Reform’s deputy leader wants to set up anti-immigrant vigilante groups rather than report crime to the police

Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice – he of the supposed party of law and order – is promoting the idea that members of the public should set up vigilante groups to patrol the areas near hotels housing asylum seekers.

It’s the ‘gentlemanly thing to do’ apparently. Rather than give the police any resources they need to have to tackle crime – if in fact they are not already doing so, after all we already have plenty of laws in place to deal with the sort of crime he thinks is going o – he believes that they’re too busy ‘pursuing online tweets and other unnecessary things” such that all other crime is going investigated and unprosecuted.

Someone who is in more of a position to actually understand what is going on with the police – the Policing Minister Dame Diana Johnson – does not like this idea. Firstly, she has seen no evidence of the migrants “leering and jeering” outside schools that Tice is alleging is one of the drivers for his recommendation, nor heard reports of it.

Tice thinks there is “plenty of evidence”, but in fact cites none. Johnson reports that opposite.

I haven’t personally seen evidence of people hanging around outside primary schools other than obviously parents and carers. And I often go and talk to people in my constituency outside school gates. I haven’t seen that myself.

She also makes the point that the UK does still have a police force – the people that are responsible for dealing with crime. So even though it’s the duty of all us citizens to call out unacceptable behaviour:

…what I would say is this country on the whole is a very law abiding country and we have a police force who have the tools and the officers to make sure that if there is criminal behaviour happening that that is addressed. So if Richard Tice thinks that there are problems in his own constituency, I assume that’s what he’s talking about, he should be raising that with the authorities and getting the police to look at what’s happening.

If he’s really seeing all this crime going on then he’s really abdicating his basic patriotic duty to report it to the proper authorities. But it seems unlikely he has the vast array of unnamed evidence he claims to have. Rather:

I think unfortunately Mr Tice might well be trying to whip up an issue there.

This is shortly after ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe started “urgently chasing” a dinghy he sighted off the coast, rabidly tweeting that “Britain needs mass deportations NOW”.
The boat of course was nothing to do with illegal immigrants. It was being sailed by a charity rowing crew raising money for motor neurone disease.

Elsewhere we have recently seen probably the exact type of British citizen Tice intends to recruit to his team of misinformed vigilantes run riot with violent protests outside hotels perfectly legally housing asylum seekers. They’re certainly not helping the police get on with their job preventing crime by damaging their equipment.

What could possibly go wrong?

As Arnold Carton notes, the “history of vigilante patrols has been anything but ‘gentlemanly’“. He worries, quite rightly, that winding up a bunch of unregulated, unsupervised men to go out onto the streets looking for trouble may not end well.

Normally, in our society, people who exercise authority over others (teachers, police etc) are subject to clear rules and to supervision. None of this applies to amateur vigilantes. Unless we are careful, we will end up with impulsive, angry men reacting on instinct on our streets at night, with no supervision.

Nigel Farage’s constituents have barely seen him since he became their MP

Open Britain visits Nigel Farage’s constituency, Clacton, in order to ask how residents feel about what he’s done for them since becoming the local MP.

Has all that promised change come to fruition?

Of course not. It seems he’s never to be seen doing anything whatsoever, except perhaps having a drink in the local pub.

Not all that surprising for a person who has nine lucrative ‘second’ jobs, and tendency to spend a bunch of his time (in between winding up our citizenry with his mass of ill-informed media appearances) in other countries, doing anything other than concretely representing the concerns of his constituents.

What Reform achieved during their first 100 days of running Kent Council – ‘clickbait and chaos’

The Byline Times gives a run-down of what Reform achieved in their first 100 days of running the Kent council.

In their words, it was “clickbait and chaos”.

  • For the first 2 months they cancelled important meetings, postponed training sessions and delayed decisions.
  • They promised voters that they’d save money – right before appointing a new cabinet member for their “Department of (Local) Government Efficiency” – another failed idea they unthinkingly copied and pasted from American politics – at an additional cost of at least £36,000.
  • They voted against a motion that would cancel the “generous allowance” paid to deputy cabinet members.
  • They cut net zero programmes – damaging for the environment, and likely to increase costs to the council in the long term.
  • They reversed the decision to sell off the “money pit” that was the County Hall building, again costly to the tax payers.
  • One of their councillors, Daniel Taylor, appeared in court, charged with several serious offences including one of threatening to murder his wife.
  • They refused to support a motion that would increase the focus on violence against women and girls. Their council leader, Linden Kemkaran, claimed these crimes were mostly committed by non-British nationals, although I’m not sure why this means they shouldn’t be focussed on. In any case, local domestic charities said that it wasn’t true.
  • Reform Councillor Bill Barrett was forcibly removed from his role as Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport.
  • They claimed to be investing £60 million into highways – without noting that actually it was the previous (non-Reform) administration that agreed this.
  • They announced a £16 million reduction in the council’s debt. This was also achieved prior to them being elected.

We were told that Reform UK would act in the interests of the residents of Kent but instead we have only seen chaotic management, bigotry and empty soundbites that help no-one.

One of Reform’s election candidates is currently a branch officer for a different party

Reform UK’s candidate vetting process is apparently so stringent that they think that they’re actually too diligent when checking the suitability of candidates.

So diligent that they appear to have missed the fact that they seem to have missed the fact that Nick Wood, one of their candidates for councillor, has actually been put forward as a candidate for another party – as well as currently supposedly serving as an officer for them.

He’s previously stood for election on behalf of the UKIP party. Apparently he himself some that thought he’d left it until he was told at a Reform UK members-only meeting that he had been chosen as the UKIP candidate to stand for them at the next election.

Nonetheless, Reform have put him forward as their candidate in the Surrey County Council election. This is despite the fact he’s listed as a UKIP branch officer on the Electoral Commission records.

Reform don’t seem to want to take advice on justice from their justice adviser

Reform has taken on former prison governor Vanessa Frake as their “justice adviser”.

But they don’t seem all that keen on taking her advice on justice, nor respecting her experience. Their desire to stoke the flames of a culture war apparently outweighs their respect for her experience.

One point of contention is the question of trans women being placed in prisons. Reform apparently want them all removed, no questions asked. Frake’s advice, based on her knowledge and experience, is that the risks to all concerned should be considered individually.

She suggested instead that the placement of trans women should be considered on a case-by-case basis and depend on risk assessments.

“People who want to just see a blanket ban clearly have never stepped foot in a prison and seen how prison runs and seen [how] risk assessments on individuals happen,” she said.

She also shows a surprising amount of humility for a Reform supporter. Probably because her actual expertise leads her to realise she doesn’t know everything about everything

What she said:

“I’m not an expert on trans people, all that I know is that everybody should be treated with humanity and decency.”

Humanity and decency! What a novel concept. Did she know what she was signing up for?

What the Reform asked when ask if they agree with her views:

No.

In a later interview, Nigel Farage, quite surprisingly, seemed to also be defying the hate-filled policy of his own party, adopting a view more similar to Frake’s.

I’ve personally never worked in a prison so I can’t answer it,” Farage said.

“Basically, it’s about risk assessment, isn’t it?” he added. “In terms of the problems in prisons, it’s a relatively small one.”

A Labour source is rightly sceptical, saying:

Much like Boris Johnson, he’ll say anything to get himself through a press conference. It’s never coherent or reasoned. As scrutiny increases, this stuff will further fall apart.

The current Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, goes on to point out that at least in Downview prison, transgender females are held within a transgender-only facility, a point which I’m sure is missed by many folk with opinions. As, for what it’s worth, is the fact that even back in 2023 90% of transgender women were already housed in men’s prisons.

Reform town councillor resigns so that his wife can enter a gardening competition

Reform lose yet another councillor – Tony Hewitt from Ferryhill town council in County Durham.

This time it’s not for an extra-racist tweet, nor espousing some slightly progressive idea that transgresses the ideological warfare of the Reform leadership.

It’s because his wife wants to enter a gardening competition. Admittedly she’s good at it. They won the top two prizes last year.

But it’s a competition run by the town council – the same town council that he, as a councillor, is a part of. It was thus seen as a potential conflict of interest even though he wouldn’t have been directly involved in the judging.

Per the council’s rules:

Ferryhill Town Council said staff or elected members and their spouses may not enter competitions that it runs, adding “the appearance of any kind of favouritism could make members of the public lose confidence” in the council.

Given the choice between doing the job he was elected for or participating in the gardening competition, he went for the latter – so Ferryhill town council is now another councillor down.

I suppose one less Reform councillor is no great loss, and it’s nice that he wants to make his wife happy. But it’s not a great result for the people he was supposed to represent.

Rank hypocrisy: Reform are only “tough on crime” when it comes to people who have ideas that they don’t like.

Reform UK like to make a big deal of how tough on crime they are. But what they don’t tell you in their various inflammatory speeches is they’re only interested in being “tough on crime” when its crime committed by people they don’t agree with. They are curiously soft on crime when it comes to their friends, actual or ideological.

Hope Not Hate provide a run down of several instances of this utter hypocrisy.

A lot of these examples come from various prominent Reformers commenting on the protest / rioting seen at anti-migrant demonstrations.

First we see Reform MP Lee Anderson sharing an extremely inflammatory take on what happened in Leeds

Last July, after the riot in Leeds, Reform’s Lee Anderson MP criticised “disgraceful scenes”. The rioters were incorrectly perceived to be entirely Muslim. On X, he wrote: “Import a third world culture then you get third world behaviour. These animals need locking up for good… I want my country back.”

“These animals” says it all.

What about after the Southport riots? Are those that committed violence there – injuring over 50 police officers – “animals”? Nope. Far from it. He’s strangely progressive in their case:

Compare this to Anderson’s comments after the Southport riots, in which he dismissed the violence. “We all do daft things when we’re young,” he said. “These are not far-right thugs, they’re just young idiots who got carried away.” He added that many of those arrested “probably had one too many”. Instead of locking up the criminals, Anderson suggested, the prime minister should “sit down with them, find out what the problem is and try to come up with some solutions rather than just banging them away”.

Pro-environment protestors, well, Reform doesn’t like those folk of course. So:

“Lock these nuisances up,” Anderson said in 2022. His colleagues are no different. “Arrest them, lock them up & throw away the key,” said Richard Tice that same year. He welcomed the jailing of Just Stop Oil demonstrators as “excellent news”, and has said he wanted them to receive “long sentences”, calling their actions “selfish antics”.

To be fair, plenty of people have criticised the protestors the type of civil disobedience that inconveniences non-participants, such as blocking roads. The pro-environment group Extinction Rebellion have done this on some of their protests. Farage went to far as to refer claim this was somehow “terrorism”. They’re criminals who need locking up:

…when it came to the 2018 Extinction Rebellion protests that also blocked traffic, Farage said the group was committing “economic terrorism”. On his LBC programme, he quoted highways legislation that makes it illegal to block roads. “Zero arrests! I can’t quite believe it,” he said. In 2021, he similarly called for Extinction Rebellion to be treated like a terrorist organisation. “Arrest these people, put them in prison,” he said.

But pro-environment protestors aren’t the only folk who use such tactics. Remember the anti-inheritance tax demonstrations in which hundreds of tractors blocked traffic in central London?

Again, those folk have ideas that Reform like, so not only did Nigel Farage actually attend the protest, he poured scorn on the idea blocking traffic causes much disruption at all. In fact, he’d love to see these protests spread far wider. Suddenly it’s not terrorism:

“These kinds of protests need to be in every market town in England,” Farage told GB News. Asked about the impact of tractors blocking busy roads, he said: “The level of disruption in people’s lives is minimal.”

Likewise his beliefs about civil disobedience in the form of vandalism are likewise extraordinarily inconsistent.

When his ideological enemies do it – in this case when Palestine Action spray-painted military aeroplanes he’s dead against it, voting for them to be branded a terrorist organisation, as did fellow Reform MPs Richard Tice and Sarach Pochin

But when the people supporting causes that he likes, in this case the anti-ULEZ campaigners who went around destroying traffic cameras, Farage claims it it’s perfectly understandable. This time because he doesn’t like the law, it’s the law that’s wrong – not the protestors criminally damaging public property:

“When laws become enemies of men, men become enemies of law,” party leader Farage said in 2023. “I have been firmly told that in our area no ULEZ camera will stay up for long.”

Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader was equally as understanding of the latter, saying

What we are seeing is the frustration of ordinary people who see this as a tax on the poor without any justification.

There is a saying that Frank Whilhoit came up with, famous in some circles, that criticises a fundamental part of a certain type of modern-day conservativism as having goals for the law that are entirely self-serving:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

The end product is a legal system that is functionally entirely two tier.

A two-tier legal system is of course something Reform often allege everyone else is doing. But it’s simply yet anther example of their extreme hypocrisy and unpatriotic disrespect for the institutions of Britain. What they mean is that they wish the legal system would punish their enemies whilst not interfering with the actions of their friends. The loudly criticise the exact behaviours that they themselves want to enact more of than virtually any other party. They would happily see a two tier system, an ineffective and unjust legal system, as long as it suits their ideological purposes whilst punishing their opponents.

Farage tells dangerous lie about police bussing in anti-fascist protestors to the anti-immigration Epping protests

There have recently been a series of ongoing anti-immigration protests against a hotel in Epping where some asylum seekers have been temporarily housed – and really the general existence of migrants at all.

Nigel Farage decided to fan the flames by telling lies designed to promote his evidence-free conspiracy-laden theory of two-tier policing.

His claim was that the police themselves used police vans to bus in a crowd of counter-protestors to confront his favoured anti-immigrant protestors who form the standard part of the demonstration. He went on GB News to claim that it was “absolutely astonishing” that “the police had bussed a group called Stand Up To Racism…from the station to the hotel” – as though the police had rounded up a group of people and formed a convenient taxi service just because they were against Reform and their allies.

Of course that never happened. The Essex Police force had to quickly release a statement that it was “categorically wrong” to claim that they had transported any protestors of any kind to the site in police vans. They released video footage to show what had actually happened, which was naturally nothing like what Farage had claimed.

Rather, police escorted the counter-protestors on foot as they were marching under their own steam towards the site. This is absolutely typical for any protest march. I have never been on one that didn’t have police monitoring the situation. It is mostly done to ensure the protestors “behave themselves” according to the law. It’s not sign of support – some people would see it actually as the opposite. And I’m sure they would have formed the same kind of cordon were Farage’s protest friends marching somewhere en masse.

The counter-protestors were later bundled into a police van – but to be driven away from the protest. But this was done only to ensure the safety of everyone present. After all, a set of anti-immigrant far-right agitators have previously turned up, only to end up being arrested for committing various forms of violence.

Says Chief Constable Harrington of the police force concerned:

“We’ve not driven anybody to that protest,” Mr Harrington said. “People made their own way there. We did take people away for their safety, for the safety of everyone there, because it was the best operational thing to do to prevent violence, to defuse the situation.”

The local Conservative MP, Neil Hudson, correctly criticised Nigel’s lies.

Conservative MP for Epping Forest Neil Hudson, asked about Mr Farage’s comments, told Sky News that what some politicians are saying “is not correct”. He added: “Essex Police are putting themselves in harm’s way to keep people safe and it’s very important that we have the facts, and we have no misinformation. But I’m categorical, I am fully in support of Essex Police and I’m very grateful for what they’re doing.”

The previous MP for Epping Forest shared a more general concern, saying:

It is the duty of elected representatives, all elected representatives, regardless of which party they represent, to do their best to encourage community cohesion and to calm down a potentially riotous situation. The considerable amount of misinformation by a particular political party is unfortunate and is working against community cohesion.

She didn’t name names, but I think we all know who she was referring to.

But Farage doesn’t care. Spreading misinformation to whip up his potential supporters into a frenzy of anger is all part of the game to him, no matter the potentially dangerous consequences, saying:

…if I was slightly out on accuracy, I apologise, but I think the gist of what I was saying was right

I’m not sure how the “gist” of claiming something happened that categorically did not happen could be “right”.

Reform Warwickshire endorses transport plan its own leader says is a waste of taxpayers money

Warwickshire’s Reform-led council, with its teenage leader, is back in the news again. This time it’s about its transport policy.

The meeting concerned was called in order to try and encourage Reform councillor Nigel Golby, who holds the portfolio for transport and planning, to provide some detail as to how he intends to spend the £66 million local transport grant.

In the event, Golby apparently sat in near-perfect silence throughout the whole meeting, moving Lib Dem councillor RIchard Dickson to note that:

His silence is deafening and he should be under no illusion that the clock is ticking

But plenty of other folk spoke up during the debate.

Leader of the council, George Finch, made it known that he believes cycle lanes are a waste of money

I do want to note my major concern with these cycle lanes. I believe they are a waste of taxpayers’ money, people don’t really use them so what is the point?

Others disagree, with Councillor Boad asking him the fair question “What on earth makes you think that?”. Either no reason was forthcoming, or Warwickshire World didn’t report it).

Finch also is, of course, against anything associated with that bogey-man phase all the Reformers are so scared of – “net zero” – saying there and then that he was going to cut net zero initiatives “to the bone”.

Luckily for the rest of us, despite Reform’s professed hatred of all things net zero and cycle related, it turns out that Finch and his Reform colleagues all joined their fellow councillors in reaffirming their commitment to both the cycle lane and net zero adjacent policies – whether through incompetence or hypocrisy who knows, but let’s take the win where we can.

Nigel Farage has mentioned his constituency in Parliament just four times in a whole year

We already saw Nigel Farage earning very low grades in terms of doing his actual job as an elected MP. In his first year he turned up to Parliament and spoke only a fraction of the number of times that other party leaders did – less than once a week. He also voted fewer times than his peers, despite his claims to have strong opinions on a vast array of topics and delight in ranting about whatever comes to his mind to any media channel that will have him.

We can feel especially sorry for the people who live in his constituency, Clacton. He has managed to mention his constituency, Clacton, a mere four times in his first year.

As a comparison, his deputy, Richard Tice, has spoken more than 4x as often, 211 times, and mentioned his consistency at least 25 times.

Why? Well, Farage is a busy man. He has at least 9 “second” jobs, most of which enrich his huge personal wealth far more than merely doing the job he was elected to do would do. Over the same period he’s received almost £1 million from his other jobs.

DeSmog shares some quotes that give us a further sense of his greedy and unpatriotic alternative activities:

“Over the last year, Farage has put his speaking tours of the U.S., his GB News show and various side hustles as a landlord, shilling for a climate science denial think tank and flogging nappies and tax-free gold, all ahead of being the MP for Clacton,” said Jolyon Maugham, Good Law Project executive director.

“It’s not so much Britain First as Farage First.”

A number of Clacton voters have noticed Farage’s absence. Speaking to The Mirror, local residents accused the Reform leader of “doing nothing” aside from “looking for photo opportunities”.

As they note, we can’t really be surprised at Farage’s irresponsible laziness given his previous political record:

Farage has a long history of failing to perform parliamentary duties. While serving as a Member of European Parliament (MEP), he was a member of its influential fisheries committee, yet over three years turned up to only one of 42 meetings.