I am not so sure about this. Of course criminal proceedings have their own logic and proceed accordingly, but for Partygate and similar scandals, the outrage of the party’s own supporters is also a key element.
Right-wing populist parties have made themselves immune to this to a large extent. This is a general phenomenon all over the world, including the EU and the USA, not UK-specific. When Dear Leader commits something atrocious, they have a distraction prepared, or claim that they are martyrs persecuted by the Establishment.
The independent judicial system seems to be the last defense against this tactic: it is much harder to distract a prosecutor or a judge than the public. It is not a coincidence that if/when these parties come into power, that’s the first thing they start to dismantle.
Most recently everyone is using the technique Steve Bannon used to get Trump elected: “Flood the zone with shit.”. It’s not only distractions but also so much information that it takes a long time to reach down into what’s true or not, as not all distractions are false. Trump continues to use this technique to this day with great effect as can be seen with his Truth social activity, posting AI generated stuff to gather attention, quickly changing his mind from one day to another when it comes to his official statements, etc.
Farage was one of the key architects of the Brexit campaign.
That campaign was based on deceit. If it was not apparent to someone before the event, it should be evident now.
Brexit was a disaster for the UK. Not a single one of the advantages mentioned in the campaign were realized, yet the cost was enormous. A lot of it is born disproportionately by people with lower income. This is now common knowledge.
Note that I am Hungarian, so I am not a stranger to people reelecting someone who ruins the country for more than a decade. But Orbán was in power the whole time, he controlled the media, the election laws, the prosecutor’s office, etc. Farage seems to be shaping reality for a large group of people without access to all that, which is a puzzle to me.
Farage is tied to the Heritage foundation and benefits from their propaganda and outreach, since nowadays politics are done on social media and reward reactionary/populist views he gains a lot from this.
We are also at war with Russia. Russian bots have long been creating destabilization in the western world by creating increased discourse on all topics, from both sides. Since right wing parties benefit more from this, it’s a no-brainer that Farage would benefit. Right wing parties all across Europe are increasing in voter count while at the same time having countless scandals and even criminals in them.
Even if these parties or individuals dislike Russia, the disinformation will continue to create more division, the less united, the less support for Ukraine, for the EU as a whole, etc.
This quotation goes back to Jonathon Swift in the 18th century, “Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired”.
As ever, assigning single motives to a large section of the population is simplistic, but my take on this is that people voted for Brexit and ongoing right-wing policies is that they did so for emotional rather than rational reasons.
EDIT: on consideration, this should probably read “emotional and ideological”, rather than just “emotional”.
You have to ask why people have low incomes. In my youth, education was seen as a way to improve your prospects in life (I was the first person in my extended family to gain a degree, and I am still the only one to have a doctorate), this no longer seems to be the case. Another aspect would be structural, again in my youth the UK had a strong manufacturing sector across the whole of the country. When this was essentially abandoned in favour of a service based economy, much of this was concentrated in the SE of England, little was done to provide good quality replacement jobs in the remaineder of the UK.
Yes, in that respect Brexit is doubly unfortunate for the UK. The EU pretty much finished political ad campaigns on social media with the TTPA. I think this played a large role in the recent Hungarian election results, before the TTPA the Orbán government spent enormous sums on social media, often through proxies.
It is for the whole of the UK, not the constituency. While one might like to think it should lead to Count Binface being elected, I am afraid one can’t draw that conclusion from the poll.
Scared to talk politics on this thread but I would vote for a Trash Can to become President of the USA. I am only an Australian so I couldn’t vote in the US election anyway, but who becomes the US president makes a huge difference to the whole world.
I read a few interviews with Clacton residents who voted for Farage. They think the “gift” he received is no big deal and that there’s just a campaign to get rid of Farage.
Whichever side of the political fence you sit on, surely you don’t want to turn a blind eye to fraud, corruption and profiteering. I’ll never understand how many of these mostly working-class people can think that Farage really cares about them at all. He will get richer and they will get poorer. Yet they still think somehow he will be their saviour. Now where have I seen that blind loyalty before?
@afre The closest we ever came was when Ross Perot and John Stockdale raked in 19% of the poular vote on a 3rd party ticket. They would have been way less awkward than a bin-for-a-face sketch comedy troupe. I mean, at what point in his political career would they force him to uncover? How would that go down if not a daily protest?
We have dangerous silly politicians in our parts too. The problem is that they have more money and time than they know what to use it for. We do not have joke candidates though (besides the longest ballot folks for whom Elections Agencies have found ways to limit in recent years), they are quite serious about it or at least about having their egos stoked by running as a candidate. This mayoral election year we have a Bradford (Brad) Bradford (not from Bradford). Currently a councillor who votes no to everything and trash and down talks everyone doing anything for the city. In second place in the polls (the only Conservative-type candidate; there is another, but that person is meant to prop up Brad). Then we have the perennial candidate who is a known pyramid schemer in several parts of the world:
Our local politics is mostly suspected communists vs people that suspect the opposition is a communist.
Its not incumbent season, they’re on the way out. Nobody cheered the mayor at the parade this year.
Then we have the perennial candidate who is a known pyramid schemer in several parts of the world: