsement of anti-science organisations and conspiracy theories" in a new motion on climate change (🧵)

"Charlie Kirk called Britain a “totalitarian third world hellhole”. Among Maga influencers it's common to talk of the UK's coming civil war. By all means Britain should deliver fruits to the Trumpian volcano. But it would be wise not to live in its shadow." My column. www.ft.com/content/37b4...

superb column from @stephenkb.bsky.social “racism does not diminish through rising GDP but through the willingness of politicians to argue against it….” www.ft.com/content/fbbd...

Excellent thread here.

“The respect index needs to change rapidly and radically. If it doesn’t, the most useful first step that the two main parties could take to thwart Reform will be to find new leaders. Then their hard march back to electability can begin.” open.substack.com/pub/kellnerp...

“I was shaken every day by the speed & executive brutality of President Trump’s assault on .. US democracy & by the desperate weakness of resistance to that assault” Worth a read as we roll out the red carpet. When America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Written by a doctor at St Thomas' Hospital, London after the Tommy Robinson march on 13/9.

A reminder that Elon Musk's platform is still directly paying UK politicians, including Rupert Lowe, Richard Tice, and Lee Anderson

Elon Musk openly called for violence on our streets yesterday. I hope politicians from all parties come together to condemn his deeply dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric. Britain must stand united against this clear attempt to undermine our democracy.

They must be able to criticise Tommy Robinson fascism or we're completely lost. This isn't even Farage we're talking about here. Goddamn them for even needing to hear that.

In facing down fascism, fortune favours the brave. Not the focus group.

Given the context and the crowd, despite Musk’s weasel words, this was a call for violence against the British state, from a foreign national who controls a major propaganda engine, and has engineered it to monetise hate

Starmer as it happens hasn't made a public speech outside chamber since mid-July. Hard to think of a PM who has made so little use of the normative power of his office. Unlike eg Cameron who really did think No 10 had the capacity and obligation to attempt to frame debate on all manner of issues

Same thugs we've been dealing with all my life. Utterly shameful and frankly dumb that one or both of the PM or his main advisor think you appease these people.

The silence is deafening. A lot of people are feeling anxious and scared tonight. For their loved ones. For themselves. For their community. For their country. For our country. Those who lead us must use their voices, unequivocally, now.

This is clearly incitement. "Fight" is not figurative here. It's literal.

Can anyone explain why the Government is still doing most of its communications through a website whose owner is now openly rallying the far right to trigger a violent insurrection on our streets?

Elon, speaking at the Tommy Robinson march today: “This is a government against the people and not for the people, this is why everyone is gathered here today…we don’t have another four years…there’s got to be a dissolution of parliament” And the government just…continues to use X.

Musk has addressed the Far Right rally by video calling for a “change of government” in the UK. If this was the US, he’d be banned from entering the country and his businesses shut down.

FT mag piece from me: Spent a long time looking into the Britannia hotel chain, beneficiaries of a vast amount of taxpayer money via the asylum system on.ft.com/47HEE46

Dear Keir Starmer Please read this. Values, leadership, narrative, persuasion. Not hard. From Everyone who felt hope when you won. open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

Justin Webb just referred on Today to "platforms like Bluesky, where you can see the celebration of the killing" of Charlie Kirk. What I'm seeing on here is overwhelming condemnation; despair at the violence of US politics; alarm at where this might go; & calls for equal horror at other shootings.

It's possible that something good has come of the Rayner affair. There is such an urgent need for this conversation in Labour right now, for some kind of beating heart to the project - a memory that it does actually have values it is prepared to fight for www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

As remigration & mass deportation have become acceptable RW talking points .. the left becomes tangled up in a disastrous island of strangers speech & “legitimate concerns”. Politicians need to be asked where this toxic dishonesty ends. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Looks like the WhingeUK conference may not have been such a huge triumph after all

Will this get as much attention at that poll showing Reform on 35% a few weeks ago? Ofc not. Always look at trends not individual polls.

If I’m being honest, I’m feeling pretty crap about my small business. It’s so bloody difficult at the moment with rising costs, US tariffs, Brexit nonsense and the threat of AI. Please have a look at what I do and repost to spread the word gailmyerscough.co.uk

“If Reform succeeds in taking power, what does anyone think will happen to state education, systems of justice, crime & punishment, BBC? what will everyday life feel like amid mass deportations?” The urgency of now & Starmer’s failure to lead in a dangerous age www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Sorry, no need for the Brits to reply – just a good old Dutchman here. But Labour should show more courage and push for a much bigger EU–UK reset. Plenty of 'fiscal free' growth, and tax revenue, for both sides to seize. Gravity matters for the EU too: the UK more important than far-away partners.

I hope they have some influence. IMO McSweeney is given too much credit for GE24 win. Labour could have won with a stronger mandate if they hadn’t boxed themselves in with so many red lines & their current Reform focused direction is destroying them. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Reform is not some unstoppable political force. It spent the weekend calling Lucy Connolly a "political prisoner", cheering a guy who opposes Covid vaccines & dismissing climate change. Labour should spray these clips across the web. Make Reform fight on this ground. It is eminently beatable.

Chris Mason seems like a nice man, but this is a lamentable piece of writing. It might as well be a theatre review. There's not a word on policy. It's not the BBC's job to attack Reform, or any other party. It *is* its job to report what Reform proposes to do in govt www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Quite apart from the fact that this is garbage, I see that Mr Free Speech "will not stand for" people teaching interpretations of the past that he doesn't agree with.