Whether you’re still feeling the effects of celebrating England’s 2-1 victory over Norway in the early hours of Sunday morning (I was lowkey rooting for World Cup people’s princess Erling Haaland and his goblin style of running) or simply dazed from what feels like perpetual heatwave conditions, you’d be forgiven for believing we’ve entered some kind of delirious alternate timeline.
Everything is very odd. In the past week, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage announced his resignation from the job he was doing as MP for Clacton (among many other jobs) in order to run for… the same job to *checks notes* prove the electorate really wants him to be doing that job.
In the completely superfluous 13 August byelection, Farage will be up against an intergalactic warrior wearing a bin on his head, two foxes (wildlife campaigner Rob Pownall in a very heatwave-unfriendly fur suit and legally-embattled former actor turned far-right politician Laurence Fox), along with Piers Corbyn and a bloke who got kicked off Married at First Sight UK.
It’s turning into a toasty summer of scrutiny for Nige, with the legacy press receiving some kind of signal (like those whistles only audible to dogs) that the kid gloves can come off when dealing with him.
There’s Farage’s £5m undeclared donation from Thai-based crypto-billionaire Christopher Harbourne (now the subject of a parliamentary standards watchdog investigation), new revelations about thousands of pounds-worth of undeclared donations to Reform from convicted fraudster ‘Posh’ George Cottrell (who also had personal access to Farage’s party email according to yesterday’s Sunday Times) and at least £500k in donations to Reform from Cottrell’s mother Fiona (this one is reportedly being investigated by the Met police). Farage and Reform have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
But Reform’s rolling donation scandal isn’t the biggest story in town. It’s been almost eclipsed by a murder investigation into the death of the party’s immigration spokesperson – the vociferously anti-LGBTQ+, anti-choice former Tory MP turned reality TV star – Ann Widdecombe.
A 28-year-old white British man was arrested on Saturday on suspicion of her murder. It doesn’t take a detective to deduce that the cops stressed the man’s skin colour and nationality (in both this arrest and a previous arrest of a 26-year-old white British man who has been released and is no longer part of the inquiry) so the reeling local community won’t be subjected to racist rioting, a lá Southport and more recently, Belfast.
Devon and Cornwall police have announced that while detectives “remain open minded”, there is nothing to suggest a political motivation and warned against speculation causing the family distress – although Reform UK is giving its MPs and home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf (of Question Time fame) 24-hour security over copycat attack fears and the issue of MPs’ safety is squarely on the agenda in the Commons today.
Alongside Farage’s performative byelection stunt and performative tone-policing online around Widdecombe’s death, the centre isn’t innocent of performative hand-wringing either, with PM-in-waiting Andy Burnham posting an apology video on Thursday for Labour’s handling of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. He didn’t call it a genocide though, preferring the term “military action”.
Burnham made some milquetoast murmurings about “need[ing] to do better” on Gaza and how Labour’s approach “caused huge hurt”, while ultimately employing the classic centrist responsibility-dodge of “it’s for international courts to decide”.
David Lammy, who served as foreign secretary at the height of the genocide, also admitted on Friday that Keir Starmer saying Israel “has the right” to cut off power, food and water from two million people in Gaza in October 2023 “got us off to a bad start in opposition”.
Only concrete action taken by Burnham’s government in line with our international obligations to prevent genocide will have any meaning. Short of this, the King of the North’s Gaza apology looks like little more than a naked and, frankly, low-effort attempt to beckon back voters lost along with the party’s moral compass.
From Novara Media via This RSS Feed.
Because British rural area demographics buy into outside influence on how outside influence is determining British politics and that they shouldn’t put up with it and choose the most unhinged politicians to break that influence. Meanwhile in their view the politician that most represents the common folk is Nigel Farage: the one and likely the only UK politician that appeared at weird crytpo ads that helped funnel more money from poor to the rich by abusing the FMO in a badly peforming economy. Sounds similiar?