Let’s spell out what is happening here. A state committing genocide – Israel – has joined forces with an ailing superpower led by an aspiring autocrat. Together they have launched a plainly illegal war, as defined by the UN charter, which prohibits the use of force unless a state faces an actual or imminent attack.
What’s the point of bleating about human rights if we don’t go blow up those who violate them?
Owen’s definition of a Just War here would seem to insist that invading Rwanda to limit the Tutsi slaughter would be unjust. The slaughter of 600k is not an attack on another country now, is it?
.
You forgot the wings. He’s going to need ’em.
That’s why the little arse badger is in disguise…
He’s an arse badger, he’s a two pin din plug, he’s a bush dodger, he’s a small bean regarder, he’s an unabummer, he’s a nut administrator, he’s a bent ref, he’s the crazy world of Arthur Brown, he’s a fence foal, he’s a free willy, he’s a chimney bottler, he’s a bunty man, he’s a shrub rocketeer…
…and an uphill gardener.
And a fudge packer.
And a pork swordsman.
A sausages-in-gravy man, a shirt lifter, a pillow biter…
Have you been reading Roger’s instead of The Times at breakfast?
Shit shoveller, but also very definitely a cockwomble
Definition of illegal war: Israel is defending itself.
Exhibit A: The USA is helping them.
Why does young Owen support people who want to see people like him dead?
And what is about those on the left, that they openly support those who are dedicated to our extermination or subjugation (referring to the governments plan to impose blasphemy laws – for the moslem faith only though). This is exactly why Enoch voted against the Race Relations Act – because the laws will be used against the British people.
I sincerely hope that Nige will be unequivocal in his condemnation of this shit and will make it plain that any such laws imposed by Starmer will be repealed immediately Reform take over.
Particularly the government’s plan to impose blasphemy laws…
Imagine there’s no Labour.
It’s easy if you try.
No committees above us.
No definitions in the sky.
Imagine all the people.
Speaking freely in the day…
I’m viewing British politics from a distance, but Farage lately seems more interested in keeping Reform as “the Nigel Farage party”, as opposed to doing anything useful.
I hope that if it gains power it will actually do things, as opposed to purging people who distract from the Farage Show.
There are a few positions I disagree with Farage / Reform on and it may come across as a bit of a one man band, but we really cannot survive another term of Labour or the Tories…………
Having actually been there as Ukip was really breaking through. The first signs of success in a political party bring every nutter out of the woodwork. A very serious thing that just has to be done is limiting what everyone else can say. Because, nutters. We had one bloke writing the manifesto and there was something about “only decent upright people will be allowed to go to the pub” and it was, well, erm, no?
Nigel’s antennae for how to move that Overton Window without being dismissed as fully extremist are pretty damn good. Which is why he does keep that fairly firm control.
They get criticised for being the Nigel show and for being Tories 2.0.
But they can’t be both. I have never met Nigel Farage, but I don’t understand how professional, responsible adults could fall out with him to the point they’re acrimoniously kicked out of his party. I bet you, dear Bloke, have never been sacked for being unable to get along with people.
Perhaps they’re not that professional? Rupert Lowe says a lot of things I agree with, but on a personal level he seems like a grandstanding blowhard. Many such cases on the Right, which has always been its own worst enemy.
Rupert Lowe, though I might agree with him on some subjects, is a classic ‘Golf Club Tory’, with the vote attracting qualities you’d expect.
Oh God, yes. Golf club wanker – spot on.
He was also chairman of a football club, which is usually the sign of a weapons grade prick. I wouldn’t mind if this was electorally viable, but I don’t think Renochpowell has much to offer except splitting the RW vote. On t’other, they’re a useful foil to allow Reform to position itself as the reasonable, non-shouty-crackers party.
Electioneering requirements and personalities aside, it seems to me that it’s Restore Britain rather than Reform UK that’s saying what “people like us” want to hear and what we want to see happen. I don’t think we’re particularly unreasonable or crackers (and perhaps we ought to be more shouty).
This is not to say that electioneering requirements and personalities are unimportant, but as I said before I don’t think there’s much point in electing yet another party that isn’t going to do what’s required because it isn’t nice. A Reform mayor of London is irrelevant if it has to be a muslim. A muslim home secretary who’s opportunistically all over the place on basic issues has no appeal at all. We have the Tories for all that shit.
As to vote splitting, I don’t think Restore is the big problem. The Tories are far from finished and they aren’t going to step aside. But unless there is an election pact then the right wing vote will be split again, with the only remaining hope being a split in the left wing vote too.
Dunno. I have no answers, only observations and opinions. My chief observation and opinion is that it’s cruelly ironic that the one party that is actually saying what we believe, that would actually attempt to carry it out, must be dismissed in order to elect some more fucking useless MPs.
Never mind, Farage has taken over a single local garage for a day to offer fuel at 25p off (bringing it to about what my town Tesco is charging). We are saved.
But read what Tim said above. There’s an art to moving the Overton Window rightwards successfully, and Rupert Lowe hasn’t got the talent. If he were brighter and less up himself, he might realise this.
PJF – Electioneering requirements and personalities aside, it seems to me that it’s Restore Britain rather than Reform UK that’s saying what “people like us” want to hear and what we want to see happen. I don’t think we’re particularly unreasonable or crackers (and perhaps we ought to be more shouty).
I’ve been told what I want to hear before tho. It’s not people like me Restore needs to convince, I’ve been aware of how utterly cancerous immigration is since the 80’s.
Lowe has limited appeal. Whatever people say about Reform being a one man show applies doubly to Restore. Farage has proven capability to lead a successful coalition of voters – Lowe doesn’t.
As to vote splitting, I don’t think Restore is the big problem. The Tories are far from finished and they aren’t going to step aside. But unless there is an election pact then the right wing vote will be split again, with the only remaining hope being a split in the left wing vote too.
Restore were enjoying something like 7% in the polls last week. At a GE that could be enough to elect a Green-Red coalition of cunts.
My chief observation and opinion is that it’s cruelly ironic that the one party that is actually saying what we believe, that would actually attempt to carry it out, must be dismissed in order to elect some more fucking useless MPs.
There’s now 3 parties promising mass deportations, abolition of Net Zero, and urgent action to bring government spending under control. Restore aren’t the only ones tickling my balls, Kemi Badenoch is doing her best too.
But Reform is the only RW party that could win a General Election based on recent data, so barring the unforeseen I’ll vote for them. Btw the 25p stunt is great politics. Less “culture war” shit and more hammering home the cost of living issue, please. That’s a winning issue.
Steve – ‘Less “culture war” shit and more hammering home the cost of living issue, please.’
I disagree. Andrew Breitbart was right. Politics is downstream from culture.
Ultimately, of course, every progressive-commie fantasy will crash into reality. But culture is critical for ensuring that large numbers of people understand why the disaster has happened.
In that sense, everything is downstream from culture: the dispossessed 18 to 40 year olds seem largely to think that their woes stem from something called ‘free market capitalism’.
We know that’s bollocks. All they know is what the culture has given them as a marinade.
FWIW, I’m also on-board with the cost of living thing. I earn comfortably in the top 1% in this country and my arse is squeaking like a mouse. Fuck knows how someone on, say, £95,000 or £55,000 copes.
we can’t dismiss or ignore culture, but there’s a peculiarly American type of discouse around “culture wars” that isn’t always helpful to RW politicians, although it does work for niche internet figures. Most normies already agree with us on this stuff anyway.
Emotionally, we can only expect people to subsist on a diet of anger and alarm at the latest woke atrocities in the Daily Mail for so long before it becomes enervating. People need hope, confidence, eventually catharsis?
The strong horse doesn’t make people nervous, he projects solidity and strength with his glossy, shining mane and well groomed fetlocks.
I agree btw. I honestly have no idea how people live on less than £100K these days. It’s not like that’s enough to buy you a good living anymore, barely enough to pay a mortgage whilst shopping at Aldis. No wonder young people are willing to listen to boob whispering svengalis and their simplistic bullshit. But note – Zack of many names is no fool. He’s the salesman from the Seen You Coming shop.
We cope by having a bit of commonsense and/or inexpensive tastes (also being retired means I do have lower expenses than you: e.g. a tweed jacket and corduroys cost a fraction of a made-to-measure suit, no season ticket, and I can buy fresh fruit, veg and fish in the local market).
I’ve twice encountered Lowe socially. I found him polite, humble and gregarious.
I’ve never met Nige.
Wasn’t that obituary-writers’ code for “socially awkward groper”?
Dunno. But that certainly was not the impression I had of RL.
Gregarious was not quite the right word. Affable might be better.
Moral and intellectual decadence, coupled with immaturity and an overweening and misplaced sense of his own intelligence and erudition.
He lives under the safety umbrella of the sort of men he professes to hate, and amuses himself by being rude to them.
A small part of me wants to see what I think is coming to the UK just to enjoy the sight of people like him meeting the consequences of their mouths.
Interested, are those first two sentences based on personal experience of the man?
Never met him, so no. Based merely on reading and listening to him now and then.
That’s Owen the toxic twink, shirley?
Three lies in one sentence. Nice work.
The UN rules do allow intervention e.g. in the Rwanda case.
But that reason also covers Russia intervening to defend the Russian minority being oppressed/genocided in the Ukraine, so does not compute. Hummmmmmmm
It’s only “illegal” if the US, Israel or (once upon a time) the UK were involved as more than targets.
See, for instance, the Guardian admitting there’s actual genocide going on in Sudan at the moment. The reaction on the left? It’s the Jeremy Clarkson meme. “Oh, no! Anyway…” Can’t blame the US or Israel, it’s only Africans dying by the million, nobody actually cares.
(Over on the Right the reaction is a mix of laissez-faire – their country, their problem – and weary resignation that we’d be damned for not intervening; then as soon as the first soldiers were trying to stabilise the situation we’d be damned as imperialists the moment we shot some machete-wielding murderer)
No need to travel for that, plenty of them here,.
Owen Jones quotes the UN Charter limiting the use of force unless a state is suffering an actual or imminent attack. He hasn’t noticed that Iran’s agents have already attacked Israel.
I’ve no doubt he has noticed. He’s just hoping that we haven’t.
The impact on our victims should be enough, but alas, there is an ever diminishing pretence that the lives of brown-skinned people matter.
But alas, the squirmy little poof doesn’t think Jewish lives matter.
I love this idea that “international law” means you have to be a tethered goat for predatory terrorist regimes that ignore “international law” tho.
Shakespeare was right about the lawyers.
Funny thing is if you look at the Israeli population, there are a lot of brown-skinned Jewish people who look very similar to their Arab or Iranian neighbours. People conveniently forget how many came as from refugees from Yemen, Morocco, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Syria etc. Plus full-on African Jews from Ethiopia and Desi Jews from India.
And Israel also has an inconveniently large (one in five?) proportion of non-Jewish Arab folk, who decided living in a civilised democracy was more worthwhile than going to nurse generational grievances in refugee camps.
Usually airbrushed out of any discussion, of course, because of the… shall we say, awkward, comparison with the Jewish populations in Arab states? (who are long since all fled or dead)
How does he explain Iranians dancing in the streets?
Those are Iranian fans of Mick Jagger and David Bowie, bigots
I think you’ll find it’s Mojtaba and the Vandellas.
The Sharif don’t like it
They shot the sheriff. Problem is, they didn’t shoot the deputy. Yet.
Cognitive dissonance. Right-wing media indoctrination. Zionist space lasers. It can’t possibly be because they’re glad to see a hateful regime get a kicking, and be distracted from massacring “dissidents”.
Those poor foolish Iranians just don’t know what’s good for them, and need a Guardian columnist to explain why they should actually be glad to be martyrs to the Iranian Revolution.
Owen’s definition of an illegal war would mean our declaration against Germany in 1939 would also have been “illegal”. We weren’t attacked.
Owen would probably proclaim that war illegal, too.
Given that at the time the USSR and Nazi Germany were allies.
And we declared war on an ally of the beloved, wonderful Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, proving that we were merely wicked imperialists, trying to maintain the capitalist exploitation of the honest proletariat and prevent their liberation by the Communist Party of the USSR and the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany.
The horror of it!
a plainly illegal war
I’m pretty suspicious of people alluding to International Law. I suppose it just about passes muster if – for instance – a country that freely signed up to the Geneva Convention then broke it. Similarly Law of the Sea. But beyond that … nah. I entertain similar reservations about War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity: really they are just terms of propaganda, aren’t they?
For example, what can it mean to call the Holocaust a Crime Against Humanity? The murder of innocent people by the million is evidently odious but the victim wasn’t humanity it was those millions; the victim wasn’t an abstraction it was whole bunches of people.
Similarly with the Nuremberg trials – just disgraceful show trials. They should simply have caught the buggers, verified their identities, and shot them.
The attempt to turn everything into a matter of international law ends us up with the bathetic policies of Sir Keir Wanker. I rest my case.
Nuremberg was supposed to set a good precedent, but it set a bad one. We should never have played along with Stalinist show trials. Either jail all the senior Nazis on St Elba for life or as you say, give em the bullet they deserved.
“Denazification” was also a thoroughly stupid policy, unless the plan all along was to brainwash an entire nation into committing suicide. Arrest and shoot Nazi war criminals, but don’t indoctrinate helpless little Hanses and Gretels into racial self loathing over a war that ended decades before they were born.
The genocide in Gaza must mean that there needs to be repopulation of the territory. I think there are plenty of people in Britain we could send them. If they are also muslim that’s a bonus.
I wonder if he’ll ever stop looking and sounding like a prim petulant pillock.
Israel has joined forces with Palestine? Against who?
Is the aging superpower Russia? Because the US just curbstomped Russian and Chinese tech.