Aurelien Mondon

@aurelmondon.com

14326 Followers 729 Following

Researching the mainstreaming of reactionary/far-right politics Co-convenor of @reacpolrn.bsky.social Reactionary Democracy w. @aaronwinter.bsky.social and co-editor of The Ethics of Researching the Far Right https://aurelmondon.com/

Turnout for the election was the second lowest since the role was created in 2012, with just 17.14% of the electorate, 122,739, people voting . In some polling station areas voter turnout was as lower than 6%. Full Results: Colin Sutton, Reform UK: 32,647 (Elected) Matthew Taylor, Conservative: 18,343 Martin Schmierer, Green Party: 16,907 Marcus Pearcey, Independent: 16,402 Beth Jones, Labour Party: 14,192 Mark Buckton, Restore Britain: 13,319 Christopher Brown, Liberal Democrat: 10,499
Preston tweet: "Mahmood is one of the outstanding politicians of this generation. She is admired across the political spectrum".
Cat in box that says "soft where it counts. Uncompromising where it matters".
Reform MP Robert Jenrick, a former Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, Housing Secretary, health minister and immigration minister, tells @BBCr4today: "We are not mainstream politicians, we are politicians who are fighting the establishment every single day."
Pride flag flying
Même (trying to sleep) with brain saying an article misused populism and character saying "I don't care. I'm on leave" before jumping on their phone
Headline Britain has become addicted to pressing the ‘new PM’ button – and I don’t see how Burnham avoids it Jonathan Liew Jonathan Liew He’s almost certain to become the UK’s seventh leader in a decade. And with the rightwing press and the algorithm against him, he’s basically a meat sacrifice
Nearly a quarter of voters in Europe now back far-right parties Analysis by more than 150 political scientists finds proportion who back such parties has increased nearly fivefold since 1995
Hot Fluffy cat
Headline: Cross purposes: how the England flag got caught in a tug-of-war between rightwing nationalists and football fans
Guardian headline: Riots and racism: why is the UK burning?
Tweet by Goodwin: It’s not social media that’s “inflaming tensions”. It’s not Elon Musk. It’s not Nigel Farage. It’s not the ‘far-right’. It is the very deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders. This policy has to end or it will destroy Western nations.
BICEP poster advertising the showing of Everybody to Kenmure Street
Loss of manual jobs could be driving toxic masculinity, says Sting Musician says ‘we’ve lost that direction for our energy’ as his musical The Last Ship returns to West End
Tony Blair says Labour must abandon net zero, support Trump and move firmly to the right In highly unusual intervention, ex-PM says his party’s ‘almost infinite capacity for self-delusion’ makes it likely to lose next election
Même of guy watching a girl instead of his girlfriend with girl being the far right, man being mainstream media and girlfriend being those fighting the far right
Tommy Robinson tells tens of thousands at London rally to prepare for ‘battle of Britain’ Turnout down at second ‘unite the kingdom’ march featuring Islamophobic and ethnonationalist hate speech and flyers
Goodwin rules himself out of Makerfield byelection Ben Quinn Ben Quinn Matt Goodwin, the Reform candidate who came second to the Greens in Manchester’s Gorton and Denton byelection, has ruled himself out of running in the upcoming Makerfield byelection. Goodwin told the Guardian that he looked forward to supporting a “local Reform candidate” in the contest which emerged as Manchester mayor Andy Burnham’s best hope of returning to the House of Commons.
Cat in front of computer
Keir Starmer makes late pitch to voters turning to Greens and Reform As Labour faces record-breaking losses in Thursday’s local elections, prime
AI platforms reference Nigel Farage more than other leaders when prompted on UK politics, study shows Reform UK is ‘doing something right when it comes to visibility’ on multiple AI systems, say researchers
List of recommendations in the chapter
Fluffy cat lying on bed
Shabana Mahmood swears at ‘white liberal’ hecklers over Reform remarks Home secretary accuses protesters of trying to ‘delegitimise’ concerns people have over immigration
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/apr/20/keir-starmer-peter-mandelson-vetting-reform-immigration-iran-latest-news-updates?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-69e5fa148f089b30862aed2e#block-69e5fa148f089b30862aed2e
Four hundred and nineteen experienced qualitative researchers from 32 countries invite readers of Qualitative Inquiry to consider their position on use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) for qualitative research. We hold the position that analytic approaches such as reflexive thematic analysis are human research practices requiring a subjective, positioned, and reflexive researcher and therefore the use of GenAI in such approaches is not methodologically congruent. We additionally reject GenAI for reflexive qualitative approaches on the grounds of social and environmental justice.
Voting for populist parties in local polls will put NHS at risk, says Streeting Exclusive: Health secretary warns of dangers of protest vote as he pitches NHS as key battleground in May elections
Post linked
Goodwin tweet
Donald Trump announced a fresh crackdown on “fraud” in Democratic states and tapped JD Vance to lead the charge. Officials swiftly announced a string of arrests in California. In a Truth Social post on Friday, the US president announced that his vice-president was now “in charge of ‘fraud’ in the United States”, claiming the problem is “massive and pervasive” and that Vance’s new role as “fraud czar” will be “a major factor in how great the future of our country will be”.
Fluffy cat face above chair
Middle East crisis live: Trump claims war will end in ‘two or three weeks’; Houthis claim responsibility for missile attack on Israel
Le suicide français cover
Thousands march against far right in London in biggest ever multicultural protest
Signs at trans pride
Trans and anti fascist flags
Fluffy (the) cat
And let’s be clear about what they have unleashed. Over the coming days and weeks there will be British people who are abused, harassed and assaulted as a direct result of the forces that the leader of the Conservative party has now endorsed. These people, who for many years have quietly practiced their faith at absolutely no harm to anybody else, will now be at real risk of harm for the simple reason that Badenoch is either unable, or unwilling to stand up to the racists within her own party and the wider nationalist movement.
Front cover (in link)
Slide with recommendations available in chapter
French far-right party holds its biggest city in first-round local elections National Rally leader urges voters to back party’s ‘common sense’ campaign in final round as it eyes taking another city
My guess is you keep across the news. You know Andy Mountbatten-Windsor has just had the worst birthday ever; that tall hotels in Dubai don’t make for a great holiday right now; and that Keir Starmer’s engagements diary for 2027 will be remarkably clear. Still, there is one headline I’ll bet you haven’t seen, even though it directly affects your life. It’s about your life, and mine, and those of our families and friends and neighbours. I didn’t spot it either, until a few days ago when the Guardian ran a reader’s letter. It came from Alan Walker, a retired professor at the University of Sheffield. Why, he asked, hadn’t this newspaper made more of the latest “shocking” figures on healthy life expectancy? I looked up the report from the Office for National Statistics, and he’s absolutely right: the findings are indeed “momentous”, and they should be on the front pages, because they expose a serious truth about the state we’re in
Headline How Donald Trump seduced America’s white working class This article is more than 9 years old JD Vance An acute insight into the reasons these voters almost found a new messiah in a man regarded as an offensive clown by many, a man who ultimately cannot save them Sun 11 Sep 2016 00.03 BST
Headline: Polanski and Farage don't agree. But they have more in common than you might think
Shabana Mahmood vows to stick with hardline migration policies after byelection defeat Home secretary will defy ‘plain wrong’ calls from unions and leftwing MPs that she is alienating Muslim voters
I will also fight against the extremes in politics on the right and the left, parties who want to tear our country apart.
‘High levels’ of illegal family voting in Gorton and Denton by-election Nigel Farage says claims by observers raise questions about ‘democratic process in predominantly Muslim areas’
Their victory came despite a concerted campaign by the Green’s opponents to paint them as extreme. The Labour campaign focused on the party’s drugs liberalisation policies, with the Prime Minister suggesting they would turn playgrounds into “crack dens”, while Reform accused them of a “sectarian” bid to win the votes of the local Muslim population. The media too played their part. The day before voters went to the polls the Daily Mail, whose owner’s wife recently donated £50,000 to Reform, splashed on a front page branding Zack Polanski’s party the “Green Menace” and suggesting they would hand “illegal migrants[a] free house”. Spencer too became a target. In an interview with Byline Times she spoke about the sexist attacks on her appearance and personal relationships by pro-Reform sections of the media.
Hope Beats Hate: Green Party Defeats Reform and Labour in Huge Gorton and Denton By-Election Victory A concerted political and media campaign to scare voters about a “Green Menace” winning this by-election failed, reports Adam Bienkov
Labour came third in the tightly contested race, 5,616 votes behind the Greens on 14,980 votes, while Reform UK finished second with 10,578 votes. The result represents a 25.3% drop in Labour’s vote compared to 2024.
Headline: Drop in overseas workers is ‘car crash’ for UK hospitals and care homes, say experts
Book cover: L'homme par qui la peste arriva
“When I hear something racist or xenophobic, I will challenge it,” says Hannah Spencer, the Green party candidate. “But there’s a huge group of people considering Reform who aren’t racist, who often don’t fully understand what Reform are like. They don’t know what Matt Goodwin has been saying. When I’ve told people what he says about Muslims, what he says about women, people are really shocked. So maybe what we know about him, people don’t yet know about him.”
Fluffy cat on window sill
Le Monde headline on Hollande
Le Monde headline quoting Bardella
Reform and Greens undermining UK commitment to Nato, Cooper says
Labour MPs & party insiders tell me they’ve never seen Keir Starmer so angry as over Mandelson’s lies about Epstein links. But those who know him well say that anger has now turned inwards. That Starmer is, above all else, a man of public service, and will be grappling with his conscious this w/e.