Greens challenge “con artist” Farage to climate TV debate

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Green Party Co-leader Adrian Ramsay. Wikipedia CC.
Green Party Co-leader Adrian Ramsay. Wikipedia CC.

Responding to Nigel Farage’s comments on Radio 4’s Today Programme where he refused to accept that carbon emissions are leading to climate change, Green Party Co-Leader Adrian Ramsey, MP, hit back saying: 

“Nigel Farage is a performer, a con artist. He will say or do anything. He will happily dance to a populist tune regardless of its impact. Let’s not forget he’s bankrolled by fossil fuel interests, climate deniers, and major polluters—taking in £2.3 million since the 2019 election.

This morning’s performance suggested he hasn’t got the slightest grasp of even the most basic climate science. But I think it’s worse than that. He understands all too well human-made climate change, but he is willing to pretend he doesn’t and stand in the way of climate action for his party’s populist agenda.

If he really does believe what he says, let’s see if his ridiculous rhetoric stands up to actual scrutiny – let’s see if he is prepared to take part in an hour-long TV debate about climate change and the challenge of reaching net zero?”

Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Continue ReadingGreens challenge “con artist” Farage to climate TV debate

‘Farage is just a pound shop Trump’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/farage-is-just-a-pound-shop-trump

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage poses outside The Waterford Lodge, Morpeth, in Northumberland, whilst on the local election campaign trail, April 15, 2025

National Education Union vows to fight Reform UK’s election candidates and racist policies

REFORM UK is a racist and far-right political party led by a “pound shop Donald Trump,” thundered National Education Union (NEU) general secretary Daniel Kebede today at the annual conference of Britain’s largest teaching union.

Delegates donning “Stop Racist Reform UK” T-shirts voted to use the union’s political fund to campaign against Reform election candidates with racist policies and campaigns.

Passed weeks before next month’s local elections, the motion highlighted Reform’s campaigns against migrants, denouncing it as among the organisations seeking to build “on the despair, poverty and alienation in our society by scapegoating refugees, asylum-seekers, Muslims, Jews and others who do not fit their beliefs.”

Speaking after the debate, Mr Kebede said that Reform is a right-wing populist organisation whose denials of racism don’t ring true with how they “seem to be attracting an awful lot of former BNP activists.”

“Nigel Farage has clearly said that he would like to see private healthcare,” the union leader said, before raising concerns over what a party that has “declared war on the teaching profession” would do to education.

“He is friends with [US President] Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” Mr Kebede continued. “Musk wants to ‘gamify’ education and Trump has just abolished the US Department for Education,” he said.

“We will absolutely be using our political fund to campaign against candidates as appropriate.”

Asked what he thought was behind Mr Farage recently vowing to “wage war” on the NEU, he added: “It’s just nonsense straight out of the Trump playbook.

Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/farage-is-just-a-pound-shop-trump

Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Continue Reading‘Farage is just a pound shop Trump’

Badenoch green-lights local Reform pacts

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/badenoch-green-lights-local-reform-pacts

A Reform UK activist holds up a banner as party leader Nigel Farage visits Denby Lodge in Ripley, Derbyshire, whilst on the local election campaign trail, April 10, 2025

KEMI BADENOCH took the first tentative steps towards agreement with the hard-right Reform party today.

The Tory leader green-lighted local deals by Tory councillors to take control of councils in partnership with Nigel Farage’s supporters.

Ms Badenoch claimed that she still ruled out a national deal with Reform to unite the right-wing, but local pacts will be a clear stepping stone towards some type of agreement.

Most opinion polls now show Reform leading the Tories, and sometimes Labour too.

It is estimated that the split between the two right-wing parties might have handed Labour as many as 100 seats at last year’s general election.

Tory strategists fear that, despite Labour’s polling slump, that outcome could be repeated at the next election in the absence of any deal with Reform.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/badenoch-green-lights-local-reform-pacts

Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.

Continue ReadingBadenoch green-lights local Reform pacts

Reform Candidate Arron Banks Has Repeatedly Mocked Basic Climate Science

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Original article by Adam Barnett republished from DeSmog.

Reform UK’s Arron Banks. Credit: Oxford Union / YouTub

The multi-millionaire Brexit funder has claimed “CO2 and climate change is the ultimate hoax”.

Arron Banks, who is standing as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK candidate for West of England Mayor, has repeatedly rejected elemental climate facts.

The right-wing populist Reform UK describes itself as an “environmentalist” party. However, its leaders and candidates – including Banks – have frequently attacked the science of human-induced climate change.

In a trail of social media posts on X (formerly Twitter), Banks has attacked the notion of climate change as “rubbish”, “absolute cock”, “a scam”, and “the ultimate hoax”.

Reform is standing in several regional mayoral contests in May and has talked up its chances of gaining large numbers of council seats in the local elections.

Banks, the businessman who helped to fund Farage 2016 Brexit campaign, is standing for West of England Mayor, which encompasses Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Bath, and North East Somerset.

Reform UK, an anti-immigration party, campaigns to scrap the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target and to expand fossil fuel extraction.

As DeSmog revealed, the party received £2.3 million between the 2019 and 2024 general elections from climate science deniers, fossil fuel interests, and major polluters.

However, the views of Reform UK and Banks don’t appear to match those of voters in the West of England.

Polling from the area in 2022 found that 65 percent of people supported net zero, while only 11 percent opposed the 2050 target. And while Reform UK has pledged to strip renewable companies of state subsidies, an overwhelming 87 percent of people said they supported renewable projects in their local area.

Reform UK and Banks were approached for comment.

Climate Denial Posts

In his social media posts, Banks has publicly attacked the science of human-induced emissions causing climate change.

In January 2024, responding to Conservative MP Chris Skidmore resigning over the government’s support for new oil and gas projects, Banks posted: “CO2 & climate change is the ultimate hoax.”

In December 2023, Banks made the familiar argument that the climate has always changed regardless of human emissions. He posted: “Climate change has been in constant flux since the planet was created. A miniscule amount of CO2 in the atmosphere isn’t the likely driver.”

In January 2024, he mocked the notion that carbon emissions were causing climate change and extreme weather. “The climate is in permanent flux”, he posted, “20,000 years ago an Ice sheet covered Scotland & half of England.” Banks added an attack on climate activist Greta Thunberg, writing: “Luckily we didn’t have Greta around to tell us a tiny bit of CO2 was the cause. We’ve always had floods & extreme weather like 1953 floods.”

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s top climate science body, has stated that carbon dioxide “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, and has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought”.

Climate scientists working for the IPCC have also said that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.

As stated by Dr Philipp Breul, a climate scientist from Imperial College London: “We are causing the climate to change significantly faster than it has, to the best of our knowledge, in the last million years.”

‘Snow on the Ground’

Banks – who attended Donald Trump’s inauguration as U.S. President in January – has also suggested that cold weather disproves the rise in global temperatures.

In December 2022, Banks posted: “I’ve got to say global warming is coming on a treat, snow on the ground and shaping up to be the coldest December on record. It would be very funny if they got it all wrong and we entering a new ice age.”

When challenged, he dismissed climate models as “worthless”.

“The climate is in constant flux and always changing”, he posted. “The sheer number of mathematical variables in any climate model render them worthless. Scientists can forecast all they like but guesses remain guesses… enjoy the snow and ice.”

In fact, climate models have accurately predicted global temperature rises, and observed warming has tracked with the forecasts. 

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and deputy leader Richard Tice. Photo: Sipa US / Alamy

In January 2024, Banks responded to reports of cold temperatures in Sweden by posting: “-43c … global warming knocking it out of the park. Let’s hope the windmills can keep us warm.”

Despite cold weather in winter, global average temperatures have been rising over the past century, with some of the hottest years on record taking place in the last decade.

In October 2022, Banks shared a post by Reform UK’s then leader Richard Tice, with a (now deleted) article from the Daily Skeptic, which falsely claimed that “global warming has largely stopped in its tracks”.

Banks commented: “It would be almost amusing to find after bankrupting the western world in pursuit of the net zero cult that the climate is cooling… just like [Covid] lockdown everybody lost their mind.”

Net Zero ‘Scam’

Banks has also attacked efforts to cut emissions to net zero by 2050, which scientists agree is the only way to limit temperatures to 1.5C.

The Reform UK candidate has attacked net zero as a “religion”, a “cult”, and a “scam”. 

In July 2021, he posted: “Net zero is the new religion for stupid people” and, in April 2023 he said: “Net zero and climate change have all the hallmarks of a scam.”

When the UK was hosting the COP26 climate summit in November 2021, Banks posted that “protecting the environment is essential but totally different to the absolute cock that is climate change”. He added: “The climate has been changing since the start of time!”

A few weeks earlier, Banks had posted: “I own a country park with tens of thousands of trees and have seen no ill affects of climate change.”

The following summer, Banks once again pitted environmentalism against climate action, posting: “There is a huge difference between global climate change & looking after the natural world. One is complete rubbish the other is an absolute necessity.”

Bankrolling Farage

Banks was a major funder of campaigns for the UK to leave the European Union.

A former Conservative Party donor, he gave £1 million in 2014 to Nigel Farage’s UK Independence Party (UKIP), which also campaigned against climate policies.

During the 2016 EU referendum, Banks gave £8.4 million to Leave.EU, the unofficial Brexit campaign, which was led by Farage and chaired by Tice.

In January this year, Farage helped to launch a new UK/Europe branch of the Heartland Institute, a notorious U.S. climate denial think tank.

Interviewed at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in February, the Reform UK leader claimed it was “absolutely nuts” that CO2 is considered to be a pollutant, while admitting that he is “not a scientist”.

Original article by Adam Barnett republished from DeSmog.

Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.

“Vote Banksy for Bristol,” he said, as his candidacy was announced at Reform UK’s local election launch in Birmingham.

He admitted he was “really unpopular in Bristol”, but claimed the city was a “five-way battle” which Reform could win.

Continue ReadingReform Candidate Arron Banks Has Repeatedly Mocked Basic Climate Science