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In the U.K., Nigel Farage's party is now bigger than the Tories
American Thinker ^ | 12/26/2024 | Monica Showalter

Posted on 12/26/2024 5:23:25 PM PST by SeekAndFind

Who says British punk rockers can't be prophetic?

In the U.K., the Brits are "making plans for Nigel," albeit not quite in the way the punk band XTC had envisioned.

According to Breitbart News:

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party has now overtaken the UK’s traditional party of government, the Conservatives, in membership, crossing the historic threshold weeks sooner than expected.

The most recent public figures for paid-up full members of the Conservative Party, certainly the oldest political party in the United Kingdom and possibly the oldest political party in the world, put it at 131,680 in November. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK — which he calls the youngest party in Britain — overtook that figure late Thursday morning following a Christmas Day surge in sign-ups.

At the time of publication the figure continued to rise and has made it to 132,200 members.

Voters are embracing Farage and his party in droves, with membership (in the U.K., you have to pay for your party membership) surging at a faster rate than forecasters had predicted.

It's very dramatic -- and could hail a new era of U.S.-U.K. comity in their longtime alliance.

Years ago, Tory political operatives in Los Angeles associated with the U.K. consulate there schooled me about peculiar ways of the British political system. I recall asking them why they couldn't run William Hague, an impressive conservative who didn't win on an earlier go, and they said it was simply impossible. I don't remember all the details of why this could never be, the lingering lesson I was left with was that the U.K. system was rigid, with change and second chances virtually unheard of.


(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: bloggers; farage; nigelfarage; redtories; starmer; tories; uk

1 posted on 12/26/2024 5:23:25 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

When will an election be called?


2 posted on 12/26/2024 5:24:04 PM PST by Rummyfan ( In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.)
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To: Rummyfan

Not for a while. The Looney Left Labour have a huge majority.


3 posted on 12/26/2024 5:25:43 PM PST by xp38
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To: Rummyfan

Not for about 4 more years, unless Charlie 3 dissolves Parliament. Assuming that is still something he can do.


4 posted on 12/26/2024 5:33:11 PM PST by Fai Mao (The US government is run by pedophiles and Perverts for pedophiles and perverts)
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To: Fai Mao

I like Nigel but in four years GB will be too far gone to save.


5 posted on 12/26/2024 5:40:44 PM PST by technically right
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To: SeekAndFind

XTC definitely wasn’t punk.


6 posted on 12/26/2024 5:49:07 PM PST by FLT-bird
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To: SeekAndFind

Not in parliament.


7 posted on 12/26/2024 5:59:50 PM PST by eclecticEel ("The petty man forsakes what lies within his power and longs for what lies with Heaven." - Xunzi)
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To: SeekAndFind

Party Membership ≠ numbers of citizens willing to vote for them. IIRC most Brits aren’t formally members of any party. Not to say this isn’t a nice milestone, but I don’t think Nigel’s ready for an election yet. Keep recruiting and keep powerlessly watching Labor push voters your way.


8 posted on 12/26/2024 6:28:15 PM PST by JohnBovenmyer (They don't care. We don't scare!)
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To: SeekAndFind

If Farage gets t 49% he will still be LOCKED OUT of power, due to all of the other parities ganging up against him in support of the Globalist Agenda. He needs 51%.


9 posted on 12/26/2024 7:19:37 PM PST by BobL
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To: xp38

England is doomed. The left has one party and Conservatives will split their votes between Reform and the Tories.


10 posted on 12/26/2024 8:26:00 PM PST by gibsonguy
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To: BobL

49% is more than enough under FPTP. He would get a supermajority if he got that level of support.


11 posted on 12/27/2024 2:47:51 AM PST by sinsofsolarempirefan
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To: gibsonguy

Labour are losing ground to Reform as well. Labour are pissing off their socially conservative base who want well run state funded public services, but don’t hate their country, support trans lunacy or racist screed against white people that Labour have come to represent. There is a good chance Reform will have more members than Labour as well before 2029.


12 posted on 12/27/2024 2:51:09 AM PST by sinsofsolarempirefan
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To: JohnBovenmyer

Party membership is a sign of people’s enthusiasm for a party, as well as a source of funding. Given Reform’s pro business stance and Labour’s continuing failure over the economy means their source of donations is drying up. They will struggle to campaign without membership fees, wealthy donors or an enthusiastic membership with plenty of volunteers pounding the streets canvassing and getting the vote out.


13 posted on 12/27/2024 2:54:09 AM PST by sinsofsolarempirefan
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To: sinsofsolarempirefan

“49% is more than enough under FPTP. He would get a supermajority if he got that level of support.”

Darnit, you’re right. I’m thinking other countries where they go by vote totals, not seats in Parliament.


14 posted on 12/27/2024 5:31:27 AM PST by BobL
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To: sinsofsolarempirefan

Oh, I agree that it is an important early sign. I just didn’t want of folks to think it was end stage for Reform. Nigel needs to grow it enough to have plausible candidates running everywhere he has enough support to win. Otherwise you get the results of the last election. Tons of Reform votes nationally, dang near zilch Reform MPs. Future candidates must come from the party membership roles. Grow that and more plausible candidates become available. Probably will take time to get them name recognition, time short UK campaigns don’t offer. If Nigel is smart he’ll use some US tactics to grow his brand well in advance of whenever the next elections come.


15 posted on 12/27/2024 10:43:54 AM PST by JohnBovenmyer (They don't care. We don't scare!)
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To: JohnBovenmyer

The beauty of the FPTP system is that whilst it can be very effective at keeping small parties out, especially when their support base is spread out instead of concentrated in key constituencies, when they reach a certain level of support, the dam will breach hard and Reform will come flooding in.

In 2015 Labour, which previously dominated Scotland, lost all but one seat in the UK general election in Scotland, and the SNP, starting out with 6 seats, won all but three out of 59 seats based on half the vote.

A similar political earthquake could happen within the UK. The same conditions are being set up, a failing and discredited Labour party, and a moribund Tory party resulting in people turning en-masse to a formerly tiny party on the margins.

The trajectory looks excellent for Reform. The Tories are a joke and nobody trusts them any more, and things will not get better for Labour. They will continue to destroy the economy and people will see their living standards decline and their communities become ever more dangerous and divided by uncontrolled mass migration, illegal and legal.

Britain will also look increasingly isolated on the world stage as Europe turns hard to the right, as will Canada, and as the US already has.

I can only hope the damage they will inevitably inflict will not be irreversible before we have the chance to ditch them in 2029.


16 posted on 12/27/2024 2:08:24 PM PST by sinsofsolarempirefan
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To: SeekAndFind
Meanwhile...

Keir Starmer on collision course with ballooning public sector workforce over pay Headcount in the Civil Service topped 513,000 this year, a 33% increase on 2016 and the eighth year in a row that the total has risen, according to the Institute for Government.

Since 2016...

Note the timing.

17 posted on 12/28/2024 12:18:31 AM PST by mewzilla (Swing away, Mr. President, swing away!)
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