Last year, Thorn in the Side Ltd had liabilities of a quarter of a million pounds. Its only employee is Nigel Farage, who is paid through it by GB News to the tune of £1.2 million per year. For that, he works 32 hours per week. The parliamentary seat of Clacton is effectively vacant. Reform UK returned five MPs, and the only thing that there will be to show for it will be the crackdown on civil liberties in ostensible response to the riots, although all Governments since Michael Howard was Home Secretary have tried to do those things. None of them has ever before had an excuse quite like this, though.
Meanwhile, the Independent Left also returned five MPs. There is still a long way to go, but the Government's resumption of the funding of UNRWA, its withdrawal of its objections to the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants such that Benjamin Netanyahu has just refused to meet David Lammy, and its hints at the restriction of arms sales to Israel and at the recognition of Palestine, are all consequences of the re-election of Jeremy Corbyn, of the election of four more Left Independents, of the defeat of Jonathan Ashworth and Thangam Debbonaire, of the halving of Keir Starmer's constituency vote, and of the near-defeat of Wes Streeting, Shabana Mahmood and Jess Phillips. All of those went back in turn to the entirely peaceful Gaza ceasefire marches, which had already brought down Suella Braverman. There has not been such a successful movement from the streets of Britain since the Poll Tax and its Prime Minister were swept away.
Now to lift the two-child benefit cap, save the universal winter fuel payment, meet the pay claims in full, compensate the victims of the Post Office and contaminated blood scandals justly, implement the whole of the New Deal for Working People, and much else besides. Why not? Corbyn is already suing Farage. Once all of this got going, or even now, with which of them would the public have more sympathy?
Reform got four million votes, and no party to the Left of Labour got anywhere. There's no public support for anything more leftwing than Keir Starmer (and he's far too leftwing for most of us). There's no such party as "the independent Left" (Corbyn's liberal elite seat of Islington hardly reflects national opinion) and with a 174-seat majority, Starmer couldn't care less about any of them.
ReplyDeleteClearly, he could, because he has changed his most totemic foreign policy drastically. Now for economic policy.
DeleteReform, or anything remotely like it, is no longer associated with anything except that time when there were nearly pogroms in Britain. Well, that and an incredibly venal and, as an MP, lazy Leader. Welcome to proper politics.
As Thatcher asked about the Tory Reform Group, "Reform what?"
ReplyDeleteMost of the rioters will not have voted for Reform UK, because they will not have voted at all. But the damage is done, and the news about Farage's day job will not have helped.
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