Rajesh Thind

It’s utterly ridiculous that someone in Downing Street would signal Keir Starmer’s readiness to debate Nigel Farage 4 YEARS before the next election. Perhaps just govern?
Is this some misguided &complacent Labour attempt to permanently eliminate the Tories, thinking they will beat Farage anyway?

A senior Labour official said Starmer would be willing to debate Farage ahead of the next election, with polls suggesting the public also see Reform UK as the most credible opposition to his Labour government. Farage said on Friday: “I accept the offer.”

We stay winning. We've successfully found the most strategically brain dead idea in UK politics, everyone else can give up and go home.

Labour seems determined to elevate Farage and Faragism- they should stop. And why Starmer is "better"at foreign policy than domestic

In two important ways Labour empowered Nigel Farage and Faragism this week. Both were strategic mistakes. We’ve seen this story before.

New writing from me.

open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...

Coming soon to a British Isle near you!

Overheard on this train I’m on:

Young woman 1:
“Do you like your friends?”

YW2:
“Yeah!”

YW1:
“All of them?”

YW2:
“Yeah, I do like them all actually.”

YW1:
“You’re lucky. I don’t like 90% of my friends.”

When 14 bishops, senior rabbis and imams sign a letter demanding a change in the government's tone then maybe there is something wrong with Keir Starmer's political strategy

‘This moment feels like more than just another immigration announcement, part of a deeper shift – one where mainstream parties are adopting the narratives once confined to the far right. And it’s precisely that kind of shift that leads to consequences we’ve seen before: fear, division, violence.’

For CJR I wrote about how we think about using AI at 404 Media which is to say we differentiate ourselves by being human beings writing articles for other human beings www.cjr.org/feature-2/ho...

A more or less explicitly Powellite Labour government is such a sad situation for Britain.

Starmer’s migration speech ‘completely different’ to Enoch Powell’s, says Yvette Cooper Home secretary says PM talked about strength in diversity, after criticism from MPs over ‘island of strangers’ rhetoric

If you have to clarify that it’s “completely different” to Enoch Powell it’s possible your message isn’t landing right.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

This feels like our own version of “it was a Roman salute”

It was different in that after Enoch Powell gave the speech even The Times understood it to be an evil speech and Powell was sacked from the frontbench by Ted Heath. Starmer will continue to be propped up by his cult and people will keep insisting that we disbelieve our lying eyes.

Kenmure Street, Glasgow. Four years ago.

Ordinary people stopped what they were doing to protect their neighbours. No strangers.

Happy Kenmure Street Day ✊

When the "phrasing" includes lines from Enoch Powell, allusions to great replacement theory, and generally dehumanising, and absolutely far right, language then you can't just move past them. Words do matter, and these were deliberate from Starmer. #r4today

my favorite part about staying up late is watching my UK mutuals wake up and start posting and showing me the little ways how we aren’t too different after all. their country is as spiritually fucked in ways i as an american recognize without much effort

They set fire to a hotel where refugees were forced to live, attacked mosques and homes, stopped people driving into an area if they weren’t white. “grievances” remember violent racism is always our fault

I don’t think anybody has suggested Southport was “a fascist uprising”.

Rather it presented an excuse for a lot of racist people to spread racist conspiracy theories and engage in and incite racist violence.

That is a matter of record.

The desperation to pretend otherwise is bizarre.

A more or less explicitly Powellite Labour government is such a sad situation for Britain.

Hundreds arrested in illegal worker raids last month, government says Nail bars and takeaways were targeted in the raids ahead of an immigration bill being debated by MPs.

Is there much citizen-filmed video of these UK raids, as with the ICE raids in the US?

‘From the start of the Labour government in July [2024] up to 31 January [2025], 3,930 arrests were made over 5,424 visits by immigration enforcement officers, the Home Office said.’
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This literally fascist honk is what Starmer has opened the doors to. He must have known what would happen, and just not cared, which makes him every bit as contemptible as Jenrick.

Reform UK can now influence over £100bn of pensions. Brace for the war on ‘woke investments’ Farage & Co could make a big splash at the pool party

🚨Reform made huge gains in the local elections.

But as well as winning councils, they won influence on £100bn of LGPS pension assets.

A US-style war on 'woke investments' looks to be coming to UK asset mgmt.

on.ft.com/3ZhOh4j

If Labour continues the hostile rhetoric we have seen spewed by Starmer and others then they will just reinforce Reform, which can shift to saying "they didn't go far enough", despite there being no extreme so far as they would be happy, and blame "elites". 12/

It's Starmer's "island of strangers" soundbite where we go from plainly disgusting language to active dogwhistles mimicking far-right slogans. That can't be an accident at this level of politics. Nothing about "cutting immigration" will actually make things better. It will make them a lot worse. 14/

A screencap of the dog gromit laying down railway line in front of the fast-moving train on which he is sat.

Anyway, massive thanks to all the big brains in charge of the Labour Party who have decided the best way to combat this actively metastasising cancer is to coddle and nurture it like a Japanese Peace Lily. Keep laying down that track, lads – who knows, maybe the trains will end up somewhere nice!

We've reached the phase of Fascist Transatlanticism where the UK right have identified last year's riots and pogroms as their own potential January 6th moment. And, never to be outdone on being outdone, Starmer has seen fit to fan the flames and say they were actually, spiritually, correct.

Good thread by @petergeoghegan.bsky.social on Palantir in NHS. Read also my newsletter from yesterday which reveals head of Palantir UK in middle of UK-US trade deal talks…of which we still don’t know the details.

Why not??

open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

Amidst this performative politics is a resurrection of integration narratives (remember Sewell & how it was b’deshi & Pakistani women who were seen as pulling integration back a generation). A further scattering of bordering over a life time

Migration cuts are a luxury the UK cannot afford Reducing freedom of movement comes at a cost and governments shouldn’t pretend otherwise

on.ft.com/3GT0LsT Migration cuts are a luxury the UK cannot afford

‘“Clamping down on immigration” in response to a voter backlash is a British political tradition older than universal suffrage. Indeed, it is older than the modern passport — and, in fact, why the modern passport exists in the first place.’