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Reform, no joy just division. Will Lowe tear us apart? – politicalbetting.com
Reform, no joy just division. Will Lowe tear us apart? – politicalbetting.com
The Metropolitan Police have today confirmed that they are dropping their investigation into the false allegations that I made threats against the Reform Party chairman.Full statement. pic.twitter.com/4teRw1j5kn
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A reminder to whom it may concern that OGH used his own memes.
The arms in question (at least those of any significance) are parts for the F35, for which the UK is the second largest supplier after the US.
These go into a worldwide pool from which Israel is supplied (by the US).
Contractually, there's no way in which we can place restrictions on the use of those parts. We either continue to supply them, or leave the program.
Which would be somewhat awkward...
Unless Lowe forms a new nationalist party bankrolled by Musk I doubt Farage will be too damaged though
At the moment, the party is on the up.
https://news.sky.com/story/foreign-states-face-15-newspaper-ownership-limit-amid-telegraph-row-13367680
"Foreign state investors would be allowed to hold stakes of up to 15% in British national newspapers, ministers are set to announce amid a two-year battle to resolve an impasse over The Daily Telegraph's ownership.
Sky News has learnt that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport could announce as soon as Thursday that the new limit is to be imposed following a consultation lasting several months."
(narrator: Parliament can function as a court if it wishes and IIRC it still has a small jail/holding area)
If you left it to parliament, it's almost certain they would ban exports given prevailing public opinion.
(narrator: many years ago Viewcode once danced drunkenly to "She's Lost Control" in a Middlesbrough car park. "...AN SHEE SCREMED AAHHT KINKING ON UR SIDE AND SED SHEEZ LOST CONTRUL AGIN...". Oh happy days...)
Surely, in that case, it would be better to rename it to something less insufferably naff? Like (say) the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council?
The F35 is a remarkable aircraft - but our versions are somewhat crippled (they still can't carry our most potent air to air and air to ground missiles, for example), and use of them in any given theatre is de facto subject to US approval.
I'm very uncomfortable supplying Israel with kit that's very probably being used to target civilians (however much that decision is out of our hands). But we are in no position to do anything about it - until we make other defence arrangements.
But, that will be unlikely to be politically critical prior to the election.
If I were a Reform MP, the thing I would be most concerned about would not be the reputational damage of legal actions against Reform, it would be the fact that Farage has fallen out with almost everyone he's ever worked with.
He fell out with Alan Sked, and Diane James, and Douglas Carswell, and Ben Habib, and now Rupert Lowe. And those are just the ones I can think of on the top of my head.
These fallings out aren't minor either: usually people end up leaving the party. (And sometimes fleeing to Alabama.)
So, I don't expect this to negatively impact Farage's poll ratings... but it might make me think twice as an MP if I wanted to jump ship.
If Parliament wants to give ministers powers to interpret particular laws, it can do so - and does so quite regularly.
The SC is not subservient to parliament in that parliament can legislate but cannot direct what the SC shall decide about its meaning.
In a mature and grown up democracy (unlike the current USA outfit) both sides try hard not to test the boundaries to the extreme. In the farcical Rwanda legislation the bit deeming Rwanda to be a'safe' country came close to this but its effect never got tested, thankfully.
Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
If Lowe and Farage go all two scorpions in a bottle, tearing lumps out of each other via the courts for the next year or so, it's not going to do much for the party's prospects. And for now, that seems a bit more likely than a friendly chat over a pint to sort out their differences.
FWIW, I saw him speak when he was a 'regular' UKIP MEP back in 2001. He was absolutely the blokey guy with a pint at the bar - we had one - but he was very quick to anger when questioned, as one of the audience did. Very politely.
SFAICS no other country is obliged to use them, sitting as the JCPC, as their highest court, but quite a few do.
well done, was listening to Joy Division on the way in to work this morning
Government lawyers have acknowledged in their court submissions that the supply of F-35 components for potential use in Israel is in breach of the government's own arms export control laws.
A point at dispute is whether the supply by UK of components into the F35 pool is sufficiently indirect, and our control over end use for stuff supplied to Israel by the US sufficiently attenuated, for the UK not to be in breach of those laws, given the overwhelming importance of the program for our national defence.
There's also the point that the judgment of matters of national security - which are undoubtedly at stake here - is one for the executive and not for the courts.
There are several things tangled up in the case, and it's really not a simple matter of Parliament is supreme / the courts are supreme, as there's no straightforward legal question to answer.
I suspect the court will back the government in the end, from sheer pragmatism.
Castebueno is not far from Cefalu up in the mountains but be careful of buses back to Cefalu they can finish the service quite early.
Palermo is worth a look, although it is as run down as the Rhondda Valley.
It is not the 'Reform' party.
Neither was the later iterations of UKIP 'UKIP'.
They were/are the Farage party. It is about him. It is all about him. Anyone not paying due honour to Farage is out of the inner circle. That's the way it always has been; that's the way it always will be. That's the way he'll govern if we're unfortunate enough to get in that situation..
In that, he's remarkably like MAGA and Trump. It's not about the party. It's not about the country.
It's about him.
If you don't get on with the Party leader, and get kicked out of the Party, and you get the police sicc'ed on you.
Well, it makes you think twice about jumping ship.
However: possible Conservative defectors to Reform are entirely in the Westminster bubble.
A loose but useful definition of what questions end up in the Supreme Court is this: The SC deals with precise questions of law (not fact) which are non trivial, of public importance, and where the answer in not clear and certain from the current state of the law.
So, for example, in the recent trans case the question they were answering, despite all the rhetoric and hot air, was magnificently short and simple. It went like this:
"Is a person with a full gender recognition certificate (“GRC”) which recognises that their gender is female, a
“woman” for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 (“EA 2010”)?"
and their answer can be summarised in one word: No.
All stuff engaging how to apply the law to disputed/ambiguous facts is dealt with up to and including Court of Appeal level.
Refining your question to being a proper legal one, proper for the SC to consider, is quite an art.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65788756
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/10/police-britain-private-security-firms-powers
https://www.ward-security.co.uk/news/private-policing/
I just think If the polls hold on like this, we will start to get reluctant and very nervous Conservative MPs defecting anyway, on the basis that better 'pot luck' with Nigel today than 'humble pie' and the dole come the GE tommorow.
Politics is a dynamic art with different views and perspectives all the time.
Does that mean that the US is programming Israeli F35 missions, and how does that sit with any potential legal action?
The other party which is also not Tory or Labour and which has some appeal to a wide audience of people who would rather die than vote Reform is the LDs. The reaction to Starmer's 'Squalid Rivers of Stranger Islands' speech, if he sticks to that agenda, will do the LDs no harm if they play a sytraight bat, while the Tories are simply in self destruct mode.
If this carries on - and it's hard to see the talent to stop it - the most obvious battle by 2029 may be Reform v LDs, with Tory MPs defecting both ways.
I’ve already returned over 24,000 people with no right to be here.
And I won’t stop there.
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/1922663370018156919?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
It's quite possiblt that the reasons for this are twofold and linked: Farage is the leader so no-one self respecting will go near it; and without Farage Reform are a house of cards.
This would change if fifteen solid Tories defected together. They would both be a blunt instrument against Farage's Napolean tendency, and also an blood bank of replacements for him, and a few front benchers would could mostly count and read.
Good evening, everyone.
His only route to power requires a degree of ruthless "get with the program or get out", especially when dealing with people who have hobby horses not very closely aigned to what the public wants.
And idiots two centuries later will forget those dead, and laud him.
Putin's a little further down the same path. And it's odd (not really) how Russia-friendly Farage has been.
Both wore capes*, both fought for justice.
*DavidL will tell you it is a gown but it is a cape.
I called 999 for Liz Savile Roberts because she got burned.
It is true as stated by the Court of Appeal that there is apparent authority for the law as laid down by the learned judge. But your Lordships' House has had the advantage of a prolonged and exhaustive inquiry dealing with the matter in debate from the earliest times, an advantage which was not shared by either of the Courts below. Indeed your Lordships were referred to legal propositions dating as far back as the reign of King Canute (994–1035). But I do not think it is necessary for the purpose of this opinion to go as far back as that.
See, for example, the Wagatha nonsense.
I’ve already returned over 24,000 people with no right to be here.
And I won’t stop there.
But wouldn't something about Welsh independence have been smarter?
He sounded like a stupid schoolboy; hardly prime ministerial..
I don't know how mobile you are, but Sicily has two world class outstanding historic monuments. Both utterly breathtaking, and both worth a day's drive to see
The first is well known: Agrigento, the Valley of the Temples
Probably the greatest collection of Greek temples anywhere on earth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valle_dei_Templi
Try and linger for twilight. It is stupendously lovely, and atmospheric, then they light it all up. Wow
The second is rather obscure, but shouldn't be. Villa Romana del Casale right in the middle of the island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Romana_del_Casale
Perhaps the greatest surviving Roman villa? It will blow your mind
Enjoy!
BREAKING: A leaked recording reveals top Tory Chris Philp admitted the UK couldn’t return asylum seekers to Europe post-Brexit, despite promises made at the time.
@SamCoatesSky
has all the details.
https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1922685876569595995
Also, that tweet gives the vague impression, "I have no right to do this, no right to be sitting here as prime minister"