Rather than skip his elected duties, he could have just waited a few days until Parliament was in recess before vacationing. But no, his priority was to get a tan under the French sun rather than actually doing his job – and this was the bit of it he pretends he cares about the most.
A Labour spokeperson sums Farage’s laziness and seemingly inability to take his job seriously nicely:
Nigel Farage has one of the poorest attendances of all MPs, turning up for only a third of votes. He already earns hundreds of thousands doing everything other than what he was elected to do – and now he’s off sunbathing instead of representing us in Clacton.
You’d think the one issue he’d want to make a song and dance about in the chamber is the EU. But maybe he’s gone quiet to avoid the embarrassment – because while he shouted from the sidelines and failed to deliver anything of substance…
Obviously he still feels compelled to shout about Starmer “surrendering” to the EU. But when it comes to actually taking some action to shape the British relationship with EU, well, that’s too much like hard work.
Always focusing on fixing the worst problems of society, Reform has been busy wasting its time and our money by taking the time to officially ban flags from being displayed at council premises..
Reform chairman Zia Yusuf had earlier announced that “Reform-controlled English councils will move at speed to resolve that the only flags permitted to be flown on or in its buildings will be the Union Jack and St George’s flag”.
“At speed”, no less.
Unfortunately this annoyed some of the actual local people that their councillors are supposed to represent, so they had to walk it back a bit and add county flags to the allow-list.
All other flags remain forbidden though. My guess is that the main point of this in the minds of many of Reform’s decision-makers is to ban the Pride flag, often flown as a sign on solidarity with LGBTQ+ people. And sure enough, they have been busy removing them.
Liberal Democrat councillor Ellie Hopgood condemned the decision and said it was a “disrespectful, mean-spirited act” ahead of Saturday’s Pride in Armed Forces event in Durham.
However Pride is of course not the only flag in the world. The ban includes the Ukrainian flag, frequently flown as “a gesture of solidarity we see across the whole country” with the beleaguered country currently under illegal attack by Putin’s Russia. Understandably, more normal council folk don’t like this decision, and note their leader’s deep love of that conflict’s aggressors.
A Liberal Democrat spokesman said: ‘We know the only flag most Reform politicians want to fly is the Russian flag and these plastic patriots are proving to be everything that we thought they were.
‘A bunch of Putin apologists who would rather tear down the symbols of brave Ukrainians fighting for freedom than stand with them.’
Reform mayor for Lincolnshire Andrea Jenkyns recently revealed the unsurprising news that due to her recent election victory:
We are going to have a Lincolnshire Doge. We are going to ensure that we get rid of diversity officers because amazingly Lincolnshire County Council is now Reform controlled.
And sure enough there are zero diversity officers employed by the council even just a few weeks into her tenure.
Such success! Wow! Only it’s less a sign of political efficacy when you find out that there never were any diversity officers there in the first place.
Do any of these people do even the most cursory of research into the jobs they want to be elected to?
As an anonymous Conservative said to the Independent about this very local mayor who is definitely acting only in the interests of very local people tackling very local issues:
“Someone who lives in Lincolnshire would know that there aren’t any DEI roles going in Lincolnshire Council. … It the latest proof that Reform is a one-man band without the answers needed to tackle the problems facing hardworking families across Britain.”
Wayne Titley, recently elected to be a Staffordshire County Councillor, lasted just two weeks before stepping down for “personal reasons”, unable to represent voters “in the way they deserve”.
No-one really seems to have said precisely why, but it was noted that:
…he attracted criticism for a post on his Facebook account in March that called on the navy to intercept small boats attempting to reach Britain and use a “volley of gun fire aimed at sinking them”.
So it’s probably his terrible posting habits. Reform made comments to suggest that he had received enough “abuse” to mean that he couldn’t continue as councillor.
Despite appearing on the ballot paper as the Reform candidate in the recent local council election for Nuneaton’s Galley Common in Warwickshire, he ended up taking his position as an independent councillor rather than representing Reform.
He’s another one who apparently didn’t check the rules.
In a statement on Facebook on 28 April, Shingler said he “cannot run under a political organisation, party or movement due to my employment”.
Members of the armed forces face considerable restrictions on political freedoms that are taken for granted by most of the population. They are not permitted to join a trade union or a political organisation, to speak to the media or in public without permission or to stand for elected office.
This time it is because he isn’t actually allowed to be a councillor, on the basis that he already works for the council. So presumably he lied on his eligibility declaration. How he hoped they wouldn’t find out I have no idea.
He has since chosen to keep his job rather than stick around and represent the people that elected him. Yet another wasteful by-election will have to be arranged.
Outlasting the previous quitter by just a few days, Reform Councillor Desmond Clarke became the next Reform councillor to flee their post within a week of getting the job.
The reason for this one seems less clear, with the official word being the rather vague claim that:
…he is not in a position to deliver the level of service to the people of Newark West that they deserve and require.
I’m sure he’s not the only one.
His constituents do need representation – so this will, of course, trigger another by-election.
“Seven days after fighting an election on a promise to cut spending and waste, the Reform county councillor for Newark West has resigned which will result in the triggering of a by-election that will cost taxpayers thousands of pounds”
Donna Edmunds, one of the fleet of Reform candidates that won a local election to become a councillor during the elections on 1st May 2025 was suspended by the party just three days later. Reform claimed that one of her social media posts “damaged the interests of their party” .
Because I urged people here on X to lend Reform their support for the short term – for Thursday’s elections – even if they felt they couldn’t for the long term.
They claim it was because she posted her intent to defect to another party.
In any case, the next day she formally quit Reform, having come to believe it is in fact a cult.
“I thought I was joining a party. It turned out I had joined a cult,” Edmunds said in a statement.
She reports that Farage replaces anyone who questions anything with “‘yes men’ who are willing to display sycophantic loyalty” and is a “terrible leader” who “must never be prime minister”.
Reform is a private company owned by Nigel Farage that masquerades as a British political party. It was founded in 2018 and has in recent times become increasing popular with the British electorate.
None of that makes it inherently bad I suppose. But in practice, I think Reform is dangerous in at least two ways.
First, in policy terms. What they have could mostly be described as the typical concerns that are espoused by the typical modern-day right-wing populist ideologue. These days, that includes:
A virulent hatred of immigration – beyond that of any other mainstream British party, which is saying something.
A despising of any policies that could be deemed as pro-environment. The phrase “net zero” has become a bogeyman as far as they are concerned. They’ve no concern for the climate or the horrors that damage to it will do, is doing.
A tendency towards tax-cutting and deregulation; policies that would in practice favour corporations and the uber-rich over the everyday person the falsely claim to represent.
A strong distaste for social welfare and public services. Perhaps most famously their leader seems to want to abolish the National Health Service as we know it. Once again this style of policy favours big business and the rich over anyone who is remotely vulnerable to the implosion of the social state – which is most of us. Some of the above are policies associated with the progressivism. But even if you don’t consider yourself a progressive and are sympathetic to the views that they espouse, I think you’ve still a lot to be worried about.
They show no sign of fiscal responsibility. Their policies tend to be unfunded, there’s no sense of a balanced budget.
They’ve little respect for what has made Britain what it is, as flawed as that is. There’s no sense of conserving what works. They want to burn it all down.
They’re divisive in tone, causing unnecessary aggravation, wasteful conflict.
Their leader at least seems to be drawn towards the “strong-man authoritarian” type of foreign politician. He likes, admires and courts the sort of president that would wish to see our country shrunk even further on the world stage.
He’s also a liar, no stranger to misrepresenting things to suit his arguments; the “cost” of Europe, the “scourge” of immigration et al – all things where there are legitimate conversations to be had. But only when all parties are committed to the truth.
And at present the party seems to have basically eaten the previously-dominant UK Conservative party for lunch. The recent election results and polling should worry anyone who has any inclination at all towards the British Conservative party.
My second fear is less around ideology and more about competence. Many of their representatives have never governed before. Or even lived in the place they’re supposed to be running. For the ones of them that are presently still teenagers, well, I suppose it’s hard to expect them to have meritoriously risen through any ranks of the party or played a deciding factor in their home geography if they’re only just done with their schoolwork. But I’m not sure it’s very responsible for the party to have put them in harm’s way.
Beyond the individual, the party seems to be basing many of their supposed plans on entirely uncosted policies that haven’t been serious review. Some of which appear to be photocopies of new laws from the increasingly diminishing United States, often of little relevance to our country. They make speeches and take actions that show a thorough misunderstanding of what Britain is, how it works, what should be done to fix it.
Simply; they are unpatriotic, seemingly having little sense of pride for Britain and its place in the world; what it has done in the past, and what it could do in the future.
Some of this is probably because party is stuck with the viewpoint of one man, its owner, Nigel Farage. Being a private business that he owns the majority of, there is no obvious way for the party to curtail him should they come to dislike his excesses. There’s not an obvious route to the constant evolution and adaptation that’s necessary to modern-day politics. Even if you support the party in every way so far, you are still relying on one man being inclined to do good things.
So that’s the why this. Why now? Well, mainly because the recent local election council results shocked me. They made huge gains from the set of wards that were in play last time around, ousting many incumbents from previously-dominant parties.
They won the single parliamentary by-election that took place – if only by 6 votes, and in an area where the incumbent had previously been prosecuted for assaulting a constituent. But they nonetheless, it’s not nothing to have overcome a Labour majority of 15,000 votes or so.
They also won 2 of the mayorships on offer – Greater Lincolnshire and Hull & East Yorkshire.
They are, on paper at least, becoming impossible to ignore.
Only a relatively few wards were in play during that election, and they heavily tended towards the conservative. Plus local election results don’t predict the nationals. So that’s not to say a set of councillors today reflect tomorrow’s national government. But it’s certainly not good news for those of us who see a potential threat here, or, if I am right, for those British citizens currently represented by Reform either locally or nationally.
Perhaps I am wrong. I hope I am. Perhaps, following their recent success, Reform will govern well – making local government great again. Many of their policies that I find to be most harmful are not actually something that local councillors have much say over anyway, so in practice maybe their excesses will be constrained as they settle down to the nitty gritty of providing competent and efficient local services that don’t involve small boats. Perhaps, in short, I’ll have nothing to write about on this blog. But if that turns out not to be the case, then I’d like to keep track of what actually happens.
