Is the country ready for a Farage government?

Farage’s name appeared just four times in an hour long speech.

labourlist.org/2025/09/labour-conference-2025-keir-starmer-speech-in-full/

This is what Starmer said:

When was the last time you heard Nigel Farage (1) say anything positive about Britain’s future?

And the question I ask, seriously, of Nigel Farage (2) and Reform is do they love our country? Do they want to serve our country – all of it? Our beautiful, tolerant, diverse country…every region, nation and city…Or do they just want to stir the pot of division…because that’s worked in their interests. Do they truly believe in our potential? In our brilliance…In all the innovative wonders of our economy… From clean energy to the creative arts? Or, if a business looks a little too modern…Do they say – as Farage (3) said about Jaguar Land Rover…They deserve to go bust?

… there is a line – a moral line. And it isn’t just Farage (4) who crosses it…There are also people who should know better. Sowing fear and discord across our country…And then – when we call it out…They pretend we’re criticising reasonable concerns about immigration.We’ve seen that trick, conference…So let us spell it out – once and for all. Controlling migration is a reasonable goal.But if you throw bricks and smash up private property…That’s not legitimate – that’s thuggery. Free speech is a British value – and we have guarded it for centuries.But if you incite racist violence and hatred…That’s not expressing concern – it’s criminal.This party, this great party, is proud of our flags…Yet if they are painted alongside graffiti…Telling a Chinese takeaway owner to “go home”…That’s not pride – that’s racism.And if you say or imply…That people cannot be English or British… Because of the colour of their skin…That mixed heritage families owe you an explanation…And that people who have lived here for generations…Raised their children here… Built lives in their communities…Working in our schools, our hospitals, running businesses…Our neighbours…If you say they should now be deported…Then mark my words…We will fight you with everything we have… Because you are an enemy of national renewal.

Parsley3

Hardly a mention of the Conservative Party,( remember them?). Reform is getting publicity because they are ahead in the polls but the party in actual opposition is getting none and is doing nothing about it. I did listen to the PM's rather good speech and he didn't spend a lot of time on Farage but if the polls are correct that people have lost their reason and are willing to vote for a shyster, then that has to be challenged.

I think that some point Galaxy is going to point out that Starmer’s references to Reform during Conference are very much the equivalent of calling Reform voters ‘stupid’ and is counterproductive

I’m afraid that Starmer’s (McSweeny’s) valiant effort to fight back is far too late. Labour has spent too long trying to emulate Reform to be rowing back on it now.

Anyway, Reeves’ budget in November is going to please no-one apart from the wealthy, who won’t be seriously touched when it comes to taxation. But everyone else is going to be told to tighten their belts and more cuts to public services are on the way.

I think Labour’s post Conference respite will be brief

Casdon I think you have misunderstood- I am bored rigid by Starmer and Farage always slagging each other off. In fact watching an old Poirot was preferable to Farage on GB news. They are not serious politicians. Just as well because the Civil Service is running the country?

Hardly a mention of the Conservative Party,( remember them?). Reform is getting publicity because they are ahead in the polls but the party in actual opposition is getting none and is doing nothing about it. I did listen to the PM's rather good speech and he didn't spend a lot of time on Farage but if the polls are correct that people have lost their reason and are willing to vote for a shyster, then that has to be challenged.

escaped. I suggest you watch the speech and make up your own mind and not rely on a newspaper's spin.

The Prime Minister's is entitled to mount a defence to someone as destructive as Farage, someone who constantly runs this country down, even runs to the USA to do so, who would see hundresd of thousands of jobs lost because of his dislike of a harmeless advert, a Putin-admirer whose close friends are up to their necks in Russian corruption.

Indeed Babs. This is an interesting take on the boats issue.

Peter Walsh, a senior researcher at the Migration Observatory, a migration thinktank, argued recently that Brexit is making the small boat problem worse because the UK no longer has access to an EU fingerprint database, and that means asylum seekers can come to the UK knowing they won’t automatically be thrown out because they have applied in another European country. He said:

There’s also increasing evidence of a Brexit effect [in explaining why migrants want to leave France and come to the UK]. We speak with asylum seekers now, and often they’ve claimed asylum in the EU country, sometimes been refused, but they understand that because the UK is no longer a part of the EU, and no longer party to the EU’s fingerprint database for asylum seekers, if they can get to the UK, they have another bite of the cherry and another chance to secure asylum status and remain in Europe.

Casdon

I’m so enjoying seeing the Starmer haters rattled by his speech, that’s the best indicator of success there is. Thanks ronib and eazybee for brightening my morning.

I'm not rattled, in fact very chilled, just reporting what came across and what disappointed me rather.

Rattle is a good word though! 🐍 🐍 🐍
... the snake oil merchant are KS's very words about Farage that the French newspapers are loving to quote today in their headlines!
Where are the positive slogans for the next 4 years in the media?

Reform will become a go-to topic for the media for some time, is click-bait and despite people saying they don’t want Farage to any attention we can see how threads like this attract plenty of it. I’m as guilty as anyone. So I think we have to live with the Reform circus. But there is an up side, the more attention Reform get the more the cracks will show and the harder Farage and his cronies will have to work to paper over said cracks, and we know Farage isn’t a grafter so will only be a matter of time before he grows tired of the whole shabang, to pop up at a future date with a shiny new party.
But the people who really shouldn’t be giving him oxygen are Labour and the Tories. Farage has got away with dictating the political narrative for long enough.
Let’s start by pointing out that it was Farage and his Brexit hoohah that caused the small boats calamity, before that we could return migrants to the EU countries they came from.
Then Labour should grow a pair and form strong relations with EU countries to start the process again, and ignore the catcalls from Farage and Brexiters, because they really can’t have their cake and eat it.

PaynesGrey

^but I wouldn't use most of the valuable 60 (?) minutes of my speech in public to slag off someone else so brusquely. ^

He didn't. Did you watch or listen to it?

Of course not, I'm abroad and enjoying my time in the Autumn sun, though the temps have cooled.

You didn't get my meaning ..... that listening to the speech or not, the unwelcome tirade was exactly what was picked up and concentrated on by most of the media. Even the French paper I read this morning said KS was unnecessarily combatative because he is struggling plus que jamais. It's in the optics.

I’m so enjoying seeing the Starmer haters rattled by his speech, that’s the best indicator of success there is. Thanks ronib and eazybee for brightening my morning.

Calling people names

All that does for me, is to show me that[regularly unfortunately as it happens so often] I am less of a Labour person than I thought.

but I wouldn't use most of the valuable 60 (?) minutes of my speech in public to slag off someone else so brusquely.

He didn't. Did you watch or listen to it?

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202510/medium-2dawth-farage-gill-cottrell.png https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202510/medium-8wyxze-tice-and-gill.png

Farage cited Antifa and Charlie Kirk in his response to Starmers’s conference speech. All part of his apparent paranoia over his personal safety, why he walks around flanked by bodyguards, why he says he can’t run constituency surgeries in Clacton, refuses to do the job he is paid to do.

He’s the leader of a minority party with five seats in a 650 seat Parliament. In the great scheme of things, he’s insignificant. If he is frightened of assassination why does he seek publicity and court controversy on a daily basis?

In any event, an MP doesn’t need to have a flashy media presence to be murdered in the line of duty. Jo Cox didn’t. Nor did David Amess. Other MPs know the risks and still do their jobs. Why doesn't he?

I suspect ramping up the personal safety angle is all part of his planned get out strategy, why i think he will eventually run away so that he never has to take on the role of Prime MInister if it ever gets that far. His unsuitablity for office would be found out in days. If he runs away he can claim he was the best Prime Minister the UK never had but had to put his own safety first.

Anyway. my money’s on the Nathan Gill Russian bribes story exploding long before that.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/26/reform-uk-ex-leader-wales-nathan-gill-pleads-guilty-bribery-charges

The links between Gill, George Cottrell, Arron Banks and Farage are there for anyone to see. The stench of fraud, bribery & money-laundering around the "patriots" of Reform UK is overwhelming but you won't see that on the front of the Daily Mail.

A direct quote from Farage to the BBC when he was an MEP: “I have worked with Nathan Gill over a period of years and he’s never ever let me down. He’s as honest as the day is long.”

Tice and Gill campaigned together in Wales in 2021 with Tice referring to Gill in social media posts as the leader of Reform Wales.

Zia Yusuf said: What [Gill has ] done is appalling and totally unacceptable and treacherous. That is abundantly clear to anybody watching this programme and to all of us at Reform … Most people in the senior leadership team have never really heard of the guy When shown photos of Gill and Farage, Yusuf replied: "Whatever that footage is, Nigel meets tens of thousands of people on an annual basis ....

How could Reform ever be trusted with our national security?

I'm guessing Starmer is feeling a bit agitated and insecure about the rise of Farage. That's why his speech sounded somewhat het-up and bad-tempered.

I feel very uncertain and concerned about Reform, but I wouldn't use most of the valuable 60 (?) minutes of my speech in public to slag off someone else so brusquely.
In fact, I wouldn't mention Farage at all, best ignored, because we are four years away ftom a general election and don't need to be concentrating on Reform at this time. More important things to concentrate on and put across.

Starmer’s total obsession with Farage is doing him no favours at all. Doesn’t he realise that the more he rails against him the more a lot will go and check him out and because they don’t like Starmer they may well start looking to Farage? He really shouldn’t be the PM, it needs someone a bit more cluey and political. Hopefully someone will come out of the woodwork before the next election.🤞

Starmer has yet to work out what to say. A complete dislike of Labour is not to endorse Farage. They are equally barmy.

ronib

The speeches have done a lot more for me. They are confirmation that the government has not a clue. An embarrassment to boot. Not a brain cell between them.

Well no matter how terrible the two major parties are I certainly wouldn’t throw in my lot with a maverick with a poor track record of staying the distance when hard work is involved and has opinions that if not racist are as damned near as possible, simply because he can say what he wants to the gullible in opposition. Jam every day folks?
Saying what some people want to hear is the easiest show on earth.

The speeches have done a lot more for me. They are confirmation that the government has not a clue. An embarrassment to boot. Not a brain cell between them.

Get ready to pay your GP.
Suggest you look up terms and conditions for GPs, 2004, introduced by Tony Blair's government, to see the origins of the GP crisis.

All that Starmer's lamentable speeches and those of his cabinet at their Conference have succeeded in doing is giving publicity to Farage, and exposed the abusive and frequently unjustified use of the term 'racist.'
Calling people names and scraping up dirt about their behaviour at school will not suddenly persuade Reform supporters to switch allegiance to Labour.

Get ready to pay to see your GP.

www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farages-most-controversial-moments-ukip-brexit-b1122381.html
He also refused to directly apologise to Rishi Sunak for racist comments to him by Reform supporters, last year.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/nigel-farage-andrew-parker-rishi-sunak-reform-uk-prime-minister-b2570930.html

LizzieDrip

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-fascist-nazi-song-gas-them-all-ukip-brexit-schoolfriend-dulwich-college-a7185236.html

Interesting!

FGS!! a nameless friend wrote this. Very reliable source, NOT. 6 year old piece of utter rubbish.

Yes, that's covered in the Led by Donkey's expose. It's shocking stuff; Enoch Powell his political hero; endorsed by the KKK - it goes on an on. But noooo ... he's not a racist.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfyiSk8Rjc8

It’s curious too how Reform bang on about the right to free speech but don’t like it when others exercise that right.

I see that Reach, the company that owns the Nottingham Post, and its online site Nottinghamshire Live, are mounting a legal challenge against Reform-led Nottinghamshire county council for its ban on Reach journalists.

www.theguardian.com/media/2025/sep/30/nottingham-paper-takes-legal-action-against-reform-council-that-banned-its-reporters

If this kind of thing happens at a local level, what implications might that have for a free national press should the party ever come to national power?

Whitewavemark2

Blimey where on earth have all these new posters popped up from.

That’s what I wondered.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-fascist-nazi-song-gas-them-all-ukip-brexit-schoolfriend-dulwich-college-a7185236.html

Interesting!

Elegran

There is a problem with not wanting to support the idea of Net Zero in the medium/long term until the British Economy is all sorted out and everyone can afford everything they need with enough left over to have what they don't need but would like to have too. It is that by the time that is achieved it may be too late and the global climate will have tipped too far to rebalance it with Net Zero or any other measures. It looks as though it will by then have to be Net Well Below Zero or even that the prospect of a future comfortable world for the human race is Zero.

We have to work on all challenges, or one creeps up on us while our attention is on another.

Elegran
Sad to say but we have passed that point of no return.
It’s far more serious than most folk think.
Approximately 70% of our planet is water. That water is heating 4 times faster than the late 1980s.
Even if it halted right now it would take eons to get back to pre Industrial Revolution temperatures.