> he's head of a company with 4 MPs, same say as the Greens

The electoral system has been working against him. At the last general election Reform got a larger share of the vote than the Lib Dems, yet the result is that they got 5 MPs while the Lib Dems got 72.

The Brexit referendum and the current national polls that put Reform in first place at 27% (YouGov) show that they are not just "steering the conversation". When people's concerns keep being ignored at one point someone will come up to fill this "gap in the market", this is legitimate and how democracy works.

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ta1243 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

He's had 15 years of success without his vote in a westminster election getting to 15%

Actual election results:

2010: 3%

2015: 13%. He was the only party to endorse leaving the EU in that election.

2016: (52% vote to leave the EU)

2017: retired

2019: 2%

2024: 14%

Yet his prime policy was passed in 2016 and implemented in 2019.

You don't need people to vote for you to get your policies passed. You need people to just believe in what you say, and other politicians will see that and implement them. The most successful politicians see all sides "steal their policies" and implement them. That's assuming your goal is the policy, not the power.

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Vespasian 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I was under the impression that Faraga was heavily advocating for Brexit and he and his supporters ultimately got what they wanted so at least some people should be really happy that it happened (the ones who went into it with realistic expectations at least).

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ta1243 3 days ago | parent [-]

They should be happy. But the promised utopia didn't arrive, so now Farage is blaming the next thing, "just get rid of the 30k boat arrivals and things will be great".

(There's 900k arriving each year on visas, which if you are concerned with immigration is a far larger number, but that is harder for Farage to argue against)

Once the boats are all blasted to bits or whatever, and things still don't get better, who will be the next person to blame.

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mytailorisrich 3 days ago | parent [-]

Immigration has been a big issue for a very long time and it partly caused the Brexit vote.

To me your reply exemplifies my previous point: You dismiss those concerns. This is what happened with Brexit and this is what has been happening for a long time over immigration. This can only end badly.

> There's 900k arriving each year on visas, which if you are concerned with immigration is a far larger number, but that is harder for Farage to argue against

They argue against the high level of immigration legal or illegal. Of course illegal immigration is an easy topic handed to them on a plate by successive governments since it is very visible and very little is done against it.

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ta1243 3 days ago | parent [-]

If they were spending their effort arguing against 95% of immigration, which are people arriving at Heathrow, then I'd be more sympathetic.

People voted for brexit was all about stopping Iraq and Turkey from sending millions of people to the UK. -- I remember the leaflet, I remember the voxpop of people saying "Europe, fair enough, but not from Africa, Syria etc".

People voted for Brexit to stop immigration. It decreased European immigration, but more than replaced it with African and Middle Eastern immigration) because they believed that being in the EU meant. This was inevitable.

They were wrong based on their own beliefs, and its difficult to argue against that viewpoint.

> They argue against the high level of immigration legal or illegal. Of course illegal immigration is an easy topic handed to them on a plate by successive governments since it is very visible and very little is done against it.

One major policy was implemented which massively increased immigration, illegal or not, was Brexit. Farage's flagship policy.

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mytailorisrich 3 days ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

	▲	ta1243 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		people voted to stop immigration which wasn't happening (people from outside europe) Brexit means we left agreements which let us send people on boats back to France. It also means that rather than having local europeans with similar culture doing work, we have people from further afield, and people aren't happy. The last 5 years shows what a lie brexit was, it delivered exactly what brexit voters were voting against. We already had what they wanted. Of course Vote Leave knew this, they went door to door to non-european communities saying "vote leave and europeans won't be able to come in and instead your friends and family will". But sure, keep voting for the liar. Will be interesting to see what happens next.