Farage took a swipe at Rupert Lowe and other political forces to the ‘right’ of Reform at the beginning of Zia Yusuf’s immigration speech today. Speaking in Dover, the Reform leader said failing on immigration policy has empowered the real ‘far-right’:
“Unless we are able to provide a proper democratic antidote to this, then I fear that we will see a rise of a really worrying, dangerous form of extreme right ethno-nationalism. And I think we’re beginning over the last couple of weeks already to see some specimens of it. Nobody, nobody over the last quarter of a century has done more to defeat the genuine, intolerant, abhorrent, extreme, far-right than me.
We did it with the British National Party and we’ll do it with whoever else follows. But it’s important we get a grip on this because there is no issue other than legal and illegal immigration that has broken the bond of trust between the voters and those that govern us more than this issue and I have spoken out consistently on.”
Ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has launched his own party. Meanwhile Ben Habib keeps offering to merge with him. Were that to happen they would presumably split into four breakaway parties by Christmas…
Burnham confirms he spoke to Trump last night about drilling in the North Sea:
“I indicated in the phone call that we had a week last Monday that I would take a pragmatic approach when it comes to the North Sea, and that is my intention as we go forward from here. There is a resource there. When people are struggling, we can’t ignore that. Hence, me indicating that to the president…”