Wednesday, September 03, 2025
No evidence to support claims linking sexual violence with refugees
The Independent reports that leading female politicians, campaigners and cultural figures have signed an open letter criticising attempts from the right to link sexual violence in Britain to the arrival of asylum seekers.
The paper says that the letter - signed by musicians Paloma Faith, Charlotte Church and Anoushka Shankar, as well as Labour, Green and independent MPs including Kim Johnson, Ellie Chowns, Diane Abbott and Zarah Sultana – says they “reject the far right’s racist lies about ‘protecting’ women and girls”:
“They are not defenders of women – they exploit violence against women to fuel hate and division,” reads the letter, coordinated by Stand Up to Racism and titled ‘Women Against the Far Right’.
The letter, seen by The Guardian, warns: “Violence against women and girls is a serious and urgent issue. But it will never be solved by the likes of Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick targeting refugees, Muslims and migrants.
“There is no evidence that people seeking refuge are more likely to commit acts of sexual violence. Many are themselves survivors of violence, war, and persecution. Blaming them distracts from tackling the deep-rooted causes of abuse and from holding those truly responsible to account.”
It also accuses the far right of spreading misinformation to whip up protests and unrest outside hotels housing asylum seekers, which include women and children. The letter argues that this does nothing to make women in Britain feel safer.
...
Reform UK leader Mr Farage has repeatedly tried to link illegal immigration with levels of violence against women and girls, claiming that an “Afghan male has a 22 times more likely chance of being convicted of rape than somebody born in this country”.
In fact as the Guardian reported a few years ago, the majority of child sexual abuse gangs are made up of white men under the age of 30.
According to an official report, which covers England, Scotland and Wales and summarises a range of studies on the issue of group-based child sexual exploitation (CSE), also known as grooming gangs, there is not enough evidence to conclude that child sexual abuse gangs were disproportionately made up of Asian offenders.
It said: “Research has found that group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white:
Nazir Afzal, the former chief crown prosecutor in the north-west, who brought prosecutions over the Rochdale grooming gangs, welcomed the report. “It confirms that white men remain the most common offenders, which is something rarely mentioned by rightwing commentators,” he said.
“However, it is not shy in reflecting that south Asian and British Pakistani men are disproportionately found in high-profile cases.
“The danger is that by focusing entirely on the ethnicity of the offender, we miss the bigger picture, which is how the unheard, the left-behind women and girls, are invariably the victims. That’s where the government’s attention and action should be primarily focused.”
The point is that this is not clear cut by any stretch of the imagination, despite the rhetoric being utilised by Farage, Jenrick and their acolytes, misleading rhetoric that has been used to fuel protests and hatred.
Nazir Afzal, the former chief crown prosecutor in the north-west, who brought prosecutions over the Rochdale grooming gangs, welcomed the report. “It confirms that white men remain the most common offenders, which is something rarely mentioned by rightwing commentators,” he said.
“However, it is not shy in reflecting that south Asian and British Pakistani men are disproportionately found in high-profile cases.
“The danger is that by focusing entirely on the ethnicity of the offender, we miss the bigger picture, which is how the unheard, the left-behind women and girls, are invariably the victims. That’s where the government’s attention and action should be primarily focused.”
The point is that this is not clear cut by any stretch of the imagination, despite the rhetoric being utilised by Farage, Jenrick and their acolytes, misleading rhetoric that has been used to fuel protests and hatred.
Tuesday, September 02, 2025
Even Reform voters are now questioning Brexit
The paper says that a major YouGov survey of 2,224 voters has underlined a significant shift in attitudes to the Brexit debate and suggests that Nigel Farage’s continued hostility towards the EU is not even landing with his own party’s supporters:
According to the findings, 55 per cent of Reform UK (previously the Brexit Party) voters want a permanent youth mobility scheme for young people in the UK and Europe to be put in place with just 34 per cent opposing.
The scheme is being looked at following the Brexit reset by Sir Keir Starmer earlier this year, which the prime minister described as an ongoing process.
Overall, 76 per cent of those asked support the scheme, compared to only 13 per cent who are opposed.
Meanwhile, 62 per cent of Tory voters support the youth mobility scheme despite the party’s hard line in favour of Brexit, while 90 per cent of Sir Keir’s Labour voters back it.
In a further telling result, Reform voters also back closer trading with the EU by 41 per cent to 19 per cent.
Among the options presented to them, only 35 per cent want to be “more distant” from the EU, with 23 per cent wanting closer relations and 32 per cent preferring no change.
Pro-EU campaign group Best for Britain described the support for measures such as youth mobility among Reform voters as “highly significant”.
Tom Brufatto, director of policy, said: “A deal on youth mobility would create new opportunities for young UK and EU citizens alike, as first proposed by the UK Trade and Business Commission in 2021, and, as Best for Britain’s polling found earlier this year, is favoured in every constituency in Great Britain.
“The government must now use this welcome momentum to work at speed with the EU to finalise a deal so Brits can feel the economic benefits – no more time should be wasted.”
Surely, it is now time we moved more quickly towards integrating with the EU and in particular rejoining the single market.
Sunday, August 31, 2025
Losing the plot with the local media
Reform councillors on Nottingham County Council have no such qualms. As the Guardian reports, the editor of the Nottingham Post has accused the council's Reform leader’s decision to ban his councillors from engaging with the prominent local newspaper as a “massive attack on local democracy” and a sign of things to come should the party form the next government.
The criticism comes as Nottinghamshire county council’s four-month-old Reform administration said it will no longer deal with the Nottingham Post, its online edition and a team of BBC-funded local democracy journalists that it manages:
Nigel Farage is already facing calls to intervene in the row, with local MPs accusing Reform of “rank hypocrisy” over its previous claims to support free speech and transparency. Lee Anderson, the Reform MP for Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, has said he will join in the boycott.
In an interview with the Guardian, Natalie Fahy, the editor of the Nottingham Post and Nottinghamshire Live, said the ban had come from Mick Barton, the county council’s leader, after a story about plans for a restructuring of local government. She said it was a worrying sign of Reform’s approach to the free press.
“It’s a massive attack on local democracy,” she said. “I’ve been a journalist for 20 years. We have had our ups and downs with all kinds of councils. We managed to get along fine, because most elected officials accept this is par for the course. You are going to get some negative press. What you don’t do is shut the shop up.
“This is a worrying sign of potentially things to come if Reform wins the next election. What you’re seeing here in Nottinghamshire is probably a microcosm of how it will be across the whole of the UK if Nigel Farage becomes prime minister. You are just going to see this kind of shutting down of questioning.
“They need to be answerable to the people who elected them. We don’t take a political stance. We’re not anti-Reform. We’re just trying to find out what’s going on.”
The move has already caused concern among other parties. The Lib Dems have written to Farage to demand that he step in to reverse the “dangerous and chilling” decision. They also suggested that the move may have breached local government’s code of conduct, which calls on elected officials to “submit themselves to the scrutiny”.
The row in Nottinghamshire has been rumbling since a clip of an interview in June with a local councillor, in which they appeared to have only a loose grasp of their brief, went viral online.
Relations appeared to improve and Reform figures were engaging with the local reporters. However, Barton cut access after raising objections to a story examining plans for a reorganisation of local government, which included alleged disagreements within the Reform group of councillors.
Under the ban, none of the 41 Reform councillors will speak to Nottinghamshire Live and local democracy reporters. The outlet has been told press officers have also been instructed to take Nottinghamshire Live off council media distribution lists, meaning it will not receive some press releases or be invited to events.
The media perform an important role within the democratic process in scrutinising and reporting on what politicians are up to. If Reform councillors feel that they can't cope with that then they should step aside so more competent candidates can do the job instead.
Saturday, August 30, 2025
Perched on a cliff
If you happen to be in the area, then walk from the car park at Southgate to your left as you face the sea. Once you get to the last house on the cliff, walk at a 90 degree angle to the edge and step down to a ledge just below it. That is where the memorial stone has been placed. There are more detailed instructions in this blogpost by Andrew Green.. Green writes of Watkins and the memmorial stone as follows:
The stone’s near-invisibility might be a mirror – perhaps a deliberate one – of the nature of Vernon Watkins the man. By all accounts he was a self-contained and undeclarative person, unlike his close friend Dylan Thomas, and might have been averse to a public drawing attention to himself. It’s true, there’s a plaque commemorating him in Pennard Church, a small, slightly crooked plaque on the outside wall of the care home at Southgate where his house once stood, and a third on the wall of the old Lloyds Bank in St Helen’s Road, Swansea, where he worked. But he’d have been more embarrassed than flattered, you sense, if he’d been accorded the equivalent of the Dylanolatry that litters Swansea, Laugharne and other Thomas locations. Hunts Bay, with its modest, bowl-like valley sweeping down to the rocks and the sea, would have been enough for him.
The stone gives his dates (1906-67), below his name and the phrase, ‘Poet of Gower’. This epithet grounds him in his beloved adopted homeland, though it also makes him sound a ‘local’ or ‘regional’ poet, like William Barnes or George Crabbe, whereas the claims he makes in his poems are not primarily about locality but about wider themes of life and (especially) death.
The inscription carries a line, carved by Ronald Cour, from one of Watkins’s best-known poems, the long-line ‘Taliesin in Gower’: ‘I have been taught the script of the stones, and I know the tongue of the wave’.
In my view, Watkins was a more substantial poet than his contemporary Dylan Thomas, though I also agree with Andrew Green that Nigel Jenkins lays better claim to be the 'poet of Gower'.
Vernon Watkins was born in Maesteg in Glamorgan, and brought up mainly in Swansea, living with his family in a large Victorian house in Caswell. He met Dylan Thomas, who was to be a close friend, in 1935 when Watkins had returned to a job in Lloyds bank in Swansea.
The building that once housed that bank in Walter Street, is now a betting shop. It did at one stage boast a blue plaque to commemorate Watkins, but according to the council website, that is now situated on the St. Helen's Road wall of the Common Meeple board game cafe.
With Dylan Thomas, Watkins was one of a group of Swansea artists known as the "Kardomah boys" (because they frequented the Kardomah Café in Castle Street). Others among this Swansea Group were the composer Daniel Jenkyn Jones, writer Charles Fisher and the artists Alfred Janes and Mervyn Levy.
Watkins met his wife, Gwen, who came from Harborne, Birmingham, at Bletchley Park, where he worked during the Second World War as a cryptographer, and she, as a member of the WAAF. They were both engaged in breaking the Luftwaffe AuKa tactical codes in Block F.
With Dylan Thomas, Watkins was one of a group of Swansea artists known as the "Kardomah boys" (because they frequented the Kardomah Café in Castle Street). Others among this Swansea Group were the composer Daniel Jenkyn Jones, writer Charles Fisher and the artists Alfred Janes and Mervyn Levy.
Watkins met his wife, Gwen, who came from Harborne, Birmingham, at Bletchley Park, where he worked during the Second World War as a cryptographer, and she, as a member of the WAAF. They were both engaged in breaking the Luftwaffe AuKa tactical codes in Block F.
Gwen was the author of several books, including Dylan Thomas: Portrait of a Friend (1983), Dickens in Search of Himself (1987), and Cracking the Luftwaffe Codes: The Secrets of Bletchley Park (2006). She passed away on 14th January this year at the age of 101.
Friday, August 29, 2025
Reform's masterplan starts to fall apart
Nigel Farage wants you to believe that Reform UK can round up and deport up to 600,000 people within the lifetime of a single Parliament. It cannot. This is not a serious policy. It is an unworkable plan built on political theatre, not reality.
Reform claims it can create secure facilities to hold 24,000 people every month for deportation, equal to 288,000 removals a year. That would require building 24,000 detention spaces in just 18 months. No government has ever come close to delivering anything of that scale. For comparison, Boris Johnson’s government promised 20,000 new prison places and managed to open just one prison in five years, largely because of planning disputes and delays.
Even if Reform somehow built these facilities, the cost would be astronomical. At £500,000 per bed for secure, escape-proof centres, the price tag would be around £12 billion before a single person is removed. Reform claims it can cut costs with “modular accommodation” in remote areas, but such sites would struggle to meet basic security standards and would face fierce local opposition.
The logistics are even worse. Reform says it will remove 6,000 people every week, requiring five full flights every single day, all year round, with around 158 people per plane. That figure is three times higher than the current capacity of the most heavily packed deportation flights. The Home Office does not have the aircraft, the staff, the infrastructure, or the international agreements to make this possible.
To deliver this, Reform would also need sweeping new laws to fast-track people into detention and override their right to a fair hearing. Similar schemes have already been tried and ruled unlawful by the courts. Even if they tore up the European Convention on Human Rights and other international treaties, drafting watertight legislation of this scale would take years. And without international agreements, there is nowhere for these planes to land.
Reform’s plan is not credible. It is an extreme and unworkable fantasy designed to inflame division and distract from the real issues this country faces. It will waste billions, damage Britain’s standing in the world, and unleash untold chaos without fixing a single problem.
And indeed, even Farage has accepted that he might have gone too far with his little masterplan. As the Independent reports, he has rowed back on plans to deport children as part of Reform UK’s strategy to tackle illegal migration.
The paper says that the Reform leader had pledged on Tuesday to detain and deport up to 600,000 people with no right to be in the UK, including anyone who arrived in Britain after crossing the Channel in a small boat.
When asked if this number would include women and children, Mr Farage said: “Yes, women and children, everybody on arrival, will be detained.” But this is no longer the case:
Mr Farage said he accepted that “how we deal with children is a much more complicated and difficult issue” and acknowledged that those protesting across the UK were not doing so “because of the few children coming”, but added that the “only way we will stop the boats is by detaining and deporting absolutely anyone” who crosses the Channel.
“If you come to the UK illegally, you will be detained and deported and never, ever allowed to stay, period. That is our big message from today,” he said.
But on Wednesday, Mr Farage insisted at a press conference in Broxburn, West Lothian that he had been “very, very clear” that the party was focused on “illegal males” and “not even discussing women and children at this stage”.
He added: “The news reports that said that after my conference yesterday were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”
Pressed on whether he now meant women and children would be “exempt”, he said: “I didn’t say exempt forever, but at this stage it’s not part of our plan for the next five years.”
Mr Farage later sought to clarify his comments, saying there had been a “slight confusion” and he had not understood the “context” of the question.
He told broadcasters: “Deporting children is a very difficult thing to do. Who do they go to, what are the wards of care? Women and children, intimating families that have been here illegally for some years, are they top of our list? No.”
Asked again if women and children would be deported, he said: “If a single woman etc comes to Britain, they will be detained and deported. If a woman comes with children, we will work out the best thing to do.”
As the Liberal Democrats commented, the U-turn shows that Farage has “taken as much time reading his own plan as he does his constituents’ emails”. His undeliverable right-wing wet dream is falling apart already.
Mr Farage said he accepted that “how we deal with children is a much more complicated and difficult issue” and acknowledged that those protesting across the UK were not doing so “because of the few children coming”, but added that the “only way we will stop the boats is by detaining and deporting absolutely anyone” who crosses the Channel.
“If you come to the UK illegally, you will be detained and deported and never, ever allowed to stay, period. That is our big message from today,” he said.
But on Wednesday, Mr Farage insisted at a press conference in Broxburn, West Lothian that he had been “very, very clear” that the party was focused on “illegal males” and “not even discussing women and children at this stage”.
He added: “The news reports that said that after my conference yesterday were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”
Pressed on whether he now meant women and children would be “exempt”, he said: “I didn’t say exempt forever, but at this stage it’s not part of our plan for the next five years.”
Mr Farage later sought to clarify his comments, saying there had been a “slight confusion” and he had not understood the “context” of the question.
He told broadcasters: “Deporting children is a very difficult thing to do. Who do they go to, what are the wards of care? Women and children, intimating families that have been here illegally for some years, are they top of our list? No.”
Asked again if women and children would be deported, he said: “If a single woman etc comes to Britain, they will be detained and deported. If a woman comes with children, we will work out the best thing to do.”
As the Liberal Democrats commented, the U-turn shows that Farage has “taken as much time reading his own plan as he does his constituents’ emails”. His undeliverable right-wing wet dream is falling apart already.
Thursday, August 28, 2025
The continuing insidious cost of Brexit to our economy
The paper says that Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister in charge of European negotiations, has pledged to eliminate such costs as by promising a new agreement with the EU in the next 18 months:
Keir Starmer announced a new agreement with the EU in May, as part of which ministers agreed to pursue a series of specific deals, including one on food and agricultural products.
The prime minister was attacked at the time by the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, who argued that the UK was “being dragged back” into the EU, and Farage, the Reform leader, who called it a “Brexit betrayal”.
Labour ministers have been keen to avoid any perception that they are reintroducing a customs union or free movement by the back door. But Thomas-Symonds’ speech on Wednesday indicates they are feeling more confident about making a pro-EU case for removing trade barriers.
He will say the government is “putting in the hard yards, not resting on empty slogans” and that its policy is based on “sovereignty, in the national interest”.
Labour says its new agricultural deal will mean fewer checks on meat, fish, fruit and vegetables imported from the EU, and an end to the current export-licensing scheme.
A report on Tuesday from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said these costs had been particularly burdensome for smaller business, warning: “These firms often lack the capacity and economies of scale to manage the administrative and compliance demands associated with NTMs (non-tariff measures).
“This has created a competitive disadvantage between smaller firms and larger operators with in-house capability – although all stakeholders report increased costs.”
In April, British supermarkets and food producers, including Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s, urged the EU to complete the proposed goods and agricultural deal, saying the existing arrangement had led to “unnecessary red tape”.
This new approach is very welcome of course, but the government is still skating around what need to be done, which is to rejoin the single market as the earliest possible opportunity.
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Farage to pay Taliban to take back persecuted women and children
Farage's rhetoric, the proposed mass deportations, the call to arms which risks further unrest and violence outside hotels, and the proposed rejection of human rights legislation and international obligations are all reminiscent of 1930s Germany.
The culture of protest that Reform and their Tory helpers have unleashed will lead to people being judged on the colour of their skin, with authorities harrassing UK citizens for proof of residency because of the way they look.
The Independent reports that Farage has claimed that some 600,000 asylum seekers, including women and unaccompanied children, could be deported in the first parliament of a Reform UK government. In outlining his programme, I believe that the Reform leader's language borders on racism and incitement:
“But you know what the people protesting outside the Bell Hotel and at 30 migrant hotels on Saturday around the country weren't doing it because of the few children coming.
“They were doing it because over three quarters of those that come are young undocumented males who come from cultures that are entirely different from ours, who are very unlikely to assimilate into our community, who pose a risk to women and girls, and some of them, I'm afraid, pose a risk to national security. So it’s pretty clear, I think, what our priorities are.”
He has pledged to scale up detention capacity for asylum seekers to 24,000 and secure deals with countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran to return migrants to their countries, claiming that the plan will cost £10 billion to implement but save £7 billion currently spent on illegal migration during the first five years.
He proposes to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights, which would apply only to British citizens and those who have a legal right to live in the UK. Will there be a purification programme as well?
It is little wonder that there has been widespread condemnation:
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said Mr Farage’s plan “crumbles under the most basic scrutiny”.
“The idea that Reform UK is going to magic up some new places to detain people and deport them to, but don’t have a clue where those places would be, is taking the public for fools”.
She claimed that “Winston Churchill would be turning in his grave” over the plan to rip up the human rights convention.
Kolbassia Haoussou, from charity Freedom from Torture, reacted to Reform’s announcements saying: “This is not who we are as a country. Men, women and children are coming to the UK looking for safety. They are fleeing the unimaginable horrors of torture in places like Afghanistan, Sudan and Iran. And they desperately need our protection.”
Responding to Reform saying it would disapply the Refugee Convention and the Convention Against Torture, he added: “These laws were created in the aftermath of the second world war to protect us all. If Britain were to abandon this legacy it would hand repressive regimes around the world a gift.”
On potential payments to the Taliban to take back Afghan migrants, Daisy Cooper added:
Reform’s Taliban tribute plan would send British taxpayers’ cash to fund their oppressive regime, fuelling the persecution of Afghan women and children and betraying our brave armed forces who sacrificed so much fighting the Taliban. Clearly British values mean nothing to Farage and his band of plastic patriots.
Farage's proposals would isolate the UK and place us on a par with Putin's Russia and Belarus. They are a disgrace.
The Independent reports that Farage has claimed that some 600,000 asylum seekers, including women and unaccompanied children, could be deported in the first parliament of a Reform UK government. In outlining his programme, I believe that the Reform leader's language borders on racism and incitement:
“But you know what the people protesting outside the Bell Hotel and at 30 migrant hotels on Saturday around the country weren't doing it because of the few children coming.
“They were doing it because over three quarters of those that come are young undocumented males who come from cultures that are entirely different from ours, who are very unlikely to assimilate into our community, who pose a risk to women and girls, and some of them, I'm afraid, pose a risk to national security. So it’s pretty clear, I think, what our priorities are.”
He has pledged to scale up detention capacity for asylum seekers to 24,000 and secure deals with countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran to return migrants to their countries, claiming that the plan will cost £10 billion to implement but save £7 billion currently spent on illegal migration during the first five years.
He proposes to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights, which would apply only to British citizens and those who have a legal right to live in the UK. Will there be a purification programme as well?
It is little wonder that there has been widespread condemnation:
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said Mr Farage’s plan “crumbles under the most basic scrutiny”.
“The idea that Reform UK is going to magic up some new places to detain people and deport them to, but don’t have a clue where those places would be, is taking the public for fools”.
She claimed that “Winston Churchill would be turning in his grave” over the plan to rip up the human rights convention.
Kolbassia Haoussou, from charity Freedom from Torture, reacted to Reform’s announcements saying: “This is not who we are as a country. Men, women and children are coming to the UK looking for safety. They are fleeing the unimaginable horrors of torture in places like Afghanistan, Sudan and Iran. And they desperately need our protection.”
Responding to Reform saying it would disapply the Refugee Convention and the Convention Against Torture, he added: “These laws were created in the aftermath of the second world war to protect us all. If Britain were to abandon this legacy it would hand repressive regimes around the world a gift.”
On potential payments to the Taliban to take back Afghan migrants, Daisy Cooper added:
Reform’s Taliban tribute plan would send British taxpayers’ cash to fund their oppressive regime, fuelling the persecution of Afghan women and children and betraying our brave armed forces who sacrificed so much fighting the Taliban. Clearly British values mean nothing to Farage and his band of plastic patriots.
Farage's proposals would isolate the UK and place us on a par with Putin's Russia and Belarus. They are a disgrace.
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Winter fuel cuts to hit 600,000 disabled pensioners this year
The paper says that the prime minister’s decision to restrict the payment to those earning £35,000 or less will see more than two million pensioners miss out on the allowance, worth up to £300. Of those, more than a quarter are disabled and will be forced to hand back the £300 payment through the tax system:
It comes despite the government’s U-turn on its original decision to strip winter fuel payments from millions more pensioners, with the cuts now restricted to those earning more than £35,000.
Critics said the threshold is too low, particularly for disabled pensioners who will be hit by the change.
Dennis Reed, of over-60s campaign group Silver Voices, told The Sunday Telegraph: “An annual income of £35,000 is not a king’s ransom under any circumstances – let alone for a disabled pensioner. This shows the crudeness of having a means-tested cut-off because it doesn’t take into account the individual circumstances.
“There are usually extra costs involved with having a disability. You might have to heat the house more than you otherwise would, or have to charge medical equipment such as electric wheelchairs, for example.”
It seems that the action taken by Ministers to rescue the situation has not proven to be enough, while the compromise they've come up with is a complete mess.
As the Institute for Fiscal Studies points out, a rich pensioner couple – where one partner has an income of £100,000, while the other has £30,000 – will still get money. By contrast, a couple where both partners have income of £36,000 will get nothing.
Th government's problems over this policy are not going to go away soon.
Th government's problems over this policy are not going to go away soon.
Monday, August 25, 2025
Farage's many jobs highlight need for more clarity on MPs' register of interests
The issue arises after Nigel Farage, who tops the list of high-earning MPs, was paid £280,000 by Direct Bullion, his second-highest set of earnings after the £402,000 he has earned from his work for GB News.
Direct Bullion, which was founded by Paul Withers, a former Royal Navy electronic warfare technician, encourages savers and investors to buy gold, and has been advertising on multiple channels.
The paper says that an archived version of the company's website, dating from after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, shows that it has advertised on TV news network RT, formerly known as Russia Today:
The Reform UK leader has filmed several promotional videos for Direct Bullion, which has offices in London, Florida and California, and operates on “slivering margins”, said Withers.
The company’s most recent set of accounts, covering the year to January 2024, shows assets of about £2.6m.
The entries in Farage’s parliamentary register of interests, while clear about the value of the payments from Direct Bullion, are less clear about the work he has done for the company, stating it is for an “estimated maximum” of four hours worked a month.
This lack of clarity raises questions for the Reform leader, say transparency campaigners.
“The public have a right to know how much time parliamentarians spend on second jobs, and how much they’re paid,” said Steve Goodrich, head of research and investigations at Transparency International. “When MPs are vague about the terms of their outside employment, it prevents scrutiny of their finances, including whether these are genuinely commercial engagements or donations by another name.
“Labour has pledged to tighten the rules on moonlighting by MPs, which is often a distraction from their public duties. Until it does, those with second jobs could at least be clear about how much they’re being paid, when and for what work.”
A Labour spokesperson said: “The public deserves to know what [Farage is] really being paid for here.”
Reform did not respond to requests for a comment.
For Withers, the commercial deal has secured him enviable access to a man who many are tipping as a possible prime minister.
The paper adds that Farage has also earned £134,000 from a series of recordings for the video-greeting app Cameo, plus five-figure sums from Elon Musk’s X Corp, Google, the Telegraph group and Rupert Murdoch’s Australian media network News Pty:
Two five-figure sums totalling £60,000 appear from Thailand-based businessman and former supporter of Boris Johnson, Christopher Harborne – although only one of them has made its way on to the Electoral Commission’s parallel database.
‘Nigel is happy, we’re happy, and his constituents are happy because he can run Reform while doing it’
Farage has also endorsed a short-lived “community cashback” retailer called UK We Save, recording a video in which he said: “We are facing a cost of living crisis in the United Kingdom and I have decided to do something about it.” Explaining the concept – in which consumers bulk buy nappies to reduce costs – he added: “The more people that join, the cheaper they will be … click that link, it’s free to join. It’s going to save you a lot of money.”
The website has since been taken down but the group’s X page still exists – complete with a picture of the Reform leader as its banner. The parent company, Chaching Ltd, which is run by the business executive Christopher Sugrue, is still active, although its accounts are six months overdue. There is no reference to this work on Farage’s register, and he has previously said it was unpaid.
Farage's approach to being a part-time MP, while accumulating vast wealth, raises serious questions about whether constituents are being properly served by the present system, and whether MPs should be further constrained from taking on second jobs.
The paper says that an archived version of the company's website, dating from after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, shows that it has advertised on TV news network RT, formerly known as Russia Today:
The Reform UK leader has filmed several promotional videos for Direct Bullion, which has offices in London, Florida and California, and operates on “slivering margins”, said Withers.
The company’s most recent set of accounts, covering the year to January 2024, shows assets of about £2.6m.
The entries in Farage’s parliamentary register of interests, while clear about the value of the payments from Direct Bullion, are less clear about the work he has done for the company, stating it is for an “estimated maximum” of four hours worked a month.
This lack of clarity raises questions for the Reform leader, say transparency campaigners.
“The public have a right to know how much time parliamentarians spend on second jobs, and how much they’re paid,” said Steve Goodrich, head of research and investigations at Transparency International. “When MPs are vague about the terms of their outside employment, it prevents scrutiny of their finances, including whether these are genuinely commercial engagements or donations by another name.
“Labour has pledged to tighten the rules on moonlighting by MPs, which is often a distraction from their public duties. Until it does, those with second jobs could at least be clear about how much they’re being paid, when and for what work.”
A Labour spokesperson said: “The public deserves to know what [Farage is] really being paid for here.”
Reform did not respond to requests for a comment.
For Withers, the commercial deal has secured him enviable access to a man who many are tipping as a possible prime minister.
The paper adds that Farage has also earned £134,000 from a series of recordings for the video-greeting app Cameo, plus five-figure sums from Elon Musk’s X Corp, Google, the Telegraph group and Rupert Murdoch’s Australian media network News Pty:
Two five-figure sums totalling £60,000 appear from Thailand-based businessman and former supporter of Boris Johnson, Christopher Harborne – although only one of them has made its way on to the Electoral Commission’s parallel database.
‘Nigel is happy, we’re happy, and his constituents are happy because he can run Reform while doing it’
Farage has also endorsed a short-lived “community cashback” retailer called UK We Save, recording a video in which he said: “We are facing a cost of living crisis in the United Kingdom and I have decided to do something about it.” Explaining the concept – in which consumers bulk buy nappies to reduce costs – he added: “The more people that join, the cheaper they will be … click that link, it’s free to join. It’s going to save you a lot of money.”
The website has since been taken down but the group’s X page still exists – complete with a picture of the Reform leader as its banner. The parent company, Chaching Ltd, which is run by the business executive Christopher Sugrue, is still active, although its accounts are six months overdue. There is no reference to this work on Farage’s register, and he has previously said it was unpaid.
Farage's approach to being a part-time MP, while accumulating vast wealth, raises serious questions about whether constituents are being properly served by the present system, and whether MPs should be further constrained from taking on second jobs.
Sunday, August 24, 2025
Tory hypocrites
The criticism came after Badenoch said in a letter on Wednesday that she was encouraging councils to take the same steps as Epping Forest District Council “if your legal advice supports it”, with a Labour spokesperson accusing her of spouting “desperate and hypocritical nonsense”, given the Conservative’s own record with asylum hotels:
At the peak of their use in the summer of 2023 under the Conservative government, there were more than 400 asylum hotels in use.
Figures on those staying in hotels date back to December 2022 and showed numbers hit a peak at the end of September 2023, when there were 56,042 asylum seekers in hotels.
The Essex council secured a temporary injunction from the High Court on Tuesday, blocking the use of Epping’s Bell Hotel as accommodation for asylum seekers on planning grounds.
Speaking on Thursday, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said there “should not have been 56,000 people in hotels” under the Conservatives, but echoed Ms Badenoch’s call for councils to take legal action.
Mr Philp said: “Kemi’s letter yesterday [Wednesday] said she would support and encourage Conservative councils to follow what Conservative-led Epping started in fighting the use of asylum hotels, where there is a legal basis to challenge them.
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A Labour spokesperson said Ms Badenoch’s letter was a “pathetic stunt” and “desperate and hypocritical nonsense from the architects of the broken asylum system”, saying there were now “20,000 fewer asylum seekers in hotels than at their peak under the Tories”.
Whatever the situation, both the Tories and Reform are playing this issue for all it's worth in an effort to stir up unrest when they have been a huge part of the problem in the first place, preparing to play out scare stories instead of properly processing legitimate asylum seekers.
