No ‘immediate’ plans to ban Elon Musk giving Nigel Farage’s Reform UK large donations – government

31 comments

1. The high road will only exist as long as the ones tunneling underneath allows it too.

   And here we are now, the ones who complained about Keir getting some glasses are cheering on the largest buyout of British politics in history.

2. A team of lawyers would find a way to get the money where they want it anyway, and labour would be the ones with pie in their face. Being pressed to rush through policy like this usually leads to blunders.

3. Group of grifters continue their grift: more at 10.

4. The best democracy is one with strong laws, society and institutions, that passively prevent any serious threats arising.

   A worse one has to take arbitrary extra-legal action, or create new laws at the last minutre to crush an existential threat

   But the very worst kind of democracy, is the one incapable of doing the second thing, and that simply bends over as totalitarians gently stumble into power. They fail to act because they arrogantly and naively believe themselves to be the first type. The rule of power that western democracies have forgotten is that people quietly despise weakness in their leaders. That’s why we hate politicans that cravenly dodge questions, or allow themselves to be seen to be divided.

   Look at the USA – if centrists see someone like Trump and label him (correctly) as an authoritarian, unpredictable racist, and a threat to global security, but then fail to stop him, what does that prove?

   It proves that either they were lying, or they were too weak to stop him. In either case, the people will conclude that they deserve to be replaced.

5. All I can think is that they’re terrified that limiting donations from anything other than individuals would undermine the ability of trade unions to donate to Labour. But you can’t be having some foreign billionaire coming in boosting any party.

6. As usual, liberals will take the “high road” approach against far-right populism, then be surprised when they get fucked sideways during the next Govt. Labour are fucking useless.

7. But everytime Farage is mentioned a comment about supprted by forigner or foreign money.

8. You can see where the high road got Biden. Starmer needs to wake the fuck up.

9. I don’t want musk anywhere our government but I find some of the pearl clutching from senior Labour and Tory figures about “undermining democracy” to be mildly hilarious.

   As if our two main parties haven’t been corrupting democracy for decades by selling themselves to the highest bidder and leveraging the honours system for their own benefit.

   “Oh you’ve donated £2million to the party, you can have a peerage” – and then we’re expected to use these titles and show them deference.

   It sickens me.

10. If the main parties target reform then their own foreign donations would come under the microscope. If anything I think they won’t mind the increasing normalisation of money coming into politics because it makes their own careers more lucrative.

11. I’m not bothered about any donations but can we please talk seriously about banning Twitter in the UK?

    Any large social media owned solely by someone who’s so invested with politics is a terrible idea.

12. ‘ Never Again ‘

    I do believe these folks will herald in the very condition that gave rise to above statement, for they are harbingers

13. One thing that is a red flag to me, is the question ‘if Elon Musk was considering donating $100 million to the Green Party, would we be considering the same course of action’? From which I’d say, probably not.

    As IMO it’s important to act on the donation in a principled way – we should be scrutinising and debating what is fair for any political party.

    My worry is that people want to act on this because someone they disagree with might be elected, rather than any actual concern about democratic process.

14. So let me get this straight.

    PM getting Arsenal season tickets upgrade for security purposes = BAD

    Reform receiving £100m from foreign billionaires = GOOD.

15. Elon is going to give Farage that money just as much as he made good on Mark Zuckerberg’s offer of a wrestling bout, and landed a man on Mars by 2024.

16. Let reform have it, however it has to be mentioned every time Nigel is on telly and it is now always “Foreign backed Reform” whenever Foreign backed Reform is mentioned in reports or their representatives are interviewed. They must also answer the question of who they are answering to and for and how.much time.they have spent in their constituency or in parliament.

17. It’s a very odd decision to not act on this, given the whole strategy is to take difficult decisions early on.

18. literally just saw a reddit post saying labour was going to make law banning this

19. George Soros has been interfering via donations for years.

20. Where is the outrage that existed over Starmer getting some glasses and clothes? Fucking hypocrisy.

21. I think they should allow this donation… alongside a new law that levies a 99% tax on foreign donations to political parties.

22. We need to put an end to US interference in UK democracy.

23. It’s a private limited company, Farage is playing a genius move here, he can just take this

24. United Kingdom really following in US’s footsteps… fck these rich oligarchs. Musk running for supreme emperor of the world.

    US, Germany, now UK.

25. First of Farage will not be PM
    Due to FPTP
    Over turning labours majority, it might be wide but shallow, however labour will still get a second term
    No policies that good mustard
    If immigration fails then they don’t have a leg to stand on
    Farage will fold his party and pocket the money
    Also a recall petition will probably be called.

    But the main reason Europe is swinging to the right and the UK is not (we just kicked out a right wing party) because of Brexit. Other countries are still dealing with the Europe Union not being as proactive of a slue of issues (I was remain). We got Brexit and it was/has been an absolute shit show.

    We also still have 4.5 years left of this current government.

26. I don’t think any individual or organisation should be able to donate vast amounts of money to politicians.

    Governemnt is supposed to be about us. The actual people living here not some far off billionaire.

27. All parties, unfortunately, heavily benefit from foreign investment. Labour would look like hypocrites if they banned it, and they’d lose out on money themselves.

    It’s an evil that all parties partake in and so it won’t be fixed any time soon.

28. Hi UK government

    Look at the United States of America

    Your plans are not immediate enough

29. The Labour Party is living it up on foreign cash. Suddenly, it’s an issue?

30. God, I sure do love our politicians. They refuse to fight as dirty as the opposition, who clearly want to turn the west into their own version of Russia.

31. Awesome. Looking forward to Reform leading the country in 5 years time. Bye bye Labour, bye bye conservatives! 

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