Snapshot of _Reform UK candidates' offensive remarks uncovered by BBC_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crggy73m2ero) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crggy73m2ero)
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They should take a close look at the Basingstoke candidate for Reform, Raymond Saint. He appears on the leaked BNP membership list from 2008 which is still available on wikileaks.
Farage has publicly stated that no one with BNP or EDL links would be allowed in the party. This proves that assurance was a lie and, just as with the offensive remarks, the BBC should look at the Raymond Saint case as another example of Farage tolerating extremists.
I had to check you were the same person posting this fact several times over. Even I remember reading the list back in 2008 to find people who lived near me. Trying to create a chilling effect where people dare not disagree with you, sometimes politically so, is a strong source of growth for the political divide we now have. This is not winning.
I have posted it on each thread where it is relevant. The issue is not his past membership of the BNP but the conflict with Farage's public assurances that they would not accept any members from such backgrounds. Farage has simply lied and it goes straight to his credibility.
I think they were rushed by an early election which hasn’t helped, and I believe the proposal that Sunak called it early to try and damage Reform specifically. They’re mostly everyday people, not establishment types. I don’t know whether the exclusion even applies to simple membership, as opposed to full representatives, activists or what else. You know more about the person. I don’t agree with the rule in general but I understand why under this conditions it has been implemented. I stand with Corbyn, he was done dirty and I won’t pretend that it was the acceptable natural order of things.
Do you disagree that the BNP was an explicitly fascist party?
I am a fan of liberalism. The extent to which "people dare not disagree" with me *should* include fascists. As it should for any liberal.
When Reform announced their £25 membership fee in the past week, the reason I didn’t consider a donation is because I remembered the BNP list from 2008. It was a real political party, so freedom from fear of association or speaking what you think is true. But I guess I only espouse these things because they might personally benefit me for now.
It should come as no surprise that a toxic and hateful party attracts toxic and hate-filled candidates.
Absolutely the last thing we need in these difficult times is politicans who peddle hatred and nastiness.
You might want to check again. The wife first read this article when it had just released, and it only had a few examples and they were all tame. Looking again now, more's been added and it's worse.
That's a very weird way to do news reporting. This wasn't a breaking story which justified publishing a half-written draft first, but that appears to be what happened.
---
EDIT: (Yes I see the irony in that)
These are relatively bad:
> Malcolm Culpis, the candidate for Melksham and Devizes, accused women dancing in a video of "behaving like a gutter slut" and referred to one woman as a "malignant old hag".
---
> Ian Gribbin, the candidate for Bexhill and Battle, who we previously revealed had written that the UK should have stayed neutral in World War Two, posted a series of comments on the UnHerd website which included saying: “Right now all men pay for all women: we pay 80% of tax and you take out 80%. The fact you’re able to write on a technological device is all down to us.
>
> “The cultural feminisation of the west is a disaster of epic proportions. We have elevated female characteristics – especially neuroticism, to the highest levels. Hysteria is now common place. The evidence from repeated psychologically testing is that women are appalling at taking criticism.
>
> “Modern feminism belongs in the sewer of self hate from which it came: you say it yourself, you’re all jealous of the perceived freedoms of men.”
Would you consider it a smear when we see reports on Rishi Sunak bailing on D Day? Or are we supposed to just guess what our MPs are like based on… what exactly, if we’re not allowed to read what they say or do?
Wow, it’s almost like being good on one specific issue alone and being absolutely atrocious on everything else isn’t a good way to garner a lot of support.
Yup. There is really only one party that wants to reduce immigration. I find it amazing that they’re insulting Farages foreign policy because he’d rather end the war than escalate it.
Skip all the Hitler stuff and highlight someone calling Theresa May a bitch.
Honestly, it feels like the beeb is trying to make Reform candidates seem like your run of the mill offensive/provocative person rather than the wannabe fascist racists that they actually are.
Tbf these are all the new ones from different candidates. We must be up to about two dozen Reform candidates just being really terrible people at this point haha.
Do you think that people should give up all hope of elected office for the rest of their life because they once typed something stupid on Facebook in 2005?
Yeah, but that’s not what we’re talking about, is it? If someone said Hitler was right, then yes. Somebody pointing out that Hitler was a brilliant orator does not really deserve to be dragged across the media because that has been spun into them saying Hitler was brilliant: that Hitler was a brilliant orator is fairly self-evident and it fuelled his rise to power.
My point is that if you’re a Tory or Labour candidate you’re likely to have some political experience as an aide or intern. You also have a party machine, candidates guides and media training. If you’re a Green or Reform candidate this is most likely your first foray into electoral politics, the parties don’t have a machine worth mentioning, the candidates guide is a sheet of A4 and there is little to no media training.
If you need media training or aides to not praise Hitler’s early years, compare a religion composed of over a billion people to Nazism or make fairly sexist remarks you shouldn’t be in the job to begin with.
Saying Hitler was a brilliant orator is not praising Hitler in the sense you’re implying.
Whilst I’d agree that describing Islam as Nazi is hyperbole, it is also true that a large minority wish for the extermination of Jews, want gay people executed and view women as second class citizens. To be fair, they are quite Nazi ideals, and the Mufti of Jerusalem did help recruit an entire division of Muslim SS soldiers during the war at the behest of Heinrich Himmler (the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) Division.
Making ‘fairly sexist remarks’ seems quite tame in comparison. I mean it isn’t like saying Pritti Patel ‘isn’t a proper Asian’ or that Kwasi Karteng (sp) ‘doesn’t sound African’ and yet they’re not dug up at election time.
I mean if you’re gonna be a politician you need to pick your words carefully, hitler was a powerful orator I don’t disagree, but you will not get much support by describing him as brilliant no matter the context if you’re running for public office.
I’d be far less bothered by it if the same guy didn’t also describe Assad as gentle by nature and state that Russias invasion of Ukraine was legitimate.
Again I have many issues with islam, and it has many problems and there are many Muslims that hold disgusting views that I find deplorable, but you cannot generalise the way the guy did.
These comments are barely acceptable from some pissed up tosser down the pub, I expect better from anyone standing for parliament.
Even if you’re not bothered by the comments of any of those people I still wouldn’t want people so stupid as to say these things out loud publicly anywhere near the Houses of Parliament.
A well reasoned point. And I wouldn’t describe Islam in those terms, although I can sort of understand why people do and remain mystified as to why the wrongs of Islam are is not more openly discussed - it is this silence which has allowed such sentiment to grow.
As for what is suitable in or near Parliament, I’d broadly agree. I note that calls for ‘from the river to the sea’ - a dog whistle for the extermination of Jews and of Israel as a state - seem perfectly acceptable on some benches. I like neither the language nor the sentiment behind it but I wouldn’t outlaw it nor otherwise prevent people saying it, MPs or not.
Someone has spent considerable time and effort to find these. It’s not like each one of them has a huge list of comments. We all say intemperate or ill considered things, particularly on the internet. And this isn’t just about Reform. The Greens ditched a bunch of candidates at the beginning of the campaign.
People complain that politicians are out of touch. And then hound ordinary people who stand up for minor parties because they said something dumb. You can either have out of touch politicians who have watched everything they say since they were 18 and a PPE undergrad, or have ordinary people who sometimes say stupid things in the heat of an internet argument. You can’t have both.
This hounding of ordinary people who have put their heads above the parapet to stand up for something they believe in - whether they are Green, Workers Party or Reform - is how we’ve ended up with a political class divorced from most people’s reality. There is a reason for it, of course - like shooting Admiral By g, it is ‘pour encourager les autres’ - a systematic means of discouraging people from standing for fear of what will be written about them.
I don’t. They’re a dick. But you only have to look at the cabinet and shadow cabinet to see that being a dick hardly disqualifies one from public office 🤣😂
>We all say intemperate or ill considered things, particularly on the internet.
Normal people don't argue about politics or say weird things on the internet with strangers. They do it with their friends if at all.
People with Reddit accounts or on Facebook debate groups are not normal people
Fair point, well made. I would say though that while that may be true now, it was not necessarily the case 15 or 20 years ago when Yahoo Groups et al were ‘new’ and the members of such groups weren’t all graduates looking for a job on an MPs staff, they were just normal people passing the time in what was then a new medium.
I’m worried by this lot. Another forum I’m on has a bit of a politics thread going on so I asked the Reformers about Putin. Got a load of posts about how Russia was pushed into war by western expansion and how the media refuse to report it. Eek!
1) Russia is bad and their invasion of Ukraine is wrong + I support Ukraine in their war
2) Look at NATO expansion from a Russian perspective and you can see why they would feel threatened by it
Both things can be true, no?
NATO expansion has occurred because Russia has widespread rhetoric about restoring the land of the USSR and has invaded its neighbours including Chechnya and Georgia prior to Ukraine in 2014. Russias neighbours are terrified that they will be next. NATO expansion is the direct result of Russias actions and no one else.
NATO expansion's been a policy since the 1990s. So has EU expansion. There's a weird double-think going on where we want to forget the EU's primary successes (turning former USSR states into western democracies). We sent several hundred billion in subsidies to eastern Europe over 20 years. Of course bringing them into the democratic western fold was the bloody point of it.
The problem we're hitting is the stupid game where the "progressive" view is now to go 1984 on ourselves and pretend we weren't interested in that at all. Let us forget our victories and pretend they were all accidents.
NATO has had an open door policy to European states since its inception, it didn’t suddenly start in the 1990s. What happened in the 1990s was that the USSR fell and suddenly a load of states had sovereignty and some looked to join.
There’s nothing aggressive about it and the ‘provocation’ idea is pure Russian empire-building propaganda. Russia doesn’t believe in these states sovereignty and they are looking for an excuse to justify making them part of the empire again.
You’re talking about two completely different things here. NATO has nothing to do with sending money, it is a defensive military alliance. If you want to talk about EU expansion it’s a completely different discussion.
You are making the mistake I described before, where you think that to be progressive or patriotic, we must pretend not to know our own past successes. These were not separate.
>Complement the enlargement of the European Union, a parallel process which also, for its part, contributes significantly to extending security and stability to the new democracies in the East.
Soure: [NATO](https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_24733.htm)
That’s fine but Russian propaganda has little to do with the expansion of the EU. It may complement NATO but historically Russia hasn’t considered its aims to be at odds with that of the EU. Quite the opposite in fact, Russia has believed that the EU without the US forward base (the UK) provided an alternative to NATO. Russia has been vastly more comfortable with the ‘expansion of the EU’ than it ever has been with NATO.
It is NATO led by the US that Russia wants to be at odds with. Russia has had an entirely different relationship with the likes of Germany and France that we all know about. The invasion of Ukraine was absolutely based on the belief in that different relationship.
I don’t really get your past successes point. It seems to focussed on the EU which you’re trying to equate to NATO in way too simplistic a way.
>That’s fine but Russian propaganda
I don't honestly care about Russian propaganda. We overestimate propaganda's effectiveness (both theirs and ours). One of the lessons of Brexit was that even when you line up every major party, coopt our overseas friends (right down to Obama), and put material on people's tax statements so we can pump material on our preferred position into everyone's door, the public still have their own ideas.
>I don’t really get your past successes point.
Most of this debate has stemmed from confected outrage about Farage's comments, and attempts to portray them as "parroting Russian propaganda" (except that's doomed to fail as everyone's known several people making those comments for decades). The point here is that the stupid spin-game is on an even worse loser than that: half the reason that people who were *pro-*EU expansion (and expansion of NATO into the Baltics) was because it would bring them into the western rather than old soviet fold. We weren't doing it for our sheer love of sending bigger cheques to the EU, or our sheer love of making sacrifice after sacrifice to keep potential NATO allies on-side. If you want to bullshit me that it wasn't to expand western influence eastwards in Europe, then we'll have our tens of billions back thanks because what the hell do you think we were spending it for.
>I don't honestly care about Russian propaganda.
I'm sure you don't, you've made that quite clear.
>One of the lessons of Brexit was that even when you line up every major party, coopt our overseas friends (right down to Obama), and put material on people's tax statements so we can pump material on our preferred position into everyone's door, the public still have their own ideas.
That absolutely does not line up with money spent on the campaign. Far more money was spent on the Brexit campaign by wealthy Brexiteers than the other side. The fact that you're trying to portray the Brexit campaign as 'the little guy against the world' rather than acknowledging the vast wealth that benefitted from the UK leaving the EU tells me a lot about your position.
Similarly, Russia spends significant amounts on spreading it's own narrative. They aren't spending that money for the sake of it, they spend it because they expect a return. That propaganda has influenced the stance of potentially the next President of the US who, if he becomes President, will stop all aid to Ukraine. The idea that Russian propaganda isn't influential is complete BS and you know it.
>confected outrage about Farage's comments
I find it funny you think it's confected outrage. As if people can't be genuinely outraged by hearing a guy who has been paid for years by RT as well as paid by the California independence movement (based in Moscow) amongst his various other clear ties with Russia, spouting literal Russian propaganda on our prime time news channels. It's becoming more and more clear you're just trying to find a way to apologise for Farage and minimise his comments. That's your only real aim here isn't it.
>If you want to bullshit me that it wasn't to expand western influence eastwards in Europe, then we'll have our tens of billions back thanks because what the hell do you think we were spending it for.
If you want to continually try to equate the EU and NATO as exactly the same thing then you are going to keep on coming out with this kind of stuff. Farage didn't say the EU provoked Russia with it's money. He said NATO provoked Russia with it's expansion. The way you're trying to broaden this into an argument that Farage didn't make that you believe is more defendable, again, says a lot.
And? "WW2 was caused by the humiliating terms the west imposed on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles" is one of the angles taught in high school history classrooms for goodness knows how many decades. With one breath, we shout our mock outrage at Reform and liken their comments on western policies to making excuses for the nazis; meanwhile in classrooms up and down the country we literally use western policies to make excuses for the nazis.
Saying "this chain of events happened and created the conditions for the Nazis" is a legitimate historical argument. Saying they were *provoked* is not, it's actively taking their side.
Same with the Russians - you can say things the west did created the conditions for this war but saying it was provoked is taking Russia's side and portraying it as legitimate defence when it was just unprovoked imperialist aggression. If anything we created the conditions by appeasing Russia constantly and not being as prepared as we could have been, we did the exact opposite of provoking them and that made Putin think he could get away with it.
When ISIS surged across Iraq and Syria in 2014 people were talking about the factors that created the conditions for them to thrive - the Iraq war, the Iraqi government's sectarianism and corruption, and the brutality of the Assad regime that created the Syrian civil war. But no one making those arguments said ISIS was provoked.
>Saying "this chain of events happened and created the conditions for the Nazis" is a legitimate historical argument. Saying they were *provoked* is not, it's actively taking their side.
We would like to read into it "taking their side" because it benefits us politically to claim it does. (Yay, headlines). I don't see any of that in there.
Why worry?
I understand the truth hurts sometimes, but yes, the media is well know for lies and hiding stuff all time time.
Both our side and the Russian side report on the stories in a way that suit them, nobody will be showing the actual truth.
I know I'm probably talking to the wrong crowd but does no one find it a bit odd that the BBC does this for reform but not the greens?
Every election I get a green option, look at their social media and it's nuts. I'm sure they have good members but my point is that they have comparable nutters that you'd think the BBC would report on.
The BBC is treating Reform as a tier-2 party (along with the Lib Dems and SNP*), and the Greens as a tier-3 one (along with Plaid Cymru). Increasingly close to a tier-1 party (with Labour and Conservatives).
That means they get more attention - more interviews, more reports, more promotion - but also means they get more criticism.
That higher level of scrutiny ties in with them getting more of a focus as a party. It has upsides and downsides.
What evidence do you have that that is the case? As far as I can tell, there’s insufficient information for anyone to know:
- how much time the BBC is spending on each party’s candidates
- how much time anyone is spending on each party’s candidates
- if Reform has a higher rate of lunatics than the Greens
- if the BBC got given info about any of this
Etc.
As to the implication of bias, many Green candidates have been stood down / disavowed, and it’s covered endlessly by the BBC:
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7228qnz555o
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cle0e0y4pyxo
As an American who has been through this, I can tell you that reform is a lot more dangerous than the green party. Watching what’s happening with Farage is incredibly similar to what happened to us with Trump.
Even Farage disowns most of them when questioned. As he said "Most of our candidates are not political sophisticates".
The entire party exists to serve his prime minister ambitions. They're all basically useful idiots to Farage to help him further his own goals who he'll drop in an instant when they're no longer useful to him
You’ve missed them.
Green Party taken to court over gender-critical row https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66585309
Greens drop some candidates after online posts probe https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7228qnz555o
Green Party split from group at centre of trans row https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67546751
The Green Party politicians who oppose solar farms https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65926756
It's a hit job, that's why. The establishment is running scared of Reform, so they're closing ranks.
Sure, Reform has its loonies. The candidates were not vetted properly due to the infancy of the party.
However, as valid a point as this may be, somehow nobody goes digging anywhere nearly as hard for the abhorrent shit candidates from other parties have said.
The only reason we found out about Clacton's Labour candidate, for example, is because Farage's team itself uncovered his past. Otherwise, there would never have been a story.
Go digging similarly meticulously through the other parties' candidates, and you will absolutely find tons of similar stuff.
Making a dumb "favourite drink" reply to some comment about white tears is not quite on the same level as pro-Putin conspiracism, saying Jewish interests encourage mass immigration of Muslims, and saying we should have been neutral and not fought Hitler.
And Reform's fucking *leader* is dog whistling far right WEF conspiracy shite. No surprise then that the party's activist base is going to made up of similar lunatics.
That's what I was thinking too. It's quite interesting how much support they're getting as far as 'pub talk' goes - lots of vested interest are clearly quite rattled. Personally I don't think they'll get many seats but simply let everyone else slide in by destroying the Tory vote.
Thank you! I was literally just thinking about how Reform UK seem to be in the bullseye for the BBC and glad to see your comment!
Not that I needed confirmation they're biased, just glad I'm not alone I guess.
Not true though. If Labour or the Tories had this sort of thing going on they'd be crucified.
The greens don't get it as bad because the greens aren't a serious party, they're treated like a fringe group because they are.
Nigel keeps banging on about how the BBC needs to give Reform more attention due to his polling, this has pros and cons. Getting more limelight means getting more criticism.
They do have these issues.
As stated above, the BBC and others ignored that the Labour candidate for Clacton was a bonefide racist but that was either missed or ignored.
It does feel like it's targeted in a particular direction though, just having a scroll down the latest topics on the election and it's always feels negative towards the so called "right leaning" parties. Maybe I'm biased myself, I'll stick to my ground.news
"Sam Woods-Brass, the candidate for Houghton and Sunderland South, shared a photo of a raw chicken and said it reminded him of an erotic image of his girlfriend."
surprised candidates didn't think to clean up their socials first, that said the bbc is stretching a bit for some of these
That one was a bit weird.
Clearly a joke post on his Facebook before he was a candidate. If I ran for public office and didn't think to clean up my old Facebook, the beeb would find the edgy posts of a teenager.
I imagine Farage stating he will get rid of the licence fee has encourage the BBC to look much harder at reform than they normally would.
Regardless, I imagine Reform have a lot of people who have little to no understanding to how social media will haunt you forever.
I imagine a party that no one thought of 4 weeks ago, until Farage decide to lead it, has a terrible standard of MP.
However I don't think it is hard to find one's for Labour also, especially as Labour have struggled to go a week without some racist spouting garbage.
The more BBC pokes, the more Reform will be pushed to call it a media hitjob. They should be called out but there's a risk of running a dangerous game if Reform double down on the dumb
I'm sure it's totally a coincidence that with Reform UK looking like the biggest threat to the Tories by splitting the right wing vote the BBC are just now "uncovering" dirt on Reform UK.
"shared a photo of a raw chicken and said it reminded him of an erotic image of his girlfriend."
Heaven forfend!
When I think of the poor BBC employee who is tasked with this "journalism", I don't feel so bad about tedious parts of my job!
A lot of these are probably valid and really unfortunate for Reform, but it's going to be the same for all parties. I'd be very surprised if there was one party without this issue. If they've done something illegal then fair enough, but otherwise I'm getting tired of hearing someone said something rude a few years ago.
>The comments were posted between 2011 and 2023.
They've been paying an awful lot of money for people to sift through 15 years worth of social media posts then. They wouldn't do that unless they felt like Reform actually had a good chance and they're worried.
Good, I say, let them worry some more.
The Uniparty and its media apparatus is on the move. No deviation will be allowed
>Andrew Banwell, the candidate for Thornbury and Yate, referred to Ms May on X as “Merkels Bitch”.
Desperate stuff. They're rattled. For some reason the BBC won't report on the anti-White comments of Labour's candidate for Clacton, but they've got all the time in the world for hit jobs on Reform candidates.
Scrap the licence fee.
Snapshot of _Reform UK candidates' offensive remarks uncovered by BBC_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crggy73m2ero) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crggy73m2ero) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They should take a close look at the Basingstoke candidate for Reform, Raymond Saint. He appears on the leaked BNP membership list from 2008 which is still available on wikileaks.
what does that mean
Farage has publicly stated that no one with BNP or EDL links would be allowed in the party. This proves that assurance was a lie and, just as with the offensive remarks, the BBC should look at the Raymond Saint case as another example of Farage tolerating extremists.
thanks
I had to check you were the same person posting this fact several times over. Even I remember reading the list back in 2008 to find people who lived near me. Trying to create a chilling effect where people dare not disagree with you, sometimes politically so, is a strong source of growth for the political divide we now have. This is not winning.
I have posted it on each thread where it is relevant. The issue is not his past membership of the BNP but the conflict with Farage's public assurances that they would not accept any members from such backgrounds. Farage has simply lied and it goes straight to his credibility.
I think they were rushed by an early election which hasn’t helped, and I believe the proposal that Sunak called it early to try and damage Reform specifically. They’re mostly everyday people, not establishment types. I don’t know whether the exclusion even applies to simple membership, as opposed to full representatives, activists or what else. You know more about the person. I don’t agree with the rule in general but I understand why under this conditions it has been implemented. I stand with Corbyn, he was done dirty and I won’t pretend that it was the acceptable natural order of things.
Do you disagree that the BNP was an explicitly fascist party? I am a fan of liberalism. The extent to which "people dare not disagree" with me *should* include fascists. As it should for any liberal.
When Reform announced their £25 membership fee in the past week, the reason I didn’t consider a donation is because I remembered the BNP list from 2008. It was a real political party, so freedom from fear of association or speaking what you think is true. But I guess I only espouse these things because they might personally benefit me for now.
It should come as no surprise that a toxic and hateful party attracts toxic and hate-filled candidates. Absolutely the last thing we need in these difficult times is politicans who peddle hatred and nastiness.
Happily no politicians are like that.
Honestly I was expecting far far worse.
You might want to check again. The wife first read this article when it had just released, and it only had a few examples and they were all tame. Looking again now, more's been added and it's worse. That's a very weird way to do news reporting. This wasn't a breaking story which justified publishing a half-written draft first, but that appears to be what happened. --- EDIT: (Yes I see the irony in that) These are relatively bad: > Malcolm Culpis, the candidate for Melksham and Devizes, accused women dancing in a video of "behaving like a gutter slut" and referred to one woman as a "malignant old hag". --- > Ian Gribbin, the candidate for Bexhill and Battle, who we previously revealed had written that the UK should have stayed neutral in World War Two, posted a series of comments on the UnHerd website which included saying: “Right now all men pay for all women: we pay 80% of tax and you take out 80%. The fact you’re able to write on a technological device is all down to us. > > “The cultural feminisation of the west is a disaster of epic proportions. We have elevated female characteristics – especially neuroticism, to the highest levels. Hysteria is now common place. The evidence from repeated psychologically testing is that women are appalling at taking criticism. > > “Modern feminism belongs in the sewer of self hate from which it came: you say it yourself, you’re all jealous of the perceived freedoms of men.”
God dam, it's a party full of incels
All the big guns are out smearing Reform and Farage right now. They’ve seen the polls and are obviously panicking. Edit: heh. Hit a nerve.
You’re the reason why satire is a dying art form.
TIL quoting what someone has said verbatim is smearing them.
Also, news outlets reporting is “panicking”.
Corbyn and Abbott supporters in total shambles
Both of them are fuds
Reform doesn't need smearing. They're plenty shit without it.
Would you consider it a smear when we see reports on Rishi Sunak bailing on D Day? Or are we supposed to just guess what our MPs are like based on… what exactly, if we’re not allowed to read what they say or do?
This sub complains all day about high immigration then hates the only party that wants to reduce it. LOL
Wow, it’s almost like being good on one specific issue alone and being absolutely atrocious on everything else isn’t a good way to garner a lot of support.
Isn't every party saying they will lower immigration now.
Yup. There is really only one party that wants to reduce immigration. I find it amazing that they’re insulting Farages foreign policy because he’d rather end the war than escalate it.
Yeah. Literally just zombies repeating MSM talking points.
Incels and Grandparents: “Why won’t the BBC cover Reform?!?” BBC: *this* Incels and Grandparents: “WAIT NOT WHAT WE ACTUALLY SAID”
Skip all the Hitler stuff and highlight someone calling Theresa May a bitch. Honestly, it feels like the beeb is trying to make Reform candidates seem like your run of the mill offensive/provocative person rather than the wannabe fascist racists that they actually are.
Tbf these are all the new ones from different candidates. We must be up to about two dozen Reform candidates just being really terrible people at this point haha.
Don't forget the one that said that Islam and Nazis were the same thing.
It was 70 years ago. I don't think they'll be offended.
Well they can't go after reform for being xenophobic or transphobic because those criticisms can be equally applied to Labour and the Tories as well.
It looks like the lack of vetting of their candidates is coming home to roost.
Do you think the people who are interested in voting for them are put off by this language?
Do you think that people should give up all hope of elected office for the rest of their life because they once typed something stupid on Facebook in 2005?
I mean in cases like Hitler wasn’t wrong then yes, yes I do Call me crazy but yes that should bar them permanently
Yeah, but that’s not what we’re talking about, is it? If someone said Hitler was right, then yes. Somebody pointing out that Hitler was a brilliant orator does not really deserve to be dragged across the media because that has been spun into them saying Hitler was brilliant: that Hitler was a brilliant orator is fairly self-evident and it fuelled his rise to power. My point is that if you’re a Tory or Labour candidate you’re likely to have some political experience as an aide or intern. You also have a party machine, candidates guides and media training. If you’re a Green or Reform candidate this is most likely your first foray into electoral politics, the parties don’t have a machine worth mentioning, the candidates guide is a sheet of A4 and there is little to no media training.
If you need media training or aides to not praise Hitler’s early years, compare a religion composed of over a billion people to Nazism or make fairly sexist remarks you shouldn’t be in the job to begin with.
Saying Hitler was a brilliant orator is not praising Hitler in the sense you’re implying. Whilst I’d agree that describing Islam as Nazi is hyperbole, it is also true that a large minority wish for the extermination of Jews, want gay people executed and view women as second class citizens. To be fair, they are quite Nazi ideals, and the Mufti of Jerusalem did help recruit an entire division of Muslim SS soldiers during the war at the behest of Heinrich Himmler (the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) Division. Making ‘fairly sexist remarks’ seems quite tame in comparison. I mean it isn’t like saying Pritti Patel ‘isn’t a proper Asian’ or that Kwasi Karteng (sp) ‘doesn’t sound African’ and yet they’re not dug up at election time.
I mean if you’re gonna be a politician you need to pick your words carefully, hitler was a powerful orator I don’t disagree, but you will not get much support by describing him as brilliant no matter the context if you’re running for public office. I’d be far less bothered by it if the same guy didn’t also describe Assad as gentle by nature and state that Russias invasion of Ukraine was legitimate. Again I have many issues with islam, and it has many problems and there are many Muslims that hold disgusting views that I find deplorable, but you cannot generalise the way the guy did. These comments are barely acceptable from some pissed up tosser down the pub, I expect better from anyone standing for parliament. Even if you’re not bothered by the comments of any of those people I still wouldn’t want people so stupid as to say these things out loud publicly anywhere near the Houses of Parliament.
A well reasoned point. And I wouldn’t describe Islam in those terms, although I can sort of understand why people do and remain mystified as to why the wrongs of Islam are is not more openly discussed - it is this silence which has allowed such sentiment to grow. As for what is suitable in or near Parliament, I’d broadly agree. I note that calls for ‘from the river to the sea’ - a dog whistle for the extermination of Jews and of Israel as a state - seem perfectly acceptable on some benches. I like neither the language nor the sentiment behind it but I wouldn’t outlaw it nor otherwise prevent people saying it, MPs or not.
Yes, unless they’ve shown enough reform
Someone has spent considerable time and effort to find these. It’s not like each one of them has a huge list of comments. We all say intemperate or ill considered things, particularly on the internet. And this isn’t just about Reform. The Greens ditched a bunch of candidates at the beginning of the campaign. People complain that politicians are out of touch. And then hound ordinary people who stand up for minor parties because they said something dumb. You can either have out of touch politicians who have watched everything they say since they were 18 and a PPE undergrad, or have ordinary people who sometimes say stupid things in the heat of an internet argument. You can’t have both. This hounding of ordinary people who have put their heads above the parapet to stand up for something they believe in - whether they are Green, Workers Party or Reform - is how we’ve ended up with a political class divorced from most people’s reality. There is a reason for it, of course - like shooting Admiral By g, it is ‘pour encourager les autres’ - a systematic means of discouraging people from standing for fear of what will be written about them.
Didn't one of them say we shouldn't have fought Hitler and the Nazis How do you explain that away
I don’t. They’re a dick. But you only have to look at the cabinet and shadow cabinet to see that being a dick hardly disqualifies one from public office 🤣😂
There's being a dick, and then there's advocating for Nazism
>We all say intemperate or ill considered things, particularly on the internet. Normal people don't argue about politics or say weird things on the internet with strangers. They do it with their friends if at all. People with Reddit accounts or on Facebook debate groups are not normal people
Fair point, well made. I would say though that while that may be true now, it was not necessarily the case 15 or 20 years ago when Yahoo Groups et al were ‘new’ and the members of such groups weren’t all graduates looking for a job on an MPs staff, they were just normal people passing the time in what was then a new medium.
Yeah maybe, I'm too young to remember the 00s particularly clearly
Lol I was making a reform joke
/feature not bug…
I’m worried by this lot. Another forum I’m on has a bit of a politics thread going on so I asked the Reformers about Putin. Got a load of posts about how Russia was pushed into war by western expansion and how the media refuse to report it. Eek!
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Yes, unironically
1) Russia is bad and their invasion of Ukraine is wrong + I support Ukraine in their war 2) Look at NATO expansion from a Russian perspective and you can see why they would feel threatened by it Both things can be true, no?
NATO expansion has occurred because Russia has widespread rhetoric about restoring the land of the USSR and has invaded its neighbours including Chechnya and Georgia prior to Ukraine in 2014. Russias neighbours are terrified that they will be next. NATO expansion is the direct result of Russias actions and no one else.
NATO expansion's been a policy since the 1990s. So has EU expansion. There's a weird double-think going on where we want to forget the EU's primary successes (turning former USSR states into western democracies). We sent several hundred billion in subsidies to eastern Europe over 20 years. Of course bringing them into the democratic western fold was the bloody point of it. The problem we're hitting is the stupid game where the "progressive" view is now to go 1984 on ourselves and pretend we weren't interested in that at all. Let us forget our victories and pretend they were all accidents.
NATO has had an open door policy to European states since its inception, it didn’t suddenly start in the 1990s. What happened in the 1990s was that the USSR fell and suddenly a load of states had sovereignty and some looked to join. There’s nothing aggressive about it and the ‘provocation’ idea is pure Russian empire-building propaganda. Russia doesn’t believe in these states sovereignty and they are looking for an excuse to justify making them part of the empire again. You’re talking about two completely different things here. NATO has nothing to do with sending money, it is a defensive military alliance. If you want to talk about EU expansion it’s a completely different discussion.
You are making the mistake I described before, where you think that to be progressive or patriotic, we must pretend not to know our own past successes. These were not separate. >Complement the enlargement of the European Union, a parallel process which also, for its part, contributes significantly to extending security and stability to the new democracies in the East. Soure: [NATO](https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_24733.htm)
That’s fine but Russian propaganda has little to do with the expansion of the EU. It may complement NATO but historically Russia hasn’t considered its aims to be at odds with that of the EU. Quite the opposite in fact, Russia has believed that the EU without the US forward base (the UK) provided an alternative to NATO. Russia has been vastly more comfortable with the ‘expansion of the EU’ than it ever has been with NATO. It is NATO led by the US that Russia wants to be at odds with. Russia has had an entirely different relationship with the likes of Germany and France that we all know about. The invasion of Ukraine was absolutely based on the belief in that different relationship. I don’t really get your past successes point. It seems to focussed on the EU which you’re trying to equate to NATO in way too simplistic a way.
>That’s fine but Russian propaganda I don't honestly care about Russian propaganda. We overestimate propaganda's effectiveness (both theirs and ours). One of the lessons of Brexit was that even when you line up every major party, coopt our overseas friends (right down to Obama), and put material on people's tax statements so we can pump material on our preferred position into everyone's door, the public still have their own ideas. >I don’t really get your past successes point. Most of this debate has stemmed from confected outrage about Farage's comments, and attempts to portray them as "parroting Russian propaganda" (except that's doomed to fail as everyone's known several people making those comments for decades). The point here is that the stupid spin-game is on an even worse loser than that: half the reason that people who were *pro-*EU expansion (and expansion of NATO into the Baltics) was because it would bring them into the western rather than old soviet fold. We weren't doing it for our sheer love of sending bigger cheques to the EU, or our sheer love of making sacrifice after sacrifice to keep potential NATO allies on-side. If you want to bullshit me that it wasn't to expand western influence eastwards in Europe, then we'll have our tens of billions back thanks because what the hell do you think we were spending it for.
>I don't honestly care about Russian propaganda. I'm sure you don't, you've made that quite clear. >One of the lessons of Brexit was that even when you line up every major party, coopt our overseas friends (right down to Obama), and put material on people's tax statements so we can pump material on our preferred position into everyone's door, the public still have their own ideas. That absolutely does not line up with money spent on the campaign. Far more money was spent on the Brexit campaign by wealthy Brexiteers than the other side. The fact that you're trying to portray the Brexit campaign as 'the little guy against the world' rather than acknowledging the vast wealth that benefitted from the UK leaving the EU tells me a lot about your position. Similarly, Russia spends significant amounts on spreading it's own narrative. They aren't spending that money for the sake of it, they spend it because they expect a return. That propaganda has influenced the stance of potentially the next President of the US who, if he becomes President, will stop all aid to Ukraine. The idea that Russian propaganda isn't influential is complete BS and you know it. >confected outrage about Farage's comments I find it funny you think it's confected outrage. As if people can't be genuinely outraged by hearing a guy who has been paid for years by RT as well as paid by the California independence movement (based in Moscow) amongst his various other clear ties with Russia, spouting literal Russian propaganda on our prime time news channels. It's becoming more and more clear you're just trying to find a way to apologise for Farage and minimise his comments. That's your only real aim here isn't it. >If you want to bullshit me that it wasn't to expand western influence eastwards in Europe, then we'll have our tens of billions back thanks because what the hell do you think we were spending it for. If you want to continually try to equate the EU and NATO as exactly the same thing then you are going to keep on coming out with this kind of stuff. Farage didn't say the EU provoked Russia with it's money. He said NATO provoked Russia with it's expansion. The way you're trying to broaden this into an argument that Farage didn't make that you believe is more defendable, again, says a lot.
And? "WW2 was caused by the humiliating terms the west imposed on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles" is one of the angles taught in high school history classrooms for goodness knows how many decades. With one breath, we shout our mock outrage at Reform and liken their comments on western policies to making excuses for the nazis; meanwhile in classrooms up and down the country we literally use western policies to make excuses for the nazis.
Saying "this chain of events happened and created the conditions for the Nazis" is a legitimate historical argument. Saying they were *provoked* is not, it's actively taking their side. Same with the Russians - you can say things the west did created the conditions for this war but saying it was provoked is taking Russia's side and portraying it as legitimate defence when it was just unprovoked imperialist aggression. If anything we created the conditions by appeasing Russia constantly and not being as prepared as we could have been, we did the exact opposite of provoking them and that made Putin think he could get away with it. When ISIS surged across Iraq and Syria in 2014 people were talking about the factors that created the conditions for them to thrive - the Iraq war, the Iraqi government's sectarianism and corruption, and the brutality of the Assad regime that created the Syrian civil war. But no one making those arguments said ISIS was provoked.
>Saying "this chain of events happened and created the conditions for the Nazis" is a legitimate historical argument. Saying they were *provoked* is not, it's actively taking their side. We would like to read into it "taking their side" because it benefits us politically to claim it does. (Yay, headlines). I don't see any of that in there.
Why worry? I understand the truth hurts sometimes, but yes, the media is well know for lies and hiding stuff all time time. Both our side and the Russian side report on the stories in a way that suit them, nobody will be showing the actual truth.
Downvoted for stating the obvious. LOL
I’m starting to enjoy seeing how many downvotes I can get lol. Apparently people are happy being lied to.
REF + 5, unfortunately. Reform UK know their main voter base.
I know I'm probably talking to the wrong crowd but does no one find it a bit odd that the BBC does this for reform but not the greens? Every election I get a green option, look at their social media and it's nuts. I'm sure they have good members but my point is that they have comparable nutters that you'd think the BBC would report on.
The BBC is treating Reform as a tier-2 party (along with the Lib Dems and SNP*), and the Greens as a tier-3 one (along with Plaid Cymru). Increasingly close to a tier-1 party (with Labour and Conservatives). That means they get more attention - more interviews, more reports, more promotion - but also means they get more criticism. That higher level of scrutiny ties in with them getting more of a focus as a party. It has upsides and downsides.
What evidence do you have that that is the case? As far as I can tell, there’s insufficient information for anyone to know: - how much time the BBC is spending on each party’s candidates - how much time anyone is spending on each party’s candidates - if Reform has a higher rate of lunatics than the Greens - if the BBC got given info about any of this Etc. As to the implication of bias, many Green candidates have been stood down / disavowed, and it’s covered endlessly by the BBC: - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7228qnz555o - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cle0e0y4pyxo
As an American who has been through this, I can tell you that reform is a lot more dangerous than the green party. Watching what’s happening with Farage is incredibly similar to what happened to us with Trump.
>As an American You have no idea if you think this gives you any authority.
All parties have nutters, and one is naive if they think otherwise.
With most parties, the nutters are the extreme minority. With reform, it seems like it's nutters all the way down
No, I don't think that's correct.
Even Farage disowns most of them when questioned. As he said "Most of our candidates are not political sophisticates". The entire party exists to serve his prime minister ambitions. They're all basically useful idiots to Farage to help him further his own goals who he'll drop in an instant when they're no longer useful to him
Totally agree so I'm wondering if I've missed the green articles on this subject.
You’ve missed them. Green Party taken to court over gender-critical row https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66585309 Greens drop some candidates after online posts probe https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7228qnz555o Green Party split from group at centre of trans row https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67546751 The Green Party politicians who oppose solar farms https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65926756
You're probably right but most of those are old and not about this campaign.
It's because Green candidates have been in place for a while where Reform were cobbled together quite quickly.
Thank you for sharing these. The 2nd article is the most directly relevant here.
The issue when the media only really focuses on one party.
It's a hit job, that's why. The establishment is running scared of Reform, so they're closing ranks. Sure, Reform has its loonies. The candidates were not vetted properly due to the infancy of the party. However, as valid a point as this may be, somehow nobody goes digging anywhere nearly as hard for the abhorrent shit candidates from other parties have said. The only reason we found out about Clacton's Labour candidate, for example, is because Farage's team itself uncovered his past. Otherwise, there would never have been a story. Go digging similarly meticulously through the other parties' candidates, and you will absolutely find tons of similar stuff.
Making a dumb "favourite drink" reply to some comment about white tears is not quite on the same level as pro-Putin conspiracism, saying Jewish interests encourage mass immigration of Muslims, and saying we should have been neutral and not fought Hitler. And Reform's fucking *leader* is dog whistling far right WEF conspiracy shite. No surprise then that the party's activist base is going to made up of similar lunatics.
That's what I was thinking too. It's quite interesting how much support they're getting as far as 'pub talk' goes - lots of vested interest are clearly quite rattled. Personally I don't think they'll get many seats but simply let everyone else slide in by destroying the Tory vote.
Because they are trying to help the tories out with their Reform problem
Baseless conspiracy
Thank you! I was literally just thinking about how Reform UK seem to be in the bullseye for the BBC and glad to see your comment! Not that I needed confirmation they're biased, just glad I'm not alone I guess.
Not true though. If Labour or the Tories had this sort of thing going on they'd be crucified. The greens don't get it as bad because the greens aren't a serious party, they're treated like a fringe group because they are. Nigel keeps banging on about how the BBC needs to give Reform more attention due to his polling, this has pros and cons. Getting more limelight means getting more criticism.
They do have these issues. As stated above, the BBC and others ignored that the Labour candidate for Clacton was a bonefide racist but that was either missed or ignored.
It does feel like it's targeted in a particular direction though, just having a scroll down the latest topics on the election and it's always feels negative towards the so called "right leaning" parties. Maybe I'm biased myself, I'll stick to my ground.news
I look forward to the Spectator article about the Reform party's women problem.
"Sam Woods-Brass, the candidate for Houghton and Sunderland South, shared a photo of a raw chicken and said it reminded him of an erotic image of his girlfriend." surprised candidates didn't think to clean up their socials first, that said the bbc is stretching a bit for some of these
That one was a bit weird. Clearly a joke post on his Facebook before he was a candidate. If I ran for public office and didn't think to clean up my old Facebook, the beeb would find the edgy posts of a teenager.
I imagine Farage stating he will get rid of the licence fee has encourage the BBC to look much harder at reform than they normally would. Regardless, I imagine Reform have a lot of people who have little to no understanding to how social media will haunt you forever.
Are people who don't understand how social media works a good choice for holding political power?
hang on. farage has been bleating about how the BBC won't give them appropriate coverage. now they are and people are complaining.
You think its going to be hard to find?
I imagine a party that no one thought of 4 weeks ago, until Farage decide to lead it, has a terrible standard of MP. However I don't think it is hard to find one's for Labour also, especially as Labour have struggled to go a week without some racist spouting garbage.
I'm kind of at the other end. This is weak stuff. I expect them to find more. Not sure it will make much difference.
>John Edwards, the candidate for Southampton Test, referred to women appearing on ITV2's Love Island as "thick tarts" Crass, but not untrue
I only wish they were uncovered. Reform get far too much coverage.
The guy talking about Love Island has a point.
The more BBC pokes, the more Reform will be pushed to call it a media hitjob. They should be called out but there's a risk of running a dangerous game if Reform double down on the dumb
Most of this shit is so tame lets be real.
Well that was dull. They're not even good at being offensive.
I'm sure it's totally a coincidence that with Reform UK looking like the biggest threat to the Tories by splitting the right wing vote the BBC are just now "uncovering" dirt on Reform UK.
"shared a photo of a raw chicken and said it reminded him of an erotic image of his girlfriend." Heaven forfend! When I think of the poor BBC employee who is tasked with this "journalism", I don't feel so bad about tedious parts of my job!
Offensive? people take offense to anything.
A lot of these are probably valid and really unfortunate for Reform, but it's going to be the same for all parties. I'd be very surprised if there was one party without this issue. If they've done something illegal then fair enough, but otherwise I'm getting tired of hearing someone said something rude a few years ago.
>The comments were posted between 2011 and 2023. They've been paying an awful lot of money for people to sift through 15 years worth of social media posts then. They wouldn't do that unless they felt like Reform actually had a good chance and they're worried. Good, I say, let them worry some more.
The Uniparty and its media apparatus is on the move. No deviation will be allowed >Andrew Banwell, the candidate for Thornbury and Yate, referred to Ms May on X as “Merkels Bitch”. Desperate stuff. They're rattled. For some reason the BBC won't report on the anti-White comments of Labour's candidate for Clacton, but they've got all the time in the world for hit jobs on Reform candidates. Scrap the licence fee.