Scott Francis

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@Nigel_Farage You spent years telling the country that leaving the EU would let us “take back control” of our borders and that exiting Dublin would make “no difference.” Crossings sat at 299 in 2018. After the returns agreement ended they climbed into the tens of thousands a year—45,000 in 2022, still around 33,000 in the year to June 2026. The coaches leaving Gosport under police escort are the downstream result of the policy you sold. The talent flight, the strained courts, the fraying social contract you now list as proof Britain is broken all accelerated on the watch of the governments your campaigns helped install. You filmed the boats, monetised the anger, and are now campaigning on the mess. Own the sequence.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@Element1Bill @BasilTheGreat you love this word way too much. I'd say it was rather treasonous to go against a royal organisation. literally by difinition

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

Net migration wasn’t 8 million. ONS figures peaked at 944k and are now down to about 171k; the five-year total is closer to 3 million.

EU free movement ended and EU net migration has been negative for years. The spike was mostly legal non-EU work, student and humanitarian visas, not people turning up in boats and saying the magic words.

Small boats are a fraction of the total, and asylum doesn’t hand out jobs on arrival. The numbers don’t match the story.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

but if this was the case, woudn't we have ended up with a very soft Brexit. I think its quite retarded to think that we've landed very well with this. Maybe MPs were so in favour of staying in the UK cause they were exposed to more information than the general public. as it is, that's all been born out now- Brexit could never work because the central premise was to make it more difficult for ourselves than it ever needed to be.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@AnnReyn75876642 @MellonSdp6741 But do you understand why we do?

It isn’t really that altruistic

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

HS2 was budgeted at roughly £30–50bn and has already cost more than £60bn for a shortened route that no longer reaches the North as planned, with further billions still required just to finish the London–Birmingham section years late. That single project has absorbed more public money than several years of the entire overseas aid budget, with most of the original economic case now abandoned.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

Foreign aid is treated as cheap insurance against bigger later costs: refugee surges, disease outbreaks, and instability that reaches the UK. About 18% of the 2025 £13bn total never left the country (in-donor refugee costs). The rest is already being cut toward £9bn by 2027 to fund defence. It does not set UK energy prices or replace domestic supply.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

A £1 overnight visitor levy and a £45 annual cut to the energy price cap aren’t remotely the same thing. One is a small charge on visitors staying in accommodation; the other applies to millions of households. Calling that a “tax on families holidaying” while ignoring the £45 electricity tax cut is rather selective.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@Rubiespal @philipaball @Pietros1 @andyburnham @UKLabour Your DD isn’t a tax bill to the government. You’re paying your energy supplier for energy, networks and their costs, with only a portion covering government policy costs. And £204→£259 is your DD, not a 27% rise in the price cap

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@RobertRuddock3 @Pietros1 @andyburnham Think of oil like a loaf of bread sold worldwide. Britain finding a bit more wheat doesn’t mean Britain gets to decide the price of every loaf. Oil is bought and sold on a global market, so we pay roughly the world price regardless of where the oil comes from.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@RobertRuddock3 @Pietros1 @andyburnham Drilling more North Sea oil won’t make the UK the price setter. Oil is globally priced, and UK production is tiny by comparison. Refineries don’t change that either. If you want cheaper fuel, target the tax or the wholesale price, not pretend we control a global commodity.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@RobertRuddock3 @Pietros1 @andyburnham I’m with you man. This Iranian war that no one wanted is causing havoc with global oil pricing. Just not sure what you expect labour to do about it. What’s your suggestion?

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@philipaball @Pietros1 @andyburnham @UKLabour So yes, energy costs are a legitimate issue. But pretending every increase is simply a Labour policy failure is about as useful as pretending wholesale energy markets don’t exist.

Facts first, party politics second.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@philipaball @Pietros1 @andyburnham @UKLabour Hi Mr Ball. The 13% rise you’re talking about was the July–September cap, driven largely by higher wholesale gas prices linked to the Middle East conflict. Ofgem has since raised the cap by 4% from October, not another 13%.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@LordAlfredVI @andyburnham costs can still shift elsewhere in the fare, and bigger economic issues remain—but dismissing it as pure distraction ignores the explicit Europe-alignment angle

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@LordAlfredVI @andyburnham the policy isn’t pure domestic “fiddling.” Part of the stated rationale is aligning UK rules with the parallel EU passenger-rights package for clearer, more consistent standards. Whether that justifies the focus is a separate political judgement

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@Pietros1 @andyburnham Energy up just 4%. Small boats down year-on-year. Growth revised higher. Bond yields high in a global sell-off from the Middle East conflict. Doing a practical fix that saves families money isn’t “hiding.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@fmac36 so pretending demographics and pension spending have nothing to do with the pressure on younger taxpayers is just avoiding the actual argument.

You can defend pensioners without pretending the numbers don’t exist.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@fmac36 Most pensioners don’t live past 75” is simply not true. ONS figures show that someone reaching 65 can expect to live another 18.7 years if male and 21.2 years if female.

[Scott Francis @ScottFranc64406]

@fmac36 And nobody is saying pensioners personally “made the mess”. The point is that politicians made policy choices. Pensioner benefits now cost around £178bn a year, including £146bn for the State Pension