Reform UK discussion

[SuspectUsual]

And whose taxes go up to pay for it...

I assume the reason you don't answer the question is because you don't have an answer for it?

 

[WelshBluebird]

For balance, I suggest that the figures for expenditure on interpreting services call into question the use of the term 'vast majority.' *

There is a substantial difference between being able to speak a languge well enough to get along day to day (even if you were to think of basic employment) versus being able to speak, read and write it well enough to fully use it for certain legal or otherwise complicated situations (like an asylum seeker or refugee may find themselves having to deal with).

 

[Drogba11CFC]

I assume the reason you don't answer the question is because you don't have an answer for it?

I thought it would have been obvious. I am not, under any circumstances, going to accept any punishment - and raising my taxes to atone for something that happened long before I was born IS a punishment - for something I never did.

 

[Purple Train]

I thought it would have been obvious. I am not, under any circumstances, going to accept any punishment - and raising my taxes to atone for something that happened long before I was born IS a punishment - for something I never did.

By that logic, because I will probably be worse off for my whole life because of the Brexit vote, which I had no say in as it happened before I could vote, we should rejoin the EU immediately!

 

[SuspectUsual]

I thought it would have been obvious. I am not, under any circumstances, going to accept any punishment - and raising my taxes to atone for something that happened long before I was born IS a punishment - for something I never did.

OK, so how do you actually achieve that?

 

[GusB]

Since we're in the Reform (nee Brexit) Party thread, isn't 52% considered to be a "vast majority"?

 

[D1537]

Since we're in the Reform (nee Brexit) Party thread, isn't 52% considered to be a "vast majority"?

Well indeed. I read the other day that if the Brexit vote was to be re-run tomorrow, and everyone who voted the first time voted the same way again, it would fail this time.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Since we're in the Reform (nee Brexit) Party thread, isn't 52% considered to be a "vast majority"?

It depends. If it was 52% the other way it’d be unacceptable

 

[brad465]

Anti-establishment latest:

Reform UK given record £36m donation by British crypto billionaire

Ben Delo was convicted in US for failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls but pardoned by Trump

www.theguardian.com

Reform UK has been given a record £36m donation by Ben Delo, a British cryptocurrency billionaire convicted in the US for failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls.

The businessman, who has moved back to the UK from Hong Kong, is now the biggest UK political donor by far, dwarfing the £15m contribution to Reform UK from Thailand-based Christopher Harborne.


The huge donation will be a boost for party leader Nigel Farage at a time when he is facing a police investigation into overseas funding for Reform, plus a standards inquiry into a £5m undeclared personal gift from Harborne.

It had been thought Delo could be caught by the overseas cap requiring donors to have been resident in the UK for 12 months before giving more than £100,000 but Reform insisted earlier this month that they were confident Delo would not have to take back any cash.

Delo was convicted in the US in 2022 for failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls in his trillion-dollar cryptocurrency business BitMEX, before being pardoned by Donald Trump. He has previously given Reform £8m since the start of the year.

His gifts show the rise of Reform’s mega-donors, which Labour has been considering clamping down on.

Keir Starmer shied away from the idea of a cap on all donations and Andy Burnham also recently backed away from supporting a cap. However, more recently the government said it was looking at ways of dealing with mega-donations to make sure a few figures are not having an excessive influence in politics.

 

[Killingworth]

Anti-establishment latest:

Reform UK given record £36m donation by British crypto billionaire

Ben Delo was convicted in US for failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls but pardoned by Trump

www.theguardian.com

It's possibly a subject for another discussion but I cant help wondering where these crypto millionaires are getting all their money from. Having £36m to throw away suggests he's got plenty more to play with.

It's come from somewhere. Who's being conned out of their money?

 

[brad465]

It's possibly a subject for another discussion but I cant help wondering where these crypto millionaires are getting all their money from. Having £36m to throw away suggests he's got plenty more to play with.

It's come from somewhere. Who's being conned out of their money?

A trojan horse for all sorts of illicit sources I would guess - there could easily be Russian and/or US origins in it.

 

[yorkie]

Ben Delo - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ben Delo (/diːloʊ/, born 24 February 1984) is a British businessman, philanthropist and political donor. He is the co-founder and former executive of BitMEX.

Any Wikipedia editors here? Can someone replace the word philanthropist with convicted criminal? Also, I would suggest inserting "far right" in there somewhere too.

Edit: this can't be parodied as it's already so bizarre:

37K views · 967 reactions | Good morning. Another cracker from the Reform conference for your delectation ♥️️‍♥️️‍⚧️ | St Helens Resistance

Good morning. Another cracker from the Reform conference for your delectation ♥️️‍♥️️‍⚧️

www.facebook.com

There are all sorts to unpick from this Reform specimen, but the part at the end sums him up:

They're proper ReformUK Trainers?

No. I made them. I got these specially done on Temu. On Temu you get anything designed on it. And that is where I got these stuff from Temu, I got that from Temu, the socks.

None of them made in Britain, then?

No. unfortunately it's not.

The intelligence of Reform votes does seem to be rather lacking in many cases.

Yes, the elites who donate to Reform such as Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo are intelligent in certain ways that the above weird clearly is not, but they are social misfits/recluse type weirdos who are detached from reality.

I am yet to encounter or see any evidence of anyone who has stated their support for Reform who seems like a genuinely nice and genuinely intelligent person.

 

[Altnashin]

Dr Mariana Claire Marinovic (@DrMarianaClaire) on X

@thomasb196767 @gingerrtom Danny Tommo groomed a survivor of grooming gangs.

x.com

I'll just leave this here.....
The above link is to an X/Twitter post that contains a video of gents discussing allegations of Daniel Thomas grooming an abuse survivor.

 

[Krokodil]

I reckon had we not joined in/aided the bombing of several countries like Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, the number of terrorism offences, and the number of people coming here from these countries would be lower. Not the only factor in all this, but a big one many don't want to talk about.

It's more than that now, Russia and its proxies have been destabilising many countries in Africa (Mali for example). They know that refugee flows cause political unrest in the west, and use that to their advantage. That's why they've been pushing migrants over the Belarusian border.

 

[BAFRA77]

Dr Mariana Claire Marinovic (@DrMarianaClaire) on X

@thomasb196767 @gingerrtom Danny Tommo groomed a survivor of grooming gangs.

x.com

I'll just leave this here.....

But but but - this Thomas character and his goon squad have absolutely nothing to do with Reform, their subscribers (sorry, “members”) or acolytes in any way at all - apparently.

 

[Altnashin]

Anti-establishment latest:

Reform UK given record £36m donation by British crypto billionaire

Ben Delo was convicted in US for failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls but pardoned by Trump

www.theguardian.com

I really do hope (but doubt it ever will in my lifetime) that party politics destroys itself.
We really do need an alternative backed by a codified constitution.
I can see Reform now reporting Labour, The Tories, Lib Dems etc... out of revenge, especially as the next General Election draws closer.

 

[brad465]

Harborne has now added another £36m to double the pot. At this point I'm wondering if they're trolling us:

Reform receives second £36m donation in two days as crypto investor matches record

Christopher Harborne says he has equalled a donation from Ben Delo - the single largest gift to a UK political party.

www.bbc.co.uk

Reform UK has received a second £36m donation in as many days, as cryptocurrency investor Christopher Harborne matched a record-breaking donation announced late on Friday.

Thailand-based Harborne wrote in the Telegraph, external that his "competitive spirit" inspired him to equal Ben Delo's donation - the largest ever given to a UK political party - adding he expected "nothing personally" in return.

Reform said the £72m would be used to hire "the brightest and best minds to work on policy and the most comprehensive plan for government ever".

The party is facing scrutiny over its finances, as the government seeks to cap donations to UK political parties from British expats.

There have also been renewed calls by MPs from other political parties for donations from individuals to be capped.

The £72m from the two donations is more than the total received by all UK political parties last year, which stood at just over £69m.

Reform leader Nigel Farage said Harborne and Delo's "generosity" meant the party would "now be able to fight and win the next general election on a level playing field".

A Reform UK spokesman added: "We will now also be able to hire up to 400 campaign managers in every target constituency. We are now on election footing."

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's PM programme on Saturday, the party's deputy leader Richard Tice denied accusations the donations were bad for democracy.

"It's the opposite actually, we're delighted and very humbled by the confidence expressed by two very successful entrepreneurs who realise Britain's in serious trouble," he said.

"To have that support, to know we can focus on employing the best people, whether it be on social media, policy, campaign managers, that's a good thing."

Earlier, speaking to Sky News, Tice said Delo's donation had been an upfront sum "so that the Labour Party can't legislate against it" and would be spent over two or three years.

 

[Krokodil]

what exactly is the approach to small boats you would like us to mimic from other Western countries?

Speedy processing needs to be added to the list of suggestions. And without that meaning "just approve en masse to cut the waiting lists down".

This isn't just about small boats, it's also people who arrive on work, study or tourist visas and claim asylum when they overstay. The delays give an opportunity to learn the script and sort out dodgy evidence to "prove" that they're gay (and therefore supposedly at risk in their home country) in order to cheat the system.

 

[Strathclyder]

Harborne has now added another £36m to double the pot. At this point I'm wondering if they're trolling us:

Reform receives second £36m donation in two days as crypto investor matches record

Christopher Harborne says he has equalled a donation from Ben Delo - the single largest gift to a UK political party.

www.bbc.co.uk

(Can't copy text as on phone)

Sounds like another bribe donation for Frogface not to throw yet another public hissy fit, landing himself even deeper in it and then eventually sodding off to the US permanently under the pretense of his family's safety (or so he keeps saying, either that or the personal security rollocks) once he gets fed up with the scrutiny, thus rendering all the money they've thrown at him and Reform as a whole completely and utterly wasted.

Said it before, I'll say it again: if he had to endure even a quarter of the scrutiny that Starmer had to, Farage would've literally self-combusted within 6 months and his reaction to everything that's happened this summer and beyond has proven that.

The stuff about the RNLI is outrageously disgusting even for this mob. Disgraceful.

Been offline most of this week thanks to a bad cold/flu/chest infection and have only just found out about this; it's a wonder I didn't pop a blood vessel in my brain I was so pissed.

There is no bottom of the barrel for these cretinous wastes of oxygen. The darker, hardened and cynical half of me can't help but instintively concur with @D1511's view - it's the 'the only language a bully understands is a black eye' and the FAFO mentalities - both of which I fully believe in - rolled into one and would be karma at it's most extreme - as this behaviour is beyond contempt and utterly enraging, but the other half of me thinks that no matter how low these creatures stoop, us decent folk can't get down in the mud with them as that's exactly what they want and what helps sustain their movement (to say nothing of their perpetual victimhood). It's this duality of mindsets pulling in different directions that I struggle to reconcile whenever they pull crap like this.

 

[BAFRA77]

Sounds like another bribe donation for Frogface not to throw yet another public hissy fit, landing himself even deeper in it and then eventually sod off to the US permanently under the pretense of his family's safety (or so he keeps saying, either that or the personal security rollocks) once he gets fed up with the scrutiny, thus rendering all the money they've thrown at him and Reform as a whole wasted.

Said it before, I'll say it again: if he had to endure even a quarter of the scrutiny that Starmer had to, Farage would've literally self-combusted within 6 months and his reaction to everything that's happened this summer and beyond has proven that.

It’s a shame he had a half competent pilot back in the day - otherwise we would have been spared all this harlequinism

 

[Tetchytyke]

Harborne has now added another £36m to double the pot. At this point I'm wondering if they're trolling us:

Reform receives second £36m donation in two days as crypto investor matches record

Christopher Harborne says he has equalled a donation from Ben Delo - the single largest gift to a UK political party.

www.bbc.co.uk

(Can't copy text as on phone)

Harborne is the largest single shareholder of QinetiQ, one of our largest defence contractors.

Something to bear in mind when people on the right are demanding that we spend a lot more money on defence.

 

[Cdd89]

I am yet to encounter or see any evidence of anyone who has stated their support for Reform who seems like a genuinely nice and genuinely intelligent person.

I think you are quite correct about someone who supports Reform as the whole package, but they do have a (small) number of non-immigration but libertarian policies that likely appeal to some people.

Some policies of theirs I support are:

• Repealing the Online Safety Act
• Repealing the Generational Smoking Ban
• (Partially support) repealing GDPR, although for businesses that still wish to serve EU markets, they would need to comply anyway and therefore wouldn't save much admin
• Prioritising building reservoirs, and removing the possibility of planning objections

Admittedly these are not great reasons for voting or supporting Reform, they are not the most important issues (although our lack of new reservoirs may become one in 20+ years!) and their other policies are utterly disqualifying. Furthermore a vote for them will not be taken as a vote for these policies, but rather in support of their flagship policy. But there are no other parties in the UK offering these policies.

 

[Krokodil]

Said it before, I'll say it again: if he had to endure even a quarter of the scrutiny that Starmer had to, Farage would've literally self-combusted within 6 months and his reaction to everything that's happened this summer and beyond has proven that.

The difference in coverage between a pair of spectacles and a £5m cash bribe is incredible.