Following on from my last post, the number of Reform MPs in the Commons for the Strategic Defence Review this week was.... zero,

Meanwhile, Richard Tice, an MP who has never been elected as a councillor, has announced that new employees in the ten councils controlled by his party will not be able to join the Local Government Pension Scheme. Any attempt to challenge that in court will, of course, succeed, costing council taxpayers a substantial sum. I have a strong suspicion that Reform are deliberately provoking the government into considering taking control of Reform-led councils (as the Tories did with various councils that effectively went bankrupt). They will try and portray themselves as "martyrs against an authoritarian government".

Zia Yusuf gone!

BBC News

Zia Yusuf resigns as Reform UK chairman

Zia Yusuf says he no longer believes working to get a Reform government "is a good use of my time".

Nor is working to get a Reform government a good use of anyone's time tbqh but glad you've seen the light, Zia. Which is quite significant honestly, he was possibly the biggest reason for Reform's recent success outside of Farage.

One day after their newest MP chose to make her first question in PMQs about banning the burka, because that's such a hot topic on everyone's minds right now - notably Yusuf publicly called that 'dumb' after it whipped up a few minor headlines.

Think we can safely say there’s more chance of Reform collapsing than forming a government at this stage.

Seen that guy on TV once and he was a complete fool. 18.05 to 20.30

A random guy with money who just tried to buy his way to power. I doubt it’ll have any negative impact.

29 minutes ago, Liam Sota said:

Seen that guy on TV once and he was a complete fool. 18.05 to 20.30

A random guy with money who just tried to buy his way to power. I doubt it’ll have any negative impact.

I saw him several times on programmes like QT and quite apart from majorly disagreeing with him, he was quite easily Reform's best communicator outside of Farage. Tbh he even comes across mildly well in that clip. Very few in that party have the ability to articulate what they might do as a party of government, he did, and he possibly had the ability to sell that message to enough voters to get a majority.

Farage even acknowledges that Yusuf was a major part of the party and quite evidently a big factor in their local election success, it's interesting to wonder what pushed him out.

Reform can't win an election and form a successful government just on Farage. But this is the third major figure out of a very small list of major Reform figures to have left the party since the election after Ben Habib, Rupert Lowe and now Yusuf, it must be hell working with Farage.

I want to know why one of the Reform councillors (Adam Smith) in my area has been removed from Reform and is now down as an independent!

5 minutes ago, Herbs said:

I want to know why one of the Reform councillors (Adam Smith) in my area has been removed from Reform and is now down as an independent!

A fair number of them have fallen out of favour with the party quite quickly. He probably fell foul of some party rules or councillor guidelines and was forced to end his association with them. Not saying this happened in this case but ill-judged (racist) things found on social media is a common one.

the sort of people they attract are not particularly the professional sort one might say

And that is a surprise?!!

37 minutes ago, Herbs said:

I want to know why one of the Reform councillors (Adam Smith) in my area has been removed from Reform and is now down as an independent!

I looked but doesn’t appear to be a clear answer. Just says a number of concerns with his personal life. No idea what that means.

3 minutes ago, Liam Sota said:

I looked but doesn’t appear to be a clear answer. Just says a number of concerns with his personal life. No idea what that means.

Yeah, which I take to mean it’s something quite serious

Yusuf is a good communicatior and he was close with Farage. I disagreed a lot with what he was saying, but he articulated it in a way that was powerful and believable. Much like Tice, he's the one they parrott about in front of the media and clearly they were going to give him an MP opportunity. Must admit, reckon he's probably seen the way the wind is blowing and realised he chairs a Party compromised of people who hate his religion.

There is no way Farage or anyone can unify that group of people and come across as Governable. They've barely got a team and they are falling apart all over the shop, a civil war with 5 MPs. There is absolutely no fecking chance this lot are going to be able to avoid a meltdown within a month if God help us they ever get to power. As always, it's great to see Reform focusing in the real world problems though.

4 hours ago, Herbs said:

I want to know why one of the Reform councillors (Adam Smith) in my area has been removed from Reform and is now down as an independent!

So far, the number of councillors they have lost is greater than the number of potholes they have fixed.

i'm wheezing at all the right in-fightings left right and centre 🤣

can this happen to italy please 🤪

And Zia Yusuf's back in.

Guess he was important to the running of Reform after all.

Zia Yusuf has nothing but money. Farage is the only person who likes him and he likes him for one reason.

Nobody else likes him or wanted to deal with him so they limited his role and he sulked and quit. Farage panicked he wants to continue having access to a private jet etc and found him a new role.

That’s really all there is to it. He’s not a good communicator. He’s not important. He’s just the standard guy with money parachuting himself into a powerful position.

welp does this mean el*n musk will be back

So Farage says there will need to be a debate about the reintroduction of the death penalty over the next decade but then distances himself stating he ‘wouldn’t support it’ due to the over 500 miscarriages of justice since 1970.

It’s as if he’s trying to appeal to both the raging right wingers and also the liberal tories he wants to join Reform.

Similar strategy to Pochin introducing the burqa topic and Yusuf distancing himself from it, except Farage is doing the doublethink all by himself. It's to get these long-dead or fringe right-wing ideas their time in the debate mainstream in an 'acceptable fashion' to maintain their public support for now. They can do this because newspapers are letting them set the agenda and they have the confidence to try to set public opinion in a certain direction, something completely lacking on the UK centre and left.

If we get to a point where public opinion on the death penalty swings to a majority in favour, they'd happily push it through if they got the opportunity. Of course we must hope that does not happen, but that is certainly an outcome possible should their horrific rhetoric take hold more than it has already.

Death penalty isn’t a fringe idea really. People are always very open on that issue once you get past the first part. If you say do you support the death penalty it’s probably more saying no. Then if you say do you support the death penalty for child rapists suddenly the majority support it. So people just don’t understand the question.

I was characterising it as 'long-dead', not 'fringe' in terms of public opinion, though thankfully it's still fringe among serious political thinkers.

Precisely because of where it is with public opinion it's a debate that should never be reopened in the political sphere, as it's possibly the number one issue on how wrong it would be to enact relative to the amount of public support it sadly enjoys and therefore the best example to my mind of why political policy should not always follow public opinion.

The state should not have the power to execute people, no matter what they have done and to an extent societies that still have it I consider to still have some element of barbarism. Yet when asked the natural default is to the most punishing option for people in our somewhat crime-fascinated society. Which is to say I see why it's relatively popular, but those studies are done on a hypothetical with no chance of it being introduced. Much like Brexit, it's something that would make our society worse if introduced as a serious issue.