Only migrants?

That this isn’t self-evident is beyond me. Sections of the country seem caught up in Farage’s anti-incumbency snake oil and are ignoring the fact he helped create lasting damage then walked away from it before coming back to say what a mess everything is. www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

One of the people who fought so hard for an outcome which would always impose extra burdens on British firms and travellers is leading in national opinion polls. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Since the Brexit referendum, the Telegraph has become the Pantomine Dame of confected outrage against the very thing it fought for and continues to uphold. The new Schengen Entry and Exit System isn’t sound border management but a “pointed insult”. Hilarious.

If this is a genuine change of tack, it’s welcome. But I wonder (a) how much is just an attempt at triangulation to keep disillusioned progressives on board and (b) how it will play out in practice given Labour’s own needlessly dogmatic manifesto pledge not to try to rejoin the single market.

The death wish predates Badenoch (however clueless she is). It was Johnson who began in earnest the Tory shift to the hard right and marginalized sensible moderates. Now, bereft of its centre-right USP, the party is condemned to imitating Farage miserably. app.independent.co.uk/2025/10/05/2...

#Kuenssberg doesn’t challenge Badenoch on the implications leaving the #ECHR will have for the UK’s trade deal with the EU or the Good Friday Agreement. Basically gives her free rein to talk about immigration to the exclusion of all other policy areas. Farage really has managed to dictate the tone.

Labour embedded hard Brexit in its 2024 manifesto. No single market, so no free movement of labour. Pro-Europeans in Labour and elsewhere need to stop the attempts at cherry-picking and get back to first principles. You can’t simultaneously endorse a policy and decry its consequences.

Very good stuff from Sadiq Khan at the Labour Irish society event. He said there are two reasons he loves coming to Labour Conference. “One is the reception at the Labour Party Irish Society reception. “The second is to get away from all the Sharia Law in London”

The Tories and Reform have long used BAME representatives to avoid accusations of prejudice when peddling nasty policies. Labour joining the bandwagon is dismal. Has the government forgotten it also needs the votes of ethnic minorities and progressives? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

After the Brexit referendum, many pro-Europeans insisted on blaming the con artists, not the conned, even though everyone apparently knew what they were voting for. How does anyone think the party whose leaders wanted us out of the EU without a deal think these charlatans would handle Brexit best?

Keir Starmer's aides are reportedly telling him not to go to the COP30 climate conference, because Reform would attack him for it. Yes, they might. And he should wear it as a badge of honour. Standing up for humanity, for science and a habitable planet. Where's the hazard in that?

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. Ignore the haters, London is the 🐐

Trump at the UN: "I look at London where you have a terrible mayor... Now they want to go to Sharia law." This is entirely false. London Mayor Sadiq Khan is politically moderate and has never ever called for Sharia law. This is Islamophobic propaganda and a bigoted attack on Khan.

On Kemi Badenoch’s LBC appearance, Lib Dem Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper MP: “Badenoch’s refusal to condemn Elon Musk’s dangerous comments or even call Tommy Robinson far-right is cowardly & shameful. She is "pandering to extremists" and "proving the Tories are no longer the party of law and order."

We're 7 months in and Trump and the oligarchs have completely seized control of the media. If you criticize them, your show will be pulled from the air. This is what dictators do. Fascism isn't coming, it's here.

Brexit is the toxic epicentre of the political shitshow we now have to endure. It promoted idiocy and deceit, endorsed racism, divided us, made us poorer, weaker, less safe and less sane. It’s belittled the country, killed the Tory party and given birth to Reform. A relentless klaxon of failure.

Dear Reform voters, These guys are laughing at you. They promise to make your lives better… but they couldn’t give less of a shit. You’re their playthings. Their route to power. When they’ve got it, they’ll be done with you. And they’ll trash the place. Get some self-respect. The rest of the UK.

Yes, there are wider geopolitical and demographic factors at play across the Western world but one reason thugs such as Robinson feel even more emboldened now is that the Tories started with the Brexit referendum to dignify the populist Right and Labour hasn’t done enough to challenge that since.

What it shows is that the far Right knows it can keep dripping its poison into the body politic of this country and a member of a nominally progressive but supine government will say, “Free speech, innit?” Dismal stuff. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Many of Reform’s policies are unpopular as well as garbage. These people don’t do sensible, real-world, costed proposals. They do anger and grievance and sniping. That can work in opposition. In government, where stuff has to get done, it would prove disastrous. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

That’s exactly what they’ve done. Best for Britain were among the most trenchant critics of Brexit when it could be blamed (mostly) on the Tories. When Labour willingly adopted it, I seem to recall the pro-EU side suddenly being lectured on the need to accept the limits of what was possible.

This isn’t journalism; it’s propaganda, with scarcely a paragraph devoted to the views of other parties or of experts. It’s been clear since the 2016 Brexit referendum that BBC news has been unwilling or unable to offer objective, authoritative analysis of key topics. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

“This isn’t the Brexit I voted for.” Except it is. Own it.

How we will look back at the British media's current constant indulgence of Nigel Farage and his brand of anti-migrant politics as the biggest collective failure of our times @adambienkov.bsky.social www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/reform-dog...

It’s the Lib Dems, not Farage, who are taking more support from 2024 Labour voters but on Starmer goes, dignifying the rhetoric of Reform because he’s terrified of losing seats to them under an antiquated, unfair electoral system he’s refusing to abolish. www.newstatesman.com/politics/lib...

See also: news.sky.com/story/chance...

"People who are 'too poor to pay tax' find a spare half billion quid to pay UPFRONT for something that's entirely voluntary." There, I fixed it for you. www.thetimes.com/uk/education...

Britons regrettably not plugged into the idea that Brexit (which only 5% of them see as an issue of salience) is a factor in so many of the things they do attach importance to - as you’d expect if your Exchequer is £40 billion a year less well off than it would otherwise have been.

Ed Davey: "BBC’s Farage obsession is a joke. Reform has 4 MPs, Lib Dems have 72 - yet get sidelined. This isn’t journalism, it’s free PR. If the Beeb’s chasing shock value over vote count, just admit it and drop the "balanced" act."

It’s surely also well past time that President Trump was awarded the Booker Prize, half a a dozen Oscars, the Acacia Road Primary School Award for Exemplary Orangeness, the Nobel Prize for Physics, BAGA gymnastics award grade 5 (niche) & at least 3 Cycling Proficiency Bades (possibly even nicher).

I don’t understand why so many think, if Farage as pm can stop the boats, everything in Britain will get so much better. Why are so many people that blind? Farage will just blame the east Europeans next. Then he will blame left handed cyclists - there will always be a group of people to pick on.

Dear Labour - there is not enough red meat you can throw a Reform voter to get them to vote for you. Stop bloody trying as you aren’t getting them on side but are losing everyone else! How the hell can we all see this but not you!?

So go home. This isn’t difficult.

Everyone warning darkly that the new Corbyn party will only split the left and let Farage in may not wish to be reminded that Labour under Starmer was elected to 2/3 of the seats on 1/3 of votes cast and is steadfastly refusing to dump first-past-the-post for national elections.

In which ‘unworkable’ refers to rules which insist social media platforms do due diligence to ensure electoral contests can’t be bought, or won by lying. No wonder the right wing in this country hates the EU. www.euronews.com/next/2025/07...

When so much of the media rolls out the comfy red carpet for Farage, Private Eye trips him up and milkshakes him. Be more Private Eye.

Expected imminently: ECtHR judgment expected in legal action against UK Govt inaction over Russian interference "The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is expected to make a judgment [this AM} over UK Govt's failure to call an independent investigation into Russian interference in UK democracy"

That this is presented by the media as “policy” is why we are in this mess. These are not serious people. These are monkey tennis ideas, as divorced from the reality of criminal justice as you might expect from a company fronted by multi-millionaire simpletons.

Hey, UK media! Are you just going to let Farage dump another steaming pile of populist bullshit on us *without ever* properly scrutinising his ideas or him…his funding, his riots, his links to Putin and Trump, his Brexit shitshow, his grifting side gigs, his lies, his ignorance…? Call. Him. TF. Out.

This would be Farage in government too. A rinse-and-repeat of: - over-promising - failing - blame-shifting. Nothing will ever be his or his party’s fault. See also Brexit. www.bbc.com/news/article...

I'm now blocking anyone stating that people protesting vs the government's ban on Palestine Action deserve to be arrested. Yeah, sure, it's an opinion and you're welcome to it. But if you can't understand what's wrong with arresting peace campaigners under the Terrorism Act, I have no time for you.

Call WM's Zionist Government what you like, "a police state" a "dictatorship" or a "totalitarian government", it is totally unacceptable!

If politics is shaped by social media, rather than the other way around… we are heading for an undemocratic, populist, disinformation hellscape. Which is why it is baffling that govts, serious politicians, commentators and organisations would stay on X or, at the very least, not set up elsewhere.

“This is Brexit Britain. We voted to take back control of our borders, not to accept a deal given to us by a French President” says Nigel Farage Imagine his shock when he finds out Brexit is a primary factor in the sky rocketing number of small boat crossings youtu.be/cKXFjbxSBBI?...

"Who is the one to do these tweets for Larry?" "Nobody knows." Rare moment where you actually see Starmer's sense of humour.

But are Reform really “making the political weather” as you, so uncritically say, Chris Mason, or are you making it for them by hyperventilating over each grubby little Tory-Reform-reshuffle, without *ever* properly scrutinising the howling failures of these deeply unpleasant, grifting clowns?

Reform has lost 11 councillors and 2 MPs in a matter of months… and when I say ‘lost’ I mean, they’ve quit following rows, impropriety or inability to do their jobs. So, if Brexit weren’t proof enough, then this barrelling shitshow should confirm forever that they should be nowhere near govt.