British Politics Guide

[Lērisama]

• Nowak's father asked for people not to politicise his death, or use it to stir up hatred. This did not stop Nigel Farage from reappearing¹ and calling for “pure cold rage”².

There have also been less-than-pleasant responses from certain expletives on the right in other countries, who really ought to shut the expletive up.

• Said rage was delivered via a riot in Southampton. If our police force is so biased, you surely would have expected them to arrest as many people as possible, but because our police are, you know, relatively normal for police, there were two arrests.

There have been several more since, which is obviously evidence of two-tier policing since the murderer was allowed to walk free because he isn't white¹.

¹Note for the sarcasm-impaired: this is what the right-wing expletives would like you to think. In fact he was swiftly convicted and is now living a life of luxury in one of our cushy holiday-camp prisons².

²Note for the sarcasm-impaired: this is what the right-wing expletives would like you to think, since our prisons aren't as awful as they used to be.

I actually wrote that before looking at the news this morning out of left over anger from last night, so I was a bit behind. (Although I forgot to mention that the murderer has indeed been convicted, which I should have because some [redacted]s seem to have conviniently forgotten/disbelieve that.)

On an unrelated note I welcome you into the cult of the footnote.

[Travis B.]

[redacted]s

You can say fuckers, it really is okay.

[Lērisama]

[redacted]s

You can say fuckers, it really is okay.

Nah, that wasn't what was on my mind, and I don't really swear in real life either.

[Travis B.]

The sooner the race riots in the UK are put down the better, and emphasis on put down -- I frankly don't care about how much force (yes, to me, using plastic bullets on the rioters is fully justified) is used as long as the riots are crushed ASAP.

[alice]

The sooner the race riots in the UK are put down the better, and emphasis on put down -- I frankly don't care about how much force (yes, to me, using plastic bullets on the rioters is fully justified) is used as long as the riots are crushed ASAP.

They do get put down, and then some white men get sent to prison, and the right-wing (expetive)s pop up and complain about "two-tier policing" because no non-white person has ever been convicted of a crime in the UK. GO TO 10.

[Travis B.]

The sooner the race riots in the UK are put down the better, and emphasis on put down -- I frankly don't care about how much force (yes, to me, using plastic bullets on the rioters is fully justified) is used as long as the riots are crushed ASAP.

They do get put down, and then some white men get sent to prison, and the right-wing (expetive)s pop up and complain about "two-tier policing" because no non-white person has ever been convicted of a crime in the UK. GO TO 10.

I was reading about in the latest round of rioting rioters were setting up checkpoints to target non-white people, compiling and publishing lists of immigrants and people of color in general to target, and setting people's homes on fire (including with people inside). Things like this make me wish maximum (yes, lethal) force were used against these people. If you're setting up checkpoints to target people of color and setting their homes on fire with them inside, you deserve to be taken out and summarily shot. (Yes, they should be doing things like setting up curfews and issuing shoot-on-sight orders for anyone found outdoors wearing a mask.)

Edit: And if you think that I'm sympathizing with state authoritarianism by saying the above somehow, in a libertarian socialist society the people's militias should treat race rioters doing the aforementioned just the same way.

[Travis B.]

Actually, I think the term 'race riot' is too euphemistic a term to describe what is happening in NI. A better term is pogrom.

[Raphael]

A bit borderline to put this in the thread about British politics, because of the complicated politics of all that, but, well...

Masterclass in trolling from the Irish Times, reporting about how "foreign agitators" like Robinson and Musk egged on the horrors in Belfast: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026 ... the-north/

[alice]

Actually, I think the term 'race riot' is too euphemistic a term to describe what is happening in NI. A better term is pogrom.

A certain left-wing revolutionary comic agrees with you:

https://socialistworker.co.uk/internati ... t-pogroms/

[Lērisama]

Nothing to say here, just that a certain Andy Burnham won his by-election by 20 points over reform in a seat where their local election vote share this year was 51%.

[Richard W]

Nothing to say here, just that a certain Andy Burnham won his by-election by 20 points over reform in a seat where their local election vote share this year was 51%.

As a vote for Reform UK could be seen as a vote to keep Sir Keir in power, it is probably not as significant as you think.

[zompist]

Nothing to say here, just that a certain Andy Burnham won his by-election by 20 points over reform in a seat where their local election vote share this year was 51%.

As a vote for Reform UK could be seen as a vote to keep Sir Keir in power, it is probably not as significant as you think.

I don't get this comment at all. Reform got 34.5% of the vote, compared with 31.8% two years ago. That's not a huge change, and surely best explained by Conservative voters switching their votes.

Count Binface almost beat the Liberal Democrats. Not sure what that's a sign of.

[Raphael]

Count Binface almost beat the Liberal Democrats. Not sure what that's a sign of.

My guess would be "people who'd normally vote Lib Dem thinking that they really want Starmer to go, therefore they want a leadership contest, therefore they want Andy Burnham to win, and therefore they'll vote for him no matter what they really think about him."

[Lērisama]

Count Binface almost beat the Liberal Democrats. Not sure what that's a sign of.

My guess would be "people who'd normally vote Lib Dem thinking that they really want Starmer to go, therefore they want a leadership contest, therefore they want Andy Burnham to win, and therefore they'll vote for him no matter what they really think about him."

Yeah, the Lib Dems have done really badly outside their strongholds recently. Their supporters in polls are I believe the most committed to tactical voting, which is good in “not being Reformed” terms, but bad in “doing well as a party” terms.

[Richard W]

Nothing to say here, just that a certain Andy Burnham won his by-election by 20 points over reform in a seat where their local election vote share this year was 51%.

As a vote for Reform UK could be seen as a vote to keep Sir Keir in power, it is probably not as significant as you think.

I don't get this comment at all. Reform got 34.5% of the vote, compared with 31.8% two years ago. That's not a huge change, and surely best explained by Conservative voters switching their votes.

Labour's vote has gone down significantly since the general election back in 2024, when there was a strong desire to turf the Tories out. The local elections (2025, 2026) have shown a significant shift by the electorate from Labour to Reform UK. Many were seriously worried that Reform UK would win this by-election. If Reform UK had got the same proportion of the vote as in the local elections, then Reform UK would have won the seat, and Starmer would still have a prayer of remaining prime minister.

[Ketsuban]

Count Binface almost beat the Liberal Democrats. Not sure what that's a sign of.

Splitting the Monster Raving Loony vote was a reckless choice.

[Lērisama]

Count Binface almost beat the Liberal Democrats. Not sure what that's a sign of.

Splitting the Monster Raving Loony vote was a reckless choice.

The combined Binface-Loony vote was still 25%¹ short of the insanely committed Lib Dems. More work is clearly needed for the novelty candidate bloc to be a major force in British politics.

¹ Only 33 votes mind, but that says more about the Lib Dems than the Binface-Loonies

Edit: Actually more like 15%, since I apparently can't add. This is much more achievable and I eagerly await the coming to power of our intergalactic space alien overlords.

[bradrn]

Edit: Actually more like 15%, since I apparently can't add. This is much more achievable and I eagerly await the coming to power of our intergalactic space alien overlords.

Well, they could hardly be worse than the current lot…

[alice]

Count Binface almost beat the Liberal Democrats. Not sure what that's a sign of.

He got to stand one one side of Burnham at the announcement of the result, with the Wildlife candidate, dressed as a fox ,on the other. I'm not sure what that's a sign of, either.

[Travis B.]

It seems at this point that the only person who really wants Keir Starmer to be Prime Minister is Keir Starmer.