UK Politics
Best of X Today: Farage Says Our Forces Are ‘Gutted’ as Reform Names Russia Top Threat, Plus the Hamas Bodyguard’s Passport
Reform names Russia the greatest threat and Farage says our forces are “gutted”, Andrew Neil on the Hamas bodyguard’s passport: Saturday on X.
Your vote
Is Russia the biggest threat to Britain’s security?
News | By Matt, Editor
Reform UK launched its National Security Review today and named Russia Britain’s “greatest immediate state threat”. Nigel Farage’s line on the state of our defences was blunter still: “Our armed forces have been gutted.” It started the biggest row on the right all day.
Here are the posts that drove Saturday, and what the record shows behind each one. Friday’s round-up is here.
1. Reform: Russia is the “greatest threat”
The review, led by Reform’s new armed forces spokesman Angus MacIntyre, who served 40 years in the forces and finished in the RAF Regiment, says Vladimir Putin is “waging a hybrid war” against Britain. It calls Iran the “largest state-sponsor of terrorism” and China a “tyrannical regime bent on the domination of the world” (GB News; Daily Mail; Reform UK). Farage said: “Britain is heading towards defencelessness. Our armed forces have been gutted, our nuclear deterrent is creaking and our borders are wide open.” Danny Kruger posted that “Russia is the no 1 enemy”, and Robert Jenrick that “Russia is our number one enemy”.
Have your sayTap to commentNot everyone on the right agreed. Rupert Lowe’s reply, the most-liked political post we found today at more than 12,000 likes, said Restore Britain disagrees and that the main threat is “organised, radical, political Islam”. Farage’s own statement had already named “the rising threat from Islamist extremists”. Labour’s security minister Luke Pollard hit back that the government is “clear about the threat posed by Putin” and is delivering “the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War”.
2. The Hamas bodyguard’s passport
Andrew Neil’s verdict on Mohammed Alfatih, once a bodyguard to Hamas’s then-leader Ismail Haniyeh, passed 1,200 likes: “The Tories didn’t just allow him to stay. They gave him asylum then citizenship!” He was granted asylum in 2015 and later British citizenship. On Friday a jury at Birmingham Crown Court convicted him of unlawfully wounding a bailiff, possessing two knives and criminal damage; he was cleared of wounding with intent and will be sentenced on 11 January. German prosecutors allege he was part of a Hamas plot. That is untested in court, and an extradition case is pending. Our full story asks who checked him.
3. Piddington: the row rolls on
GB News doctor Renee Hoenderkamp’s reaction was blunt: “It’s Labour telling women and children their safety does not matter!” Housing Secretary Angela Rayner’s department has granted planning permission for up to 1,256 men at the former MOD Bicester site, next to a village of about 350, and its own decision says the safety measures “cannot eliminate all risk” (GB News). The Home Office says a final decision to go ahead has not yet been taken. Earlier we reported 3,177 objections and one in support.
4. Tice: 89p lost on every pound
Richard Tice put this morning’s net zero figures in one line: a “catastrophic loss of 89p” on every pound spent. He was quoting Bjorn Lomborg, whose sums, written up by Matt Ridley in the Daily Mail, put Britain’s net zero bill at £695bn for a world about 0.00376°C cooler by 2100, or 11p back for every pound. The government’s Climate Change Committee puts the net cost far lower, at about £4bn a year on average to 2050 (CCC). Our full story has the sums.
5. Braverman: a million young people not working
Suella Braverman, now Reform’s education spokeswoman, set out a ten-point plan on youth unemployment, published by The Sun as an open letter to Alan Milburn ahead of his review next week. It would pay 30% of the wages of 16 to 18-year-old apprentices and cut taxpayer funding for degrees that offer “little value for money”. Reform puts the number of young people not in education, employment or training at over one million. Ministers say they already offer small firms £2,000 for taking on a young apprentice, rising to £5,000 if the young person has been on Universal Credit for six months (Commons, 12 October). It lands days after we reported the £50bn rise in working-age benefits.
6. Yusuf: “gaslight the British people”
Zia Yusuf was still fighting Friday’s battle tonight. After his clash with the Tories’ Chris Philp in Piddington, he posted that there is “a coordinated campaign to gaslight the British people into forgetting how the Tory party betrayed this country”. Philp had told him to “read the room”, and Kemi Badenoch said Philp “won that exchange” (our Friday round-up has the clip). The Tories and Reform are now fighting each other as hard as they fight Labour.
Our view
Reform has picked a fight on defence, and that is no bad thing. When the Reform leader says our forces have been “gutted”, ministers should answer with numbers, not a press line. Today also brought the Prime Minister telling Leave-voting Wales Brexit has lost us more than we gained and £9.7m spent on 13 empty DWP offices.
The common thread is a state that can’t say no: not to a Hamas leader’s ex-bodyguard, not to a camp a village begged it to stop, and not to a net zero bill nobody voted on.
Is Russia the biggest threat to Britain’s security? Vote in our poll below.
Sources
- GB News, 14 November; Daily Mail, 13 November; Reform UK terms of reference (National Security Review, Farage and Pollard quotes)
- Our 14 November report (BBC, Daily Mail: Mohammed Alfatih verdicts and asylum history)
- GB News (Piddington decision wording)
- Matt Ridley, Daily Mail; Climate Change Committee, Seventh Carbon Budget
- The Sun, 14 November; Commons questions, 12 October (government apprentice incentive)
- Posts on X by Danny Kruger, GB News, Richard Tice, Suella Braverman and Zia Yusuf (embedded above); posts by Rupert Lowe, Robert Jenrick and Andrew Neil quoted
- Main image: Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0); Kremlin.ru (CC BY 4.0); via Wikimedia Commons, cropped and combined
Discover more from Breaking Brexit News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Don’t stop here
Under-25s Face Losing PIP. Now Burnham Is Looking at Every Working Age
Hamas Leader’s Ex-Bodyguard Was Given UK Asylum, Then British Citizenship. Who Checked?
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
Have your say