One of the only decent conservatives in the "Conservative" Tory Party, Suella Braverman, invited Nigel Farage to rejoin her party, as it stands on the edge of the political cliff. The Conservative Party is facing an existential election -- they might lose 70% of their parliament seats.
The Conservative Party in the UK does nothing but conserve the "right" of millions of foreigners to change the country into something most voters don't want and never voted in favor of.
Nigel Farage sees the end of the Conservative Party coming, and says he's ready to lead the right wing after the destruction of the Conservatives.
And he says he'll consider accepting former Conservatives into his Reform Party, once the party is essentially killed off.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who appears to be at the inflection point of overtaking the centuries-old Conservative Party as the major party of the British right says he would even consider taking over the Tories and incorporating them into Reform.
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As Farage has repeatedly said in the past week the question is not now who will form the next British government, but rather who will have the important job of opposing it, and who will challenge it for power at the next election in 2029, or before. In normal times of Britain's legacy two-party system this would be the Conservatives who are presently in power, but they have upset their own voters so badly, there is a developing feeling the party deserves to win zero seats and to vanish for good.
That would leave Mr Farage as the leader of the opposition, he hopes. He told LBC: "We need a coherent voice of opposition in Parliament, and in the country. And do you know what... I believe I can do that better than the current Conservative Party". Separately this week, he had said: "they're done, they're toast and they thoroughly deserve it in my opinion".
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Pressed on whether he would consider leading the Conservative Party itself by the host, Farage demurred but accepted he'd be willing to lead a merged Reform -- Conservative party, an outcome not unlike the Canadian example where the legacy Conservatives were defeated by the Canadian Reform Party, before the two merged.
He said: "There's no reason for this to be more than a one-term Labour government, but the centre right has got to sort itself out. And if that means the extinction of the 190 year old Conservative Party, so be it. Or it might mean something else."
He repeatedly called the "Conservative" Party "dead."
A new poll confirms that the Conservative Party is all but dead: Reform has overtaken it by a single point.
"That day has finally arrived. The latest YouGov voting intention survey, conducted 12-13 June, has Reform UK one point ahead of the Conservatives on 19% to 18%. While numerically ahead, it is worth keeping sight of the fact that these figures are well within the margin of error of one another -- we will not be able to tell for some time whether Reform can sustain or improve their position relative to the Conservatives."
Note that this is a disaster for both parties and a boon for Labour. With the right's vote now evenly split between Reform and the Tories, neither party can win more than a couple of handfuls of parliamentary seats. Labour will win seats with just 20-30% of the vote.
But, as the right in the UK has realized: We have to beat our first enemy first, and our first enemy is the fake Conservative Party that we vote for only to see it implement the left's agenda with gusto.
Here's some interesting news from France: For decades, the center-right party, which is currently called "Les Republicains," have had a rule of strict isolation towards the Le Pen party, currently called "Rassemblement National" or "National Rally."
They have refused to cooperate with the NR or strategize with them. And, when the presidential runoff produces Le Pen as a winner and someone from the left, the Republicains have elected mostly to support the leftwing candidate, rather than give any of their votes to the Deplorables.
According to Le Figaro, the head of the centre-right Les Républicains party, Éric Ciotti, has backed an alliance with Marine Le Pen's populist National Rally in the snap election called by President Emmanuel Macron. This potential coalition could drastically reshape the French political landscape, challenging the cordon sanitaire that has long isolated the National Rally.
Ciotti argues that forming an electoral alliance is crucial to steer the country back in the right direction, as he believes France is "in danger" due to the current political forces in power, including an "unnatural alliance of rebels" on the left and the "Macronist bloc." He emphasized the necessity of unity to fight against what he describes as migratory chaos, restore authority and order, and support the purchasing power of the French.
The reaction within Les Républicains has been mixed, with some senior figures like Olivier Marleix and Bruno Retailleu opposing the move, suggesting it undermines the party's integrity. On the other hand, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella of the National Rally have welcomed the alliance, with Bardella emphasizing that this union prioritizes the interest of France over party politics.
I don't know the details but I assume the alliance would work like this:
French elections are held in two rounds, or tours, with the first tour being huge multicandidate elections. The top two vote-getters then proceed to the runoff.
In the past, the Republicains have often voted for a leftwing candidate rather than an NR one. So the NR makes it to the runoff a lot -- and then loses the runoff election.
The two parties would agree on a consensus candidate for most precincts. That is, if a Republicain is favored in a precinct, NR would stand down, and if an NR candidate is favored in a precinct, Les Republicains would withdraw their candidate. So that the votes of the right are not split between the two, permitting the left or the Marconists to win. (The Macronists are Tony-Blair/Bill-Clinton-esque "third way" corporate leftists.)
Or, when the first round of voting results in one candidate from the left winning and one candidate from the right, the parties agree that they will vote for the rightist candidate, whoever that is.
The elections are scheduled for June 30, with the runoff then on July 7.
Note that France's president is elected separately so this election will not dislodge Macron from office. It could seriously restrain and weaken him, though.
But... 57% of Frenchmen say that Macron should resign from the presidency if he loses the Assembly elections. I don't know if that's a realistic wish.
But there's new news: the other top party officials of LR declared that the president only spoke for himself, and then demanded he resign.
When he refused, they demanded entrance into the party HQ so that they could arrange a vote to depose him, but he locked them out of the HQ.
But then they got a spare key to the offices, went inside, and claimed they had voted him out of his leadership position. He says that vote doesn't count because it was procedurally defective, but it's pretty clear that LR is going to continue supporting the left over Le Pen.
But maybe NR doesn't need LR.
The former (?) president of Les Republicains did not call for an alliance because he had a change of heart. No, he called for an alliance because Le Pen's party might win so many seats that it controls a majority of Assembly seats.
259 seats constitute a majority in the National Assembly. A projection based on current polling shows that the National Rally might win that outright majority.
Below, LR is "Les Republicains" (center-right), Ensemble is Macron's corporate liberal party, and NUPES is an alliance of various leftwing and Green parties. "Autres" means "others." "Sieges" means "seats."
The projection based on polling is reported here. I have no idea how accurate the company is. I'm not a reporter, I don't know everything by simply existing and reading headlines on Twitter.
Politico continues spazzing out over political parties they don't really understand winning elections in countries they don't live in.
In France, Marine Le Pen's National Rally party is expected to trounce Macron's party, increasing the likelihood of the far-right leader, or someone of her ilk, winning a presidential election due in 2027.
Across the Rhine, the far-right Alternative for Germany party -- whose lead candidate recently told an Italian newspaper there were good people to be found among Nazi SS troops -- is seen as vying a second place with the Scholz's Social Democratic Party.
In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, which has its roots in the country's fascist past, is due to increase its number of seats in the European Parliament. In Poland, the nationalist, anti-abortion Law and Justice party is looking to make a comeback after losing power last December.
For a Continent that has prided itself on having laid the rest the ghosts of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, the resurgence of the right as a political forces is coming as a shock. POLITICO's Poll of Polls shows far-right groups substantially increasing their share of the 720 seats in the European Parliament to as many as 184 seats, as voters across the bloc swing to the right.
Will the American GOP get the message before we desert them as well?
Communism killed more people than fascism, but you never, and I do mean never, hear anyone on the left demanding that all communists be excluded from public life, or that all communist ideas be denounced, or that any party with a historical connection to communism be outlawed.
The Fascist Party in Italy was popular, at the time. That means that at one time half of Italians or so (maybe more) supported it.
Politico and the left demand that if you can draw any attenuated connections between the Fascist Party and a current politician, that politician must be deemed ineligible to hold office. And any idea ever championed by the Fascists -- like that the family is important and the state should pass laws that encourage family formation -- must likewise be discarded.
Just because.
Again, they are very comfortable with the progressive movement ideology being entirely based on Marxism. Politico never demands that AOC be booted out of office for her Connections to Communist Genocides.
And I have to say this: As someone who actually reads foreign newspapers, I have to say, the politics in foreign countries is hard to understand for Americans. Their ideas of "left" and "right" do not track with our own. People make facile and glib equivalencies -- Macron is a Good Democrat and Le Pen is an Evil Trumpist!!! -- which are absurd to anyone who has read anything about European politics that isn't in Politico or Time.
Le Pen champions expanded social spending and what I'd call socialism, for example.
At any rate: The media Emperors have no clothes. They are ludicrously uniformed and stupid. They are a bunch of loud, angry drunks in a bar screaming their ignorant opinions at everyone 24 hours a day, and when you ask them what reading they've done or experiences they've lived give them such absolute surety about the world outside of NY and DC newsrooms, they all say the same thing: "I am a JOURNALIST. Journalism school taught me how to think, and how to know things well outside of my training or experience. Journalism school taught me how to think without reason and to know without reading."
They really believe their silly, trifling 18-month degree has bequeathed upon them unquestionable expertise in all fields. They get physically enraged when you dispute this fundamental conceit.