The BBC found a rare example of a Reform party candidate for the forthcoming UK election who doesn’t appear to have unhealthy levels of obsessive love for Winston Churchill. Meet Ian Gribbin.
The only problem is which political figures, past and present, he is infatuated with. As a friend noted, some of the Reform-tending folks seem to have new heroes now.
…Mr Gribbin posted on the Unherd website: “Britain would be in a far better state today had we taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality…. but oh no Britain’s warped mindset values weird notions of international morality rather than looking after its own people.”
From a more recent point in time:
In the run up to the invasion of Ukraine, he praised President Putin, writing in January 2022 that he had “shown a maturity of which we can only dream of”.
And whilst he’s in love with whatever the vicious authoritarian violent dictator of the day is, he does manage to loathe at least the slight majority of the rest of the world’s population
‘Men pay 80% of tax – women spend 80% of tax revenue. On aggregate as a group you only take from society….Less complaining please from the ‘sponging gender’.
…
He added that women are “subsidised by men to merely breath (sic)”.
He’s seemingly pro-equality in some ways. But of course it’s the darkest version of equality imaginable.
“Square that inequality first by depriving women of healthcare until their life expectancies are the same as men, Fair’s fair.”
What about women who do put themselves in harm’s way in order to defend his way of life? Umm, no, not a fan.
In December 2021 he wrote female soldiers “almost made me wretch (sic)” and were a “total liability”.
By many measures, Reform are doing incredibly well in the polling. There’s no suggestion that most of their supporters share Gribbin’s opinion. But it is good to know something about where the folk we’re voting for are coming from, no matter who that is. For what it’s worth, it doesn’t seem like the party is considering taking any action against him.