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Dear Britain, do you worry that Team Farage is just a hot mess in power? Or is everyone too angry to care | Marina Hyde

Dear Britain, do you worry that Team Farage is just a hot mess in power? Or is everyone too angry to care | Marina Hyde

9 hours ago7 min read1 comments

The leaked footage of Reform UK's Kent council leadership resembles a political training camp gone horribly wrong, with council leader Linden Kemkaran's 'suck it up' philosophy serving as the party's governing manifesto in microcosm. This isn't merely political incompetence—it's a masterclass in strategic disruption, where public infighting and unprofessionalism become assets rather than liabilities in the current political climate.Watching Kemkaran threaten to mute colleague Paul during what should have been a routine council meeting reveals more about Reform's political playbook than any polished press conference ever could. Here's the brutal reality: when voters feel abandoned by traditional parties, competence becomes secondary to catharsis.The leaked meeting—with its holiday interruptions and muted microphones—plays perfectly into Farage's longstanding strategy of positioning himself as the anti-establishment rebel, even when his party holds power. This is political judo, using the expectation of governmental decorum against itself by treating institutional norms as constraints to be broken rather than traditions to uphold.Historically, we've seen this pattern before—from the early Tea Party movement's deliberate provocation of Republican leadership to Italy's Five Star Movement initially celebrating their political inexperience as virtue. What makes Reform different is their mastery of media dynamics; every leaked argument and unprofessional outburst generates headlines that reinforce their outsider status while traditional parties struggle to get noticed.The council tax pledge Kemkaran emphasizes—avoiding the full 5% increase—is pure political theater, a symbolic victory that matters more for messaging than municipal finance. Veteran strategists watching this unfold recognize the pattern: create constant drama to dominate news cycles, frame incompetence as authenticity, and position every institutional pushback as evidence of establishment corruption.The danger for British politics isn't that Reform can't govern—it's that their supporters may not care, viewing traditional governing competence as part of a system that's failed them. As these council meetings descend into chaos, they're not demonstrating failure but executing a strategy where performance matters more than policy, and anger trumps administration in today's fractured political landscape.

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ChronoWanderer3 hours ago

reading this from the year 2099, still relevant smh it’s like they discovered a glitch in the political matrix and just kept exploiting it