Common Sense Politics UK

Dangerous, radical thinking.

Nigel Farage speaking to Jordan Peterson on race #uk #politics #reformuk Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Whether you agree or disagree with Nigel Farage’s leadership of Reform, in order to properly understand why he acts as he does you need to remember the truism: “all of us are shaped by our experiences and understanding of them”.

Some people approve of Reform recruiting defectors from other parties, whereas others do not - although generally this seems to be more based on their opinion of the defector rather than a rigid point of principle.

As the roll call of defectors grows longer, and the pace seems to quicken, many are beginning to push back, arguing that if Reform is to be a truly revolutionary party it cannot be filled with political retreads but should, instead, be composed purely of untainted insurgents. Those who are responsible for Britain’s problems cannot be trusted to solve them, they say. Political virgins are better than experienced failures, they claim.

This is a persuasive argument. And yet Nigel Farage has repeatedly maintained that Reform’s lack of experienced politicians is its weakness, and that it must people who know their way around the corridors of Westminster. So why is this? And is he right or wrong?

During the press conference introducing Robert Jenrick as a new Reform recruit, Nigel Farage briefly opened a window into his soul, allowing us to see the monster that gives him nightmares. No journalist picked up on this, so I am doing so for you.

Farage mentioned that when he was a UKIP MEP he got to know the Italian political party known as the 5 Star Movement (which was a member of the same group as UKIP in the European Parliament) and he did not want Reform to take the same path, and suffer the same fate, as they did. So let me tell you about them, as this is important.

There once was a second-rate Italian TV comic called Beppe Grillo. Think of him as an Italian Les Dennis or Noel Edmonds. He became increasingly politically engaged and contemptuous of the existing political establishment. So finally, in 2009, he launched his own political party – the 5 Star Movement – which achieved immediate electoral success. But the thing is this: because Grillo was so disgusted by the existing political parties and politicians he forbade any of them from joining. He insisted that only political neophytes could join – those he deemed clean, pure and untainted.

In the 2013 general election it got 25% of the vote, more than any other single party. But that was its problem: it was a single party, and all the other political parties were in coalitions – either on the Left or the Right. But Grillo prided himself on being independent (in fact, he hated normal politics so much he even refused to stand for election himself) and his manifesto was a hotchpotch of Left- and Right-wing policies. I’m not saying that it’s wrong to take the best policies from across the political spectrum, without being rigidly dogmatic, but you do need to have a unifying philosophy, and the 5 Star Movement did not have this.

So after the election, which left Italian politics with a hung parliament and a right mess, lengthy negotiations took place, but the 5 Star Movement could not agree to be involved in any government alliance, and ultimately was frozen out and, instead, a ragbag of left-wing parties joined together to govern the country. At that point the 5 Star Movement began to disintegrate, with several of its MPs leaving to join other parties, on both the Left and Right. The party survived however and with the failure of the left-wing government, and the public growing ever more unhappy with politics, it actually grew even stronger, and at the next general election (in 2018) it gained a third of the votes. This time it was too big to be left out of a government coalition and, indeed, it became the main party of government. But their lack of either ideological consistency or experience, and their gross political and administrative incompetence meant that their first alliance – with the right-wing League – was soon dissolved, and their next alliance – with the left-wing Democratic Party – also eventually failed. They were thus exposed as complete numpties and at that point the Italian people realised they were not the answer and so at the following election (in 2022) their vote collapsed. They have never been in government again (even though, like the LibDems here, they still retain a small but devoted following of deluded morons) and have moved ever more leftwards.

So that, dear reader, is the example that Nigel Farage is determined to avoid. A party that was so obsessed with rejecting anyone who had any political baggage that in the end it was unable to govern and was an ignominious failure.

So instead Farage has adopted what I call the ‘Gladiators’ strategy: recruit a varied collection of star fighters.
Continued..

https://open.substack.com/pub/britishpatriot/p/nigel-farages-gladiators-strategy?

NIGEL FARAGE'S 'GLADIATORS' STRATEGY REVEALED: How Farage's Italian nightmare has shaped Reform's evolution

Yawn, he is so uninspiring:

Coming up: Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to speak over Greenland row The Prime Minister is expected to speak from Downing Street at 9:15Subscribe to The Telegraph with our special offer: just £1 for 3 months. Start your free t...

After the Islamist attack on a synagogue in Manchester in October, Robert Garson, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, reached an uncomfortable conclusion: Jews were no longer safe in Britain.

Garson responded to the tragedy by starting talks with the US state department about providing sanctuary for British Jews fleeing anti-Semitism.

The Manchester-born barrister told The Telegraph that he could see “no future” for Jews in the UK and laid much of the blame on Sir Keir Starmer for allowing anti-Semitism to flourish.

He said he had raised the idea of offering the US as a safe haven to British Jews with Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, Trump’s anti-Semitism tsar. Trump appointed Garson to the US Holocaust Memorial Council last May after firing board members appointed by Joe Biden.

Robert Garson
As a National Rifle Association-licensed instructor, Garson says he will ‘train any Jewish person that wants to learn’
Garson, who moved to the US from London in 2008, said: “I have spoken to the state department as to whether the president should be offering British Jews asylum in the US.

“It is certainly not an unattractive proposition. It is a highly educated community. I have spoken to people in the state department and I have mentioned it in my role on the Holocaust Museum board. It is a populous that speaks English natively, that is educated and doesn’t have a high proportion of criminals. There were conversations.”

Just announced…

If it is true that you need a Muslim candidate to counter a Muslim candidate, does that mean that for the foreseeable future it will be impossible for the political right to put up white, male, heterosexual candidates?

The majority of people in Britain are still white, and half of the population is still nominally male. When it comes to the proportion of heterosexuals it is increasingly hard to tell, but on balance they still seem to dominate.

https://spectator.com/article/reforms-real-race-problem

✍️ Douglas Murray

Jacob Rees-Mogg said it brilliantly it’s a win-win for both Conservatives and Reform 🇬🇧 UK.

It shows Kemi has decisive leadership skills and will do what it takes instead of the whole wishy washy leadership we have with Starmer.

Jenrick helps paint Reform 🇬🇧 UK as a serious party for government.

Jenrick defects - and everyone wins A dramatic and exciting political day – with benefits for both right-wing parties.For additional exclusive videos and articles, please subscribe to my Substa...

Nadhim Zahawi, former Conservative Chancellor, has defected to Reform U.K.:

LIVE: A special announcement from Reform UK. 🇬🇧 LIVE: A special announcement from Reform UK. 🇬🇧

How Trump can take Greenland without firing a shot
Washington has more than military might at its disposal as it seeks to take over the vast Arctic island

Danish soldiers in Greenland are under orders to shoot first and ask questions later, but the US could seize the island through non-military means Credit: REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/File Photo
Donald Trump has never ruled out a military invasion of Greenland, but he could take over the Danish Arctic island without firing a shot.

The US president, fresh from flexing his muscles after capturing Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, has dismissed European condemnation of his repeated calls to annex mineral-rich Greenland for national security reasons.

A leading Trump official said: “The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal – and, of course, utilising the US military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal.”

But hours later, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, suggested the threat of military action was aimed at forcing Denmark to sell Greenland or hand it over.

So how could the US annex Greenland?

Buy it

Mr Rubio briefed US politicians that the goal was to buy Greenland rather than conquer it and, on the same day, Mr Trump told aides to deliver an updated plan for acquiring the strategic territory.

The secretary of state said he will meet his Greenlandic and Danish counterparts next week, ending months of failed attempts by Copenhagen to secure talks.

However, buying Greenland is harder than the US president might hope.

Mr Trump, a real estate developer, unsuccessfully tried to buy Greenland in 2019, during his first term. President Harry Truman also offered to buy it for $100m in gold in 1946, but was turned down.

Historically, the US has been averse to conquering land, but not to acquiring it with cash.

In 1803’s Louisiana Purchase it bought huge amounts of land from France for the equivalent of an estimated $430m today. The Alaska Purchase in 1867 saw the US pay Russia the modern equivalent of $160m for what became the 49th state.

It purchased the US Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917 for gold coins worth the equivalent of more than $600m today.

But buying Greenland won’t be simple. Putting a value on the island is difficult because of its strategic location and unexploited natural resources.

It is also politically complicated. Greenland is an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark, which retains control over its foreign and defence policy and currency.

In 2009, the island assumed self-rule from Denmark under an agreement that gives it the future right to declare independence. Will Greenlanders swap independence for US rule?

Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the island’s prime minister, has repeatedly said that Greenland is not for sale.

Danish assent is also needed before Greenland can agree to any deal, which has also been ruled out by Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime minister.

“It’s a seller’s market. If Denmark don’t want to sell, then Denmark don’t want to sell,” Dr Dafydd Townley, the chairman of the UK American Politics Group, told The Telegraph.

Divide and conquer

But Mr Trump may decide the best course of action is to incentivise Greenland to push through and swap its future independence for US rule, Dr Townley, from the University of Portsmouth’s Military Education Team, said.

The president has promised to make 57,000 Greenlanders rich if they join the US.

His son Donald Trump Junior, and JD Vance, the vice-president, have made separate trips to Greenland to drum up support for it joining the US.

The US planned to replace Denmark’s $600m incentives to Greenland with $10,000 per year for each Greenlander, the New York Times reported last year.

US Vice President JD Vance tours the US military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on March 28, 2025
JD Vance, the US vice-president, made a trip to Greenland to drum up support for it joining the US Credit: Jim Watson/AFP
Yet the visits did not result in a groundswell of pro-US feeling – instead, they did the opposite for some. Locals and tourists can now buy Trump-style red baseball caps with the motto “Make America Go Away” on them in Greenland.

And Greenlanders voted for Demokraatit, a centre-Right party that was historically pro-union with Denmark, in March last year, suggesting that US love-bombing had a reverse effect on the locals.

There are claims that the US is deliberately stirring up divisions to facilitate an American takeover. The Danish government summoned US diplomats three times last year to protest about spying and covert influence operations in the territory.

Juno Berthelsen, an MP for the pro-independence and opposition Naleraq party, has called for Greenland to hold talks with the US about the future of the island – without Denmark present.

“It is time we begin to prepare for the independence we have fought for for so many years. It is time we act on our own behalf,” he said.

Trade for troops

Washington is mulling a bespoke deal giving US troops free access across Greenland in return for duty free trade.

It is considering offering a Compact of Free Association (Cofa) to the island – a deal exchanging a military presence on the island in exchange for essential services and free trade.

Similar Cofas have been offered to small Pacific nations such as the Marshall Islands and Palau.

Kuno Fencker, the leader of Naleraq, said, “I am almost certain now, and rumours are now saying, that the US is coming up with a Compact of Free Association offer, which is much better than the current self-government law.”

This would be fiercely opposed by Denmark, which points out the US already has an important military base on Greenland.

Pituffik Space Base is the US military’s most northerly outpost, and is a vital location for missile defence and space surveillance.

The Danish government has stressed that it is open to bolstering security cooperation through Nato in the Arctic, but will not surrender Greenland.

The US military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland
The US military’s northernmost outpost, Pituffik Space Base is a vital location for missile defence and space surveillance Credit: Jim Watson/AFP
A fudge

Mr Trump styles himself as a master deal maker, and many of his allies hope negotiations can end the dispute over Greenland.

The defence treaty allowing for the military base does not put explicit limits on the number of American troops that can be deployed to Greenland – but a large increase would probably require Danish consent.

A cleverly presented deal, perhaps tied to US access to rare earth minerals, could allow the president to claim victory.

Insiders suggest a detailed plan is far from finished. Internal polling from March, when he first began his threats of annexation, made for bleak reading for the White House, sources told The Telegraph.

The public is said to have viewed the threats negatively, and the topic was quietly parked.

However, when Mr Trump doubled down on his threat on Air Force One on Sunday, White House aides were forced to drive his message once again.

“Until Trump brought it up a few days ago, we hadn’t heard anything about it. It was nine to 10 months ago when a bunch of polling came out showing it was unpopular,” a source close to the administration said.

“It’s a classic DJT [Donald J Trump] dynamic. He says something unplanned and then the White House drives his message even if it wasn’t planned.”

Dr Townley expects an agreement based around extensive access to rare earth minerals to pay for additional defence supplied by an enhanced US military presence

“All of this will make Donald Trump very happy. There could maybe even be a “Trump land” somewhere in Greenland that is run by the Americans, similar to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany,” he said.

“This is Trump trying to coerce the Danish and the Greenlanders into giving them access to significant amounts of minerals, which makes them less reliant on Chinese exports, and gives them an even bigger footing within the Arctic region.”

Put pressure on a weak Europe

Mr Trump knows that Europe is hopelessly dependent on the US for its security. What is to stop him pointing out that the US troops stationed in Europe are needed to protect US national security in the Arctic instead?

A US military presence in Europe is, however, crucial to American abilities to project power into the Middle East and launch bombing raids on countries such as Iran.

But with the Ukraine peace negotiations in the balance, the leverage to extract concessions is with Washington but that also carries risk.

One EU diplomat warned: “Ultimately, the US has to decide if they want to keep Europe close or push it away. Taking over Greenland would be the last nail in the coffin.”

David Silbey, a professor of history at Cornell University, who specialises in military history and defence policy, said: “My best analysis would be that the Europeans try to push Denmark towards some kind of deal with the US to essentially hand over control in some way that is not entirely a capitulation.”

Military invasion

Could the US invade sparsely-populated Greenland without a shot being fired?

It is theoretically possible, although Danish troops are under orders to shoot first and ask questions later in the case of an invasion.

Denmark could make any invasion cumbersome with a “denial” operation restricting US movement rather than attacking its troops.

“If you put 5,000 men on the ice sheet, it’s not a strength, but a vulnerability,” said Esben Salling Larsen, a researcher at the Danish Defence Academy,

As Europe scrabbles to formulate contingency plans for the worst case scenario, one idea is to send a symbolic European force to Greenland. This would not be to fight the Americans but to force the US to cross the Rubicon of attacking its Nato allies.

US military aircraft flying over Greenland on Oct 7 2025
Taking over Greenland would be ‘the last nail in the coffin’ for the US-Europe relationship, one EU diplomat warned Credit: Cameron Lewis
One EU diplomat said, “Maga appears to have forgotten a central source of American power – not merely the capacity to wage war, but the far harder task of building and sustaining alliances. Europe has not.

“It will stand by Denmark and, if necessary, contemplate measures once considered unthinkable, including a European tripwire presence in Greenland.”

Any military takeover of Greenland would throw Nato into an unprecedented crisis.

Ms Fredericksen has already warned that it would be the death of a military alliance that has underpinned Western security since the end of the Second World War.

An invasion would also have to be sold to the American people, Dr Townley said, at a time when most Americans were far more concerned about the cost of living.

Mr Trump’s base also hates so-called foreign “forever wars”, he added – and with mid-terms looming, some Republicans could object because of a fear of losing their seats.

Interesting to understand how the nation’s energy is generated on this coldest of nights:

National Grid: Live Shows the live status of Great Britain’s electric power transmission network

Lord David Frost writes Don’t be surprised by failure – that’s what our state is designed to do
Politicians are deluded if they believe they could do a better job leading without committing to a total reorganisation of government

David Frost 01 January 2026 4:00pm GMT

Are ministers politicians or jumped-up campaigners?
Every so often, even I am genuinely surprised by a news story – and I am about as world-weary in the ways of government as you can get.

Such a case is that of Alaa Abd El Fattah. The whole story is baffling. Why were British politicians, Tory or Labour, giving him any particular attention in the first place? After all, he was imprisoned well before he was granted British nationality in 2021, and his connection with Britain was pretty tenuous anyway. And getting a British passport should have made no difference either, for it always used to be British policy that dual nationals could not expect protection against the state of the other nationality.

Unfortunately, that principle went out of the window with the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe case, ignored by the opposition just to cause problems for Boris Johnson. Now it has come back to bite current ministers.

But set all this aside. Didn’t anyone check? The social media posts? The withdrawal of the Sakharov prize nomination? Someone has slipped up badly here. Someone somewhere in the system must have either failed to search for this material properly, decided to conceal it, or taken a decision to lobby despite it. We must know who and how. These are simple questions of fact.

All this is genuinely outrageous, and I’m outraged. But then I pause. Why am I so surprised? What’s so amazing about the British state getting things wrong? It’s what they do.

Consider the following. The grooming gangs scandal. The apparent cover-up, the refusal to accept there was a problem, and now the choice of a manifestly unsuitable Chair.

The Horizon Post Office scandal: once again the refusal to look at obvious facts, the apparent cover-up, and now the continuing refusal to pay out compensation quickly for the most obvious miscarriages of justice.

Or the governance collapse at the Office of National Statistics, so that we can’t now rely on even the basics like inflation and unemployment figures.

I could go on. In fact, I will. The pointless and costly Covid inquiry that will tell us nothing useful. The ongoing growth in civil service numbers. Crazy net zero. The unnecessary and hugely expensive effort to reclad every tower block in the country. The collapse in flat-building because of the new requirement that new buildings must have two staircases. The near-decriminalisation of shoplifting. The failure to build enough prisons, the early releases, the revelation that it was entirely normal to let dangerous criminals out by mistake. The endless and intolerable Birmingham bin strike. The exponential growth in SEND costs. The supposedly “unintended” consequences of the Online Safety Act. The Bank’s incompetent conduct of monetary policy. The reluctance to accept the Supreme Court’s ruling on trans issues.

There’s the inability to manage state services. The scandals in maternity units. The NHS waiting lists. The Danegeld paid to junior doctors. The long delays in probate or property transfers at the land registry. The collapse of the civil service pensions agency. The Ofqual data failures on special needs students. The 50-year on-off saga, now off again, of dualling the A1 in Northumberland. We can’t even do something as basic as make driving tests properly available.

There’s incompetent regulation on the one hand, aggressive pursuit of blameless individuals on the other. The inability to set a proper regime for the water companies and the toleration of outages like that in Tunbridge Wells this month. The massive over-regulation of farmers exposed in Clarkson’s Farm, on top of the Treasury’s clear failure to do its job on calculating the impact of farming inheritance tax changes. Or the determination to impose pointless paperwork on perfectly safe imports – evidenced by Lance Forman’s recent account of his attempt to import EU cod roe that happened to have the wrong certificate.

And it’s not just the executive. Judges and magistrates are equally to blame. The feeble sentences for repeat violent criminals. The decision to interpret equality legislation as requiring equal pay for manifestly non-equivalent jobs. The endless over-interpretation of the ECHR.

And I haven’t even mentioned HS2, small boats in the Channel, or the highest ever levels of immigration.

The whole story of the British state in recent years is one of repeated incompetence and failure. Why be surprised at letting in one more alleged extremist? It’s what they’re good at.

So massive state reform is needed. The Victorian system of ministerial responsibility, the inability to hire and fire civil servants, the lack of political support to ministers: all needs sweeping away.

But we must be realistic. Government is a system with no markets and no objective tests of success and failure. So political pressures and cover-ups are inevitable. Responsibilities are blurred rather than made clear. Failures are not corrected but doubled down upon.

Of course failures happen in the private sector too. But there – at least in that rapidly diminishing part of our economy subject to market forces and real competition – they are found out fast, and those responsible pay the price.

That’s why the only real answer to government failure is to limit what government actually does. One of the great mysteries of modern politics is why we hold politicians and bureaucrats in such disdain and yet seem so anxious to give them more power. Surely if you want to stop state failure, you must stop giving the state things to do.

We must break out of this mindset whereby nothing can happen unless the state is involved. You don’t have to give Ed Miliband power over the energy system and your bills. The viability of farming doesn’t have to be made subject to DEFRA and Treasury bureaucrats. It is possible to run schools or healthcare without the dead hand of the state. We’ve just forgotten that.

Sadly we are doing the reverse and asking the state to do more and more. All political parties, in their different ways, still seem to think they can run the state machine better if they are only given a go. They can’t and they won’t. Only massive state surgery will do the job. Until we face up to that, things will keep getting worse. Happy New Year.