To hope all the reform voters take a hard look in the mirror?

Although Clacton has a larger than average white British population - it's seems much less affected by immigration than say Ipswich which is quite close ( with my geography anyway )

The communities most affected by immigration are not necessarily the ones voting reform

What differentiates the areas that vote reform may be local deprivation - visibility of the wealth gap

By simply calling reform voters racist you refuse to engage with what drives them , what their issues really are and create a them and us divided society - just the right environment for a facsist rise to power - the divisions in society helped hitler more than anything

Yes they may be misplaced ( not everyone is clever like you ) in blaming immigrants for their problems but their problems are real and only one party has directly spoken to them with dignity and respect

So if you want a fascist government in future carry in being rude insulting and ignorant and carry on driving people away from you

This! It is not racist to raise legitimate concerns over how immigration will be handled, what the impact is ect, what will change.

what is racist is to use racist language, stereotyping or intimidation towards immigrants/ any minority. Or anyone for that matter!

somehow the two get lumped together as everything is racist. As with all things there are good things and bad things about immigration but according to the left, saying anything bad is racist. I say this as an immigrant myself so please do discount my view.

I really do get your frustration, unlike a lot of others on here. These voters presumably watched or read about the comments made by people high up in Reform and either agreed or didn’t care. That’s not great. Shows a remarkable lack of empathy and a high level of intolerance.

It’s no surprise that they’ve won in the areas most deprived and forgotten about. Labour needs to be thinking about how to improve these areas and lives for those people and it’ll be a massive challenge. That’s the key to destroying the Reform vote. The Tories promised levelling up money and it got spent in places like T Wells.

I do hope the national discourse about immigrants changes under Labour. The Tories purposefully scapegoated immigrants, less hate talk from the government in charge might make these views less acceptable and so Reform will seem more extreme in five years. Here’s hoping.

Also think it’s a great idea to spread where immigrants live. I live in an affluent town in the South East and we’ve had a few, because people here aren’t experiencing economic problems they’ve been welcomed with open arms and have assimilated really well.

This.

Yes @peanutbuttertoasty not listening contributes to this. I have a relative living in a small town who found out that a local hotel is being used to house immigrants. Locals were unhappy that the authorities did not communicate or consult with them about what was happening. As my relative said, it was less about the immigrants but more about how those in power were treating the locals, with total contempt it seemed. Not surprisingly the reform vote went up there.

Well this thread and the "oh but Reasons" crowd only confirms my worst fears.
Sleepwalking, or in too many cases outright proudly goosestepping, to disaster.
History talks, but y'all don't want to listen.

Quality of life for white British people has declined while high qualified immigrants arrive and have comfortable lives. Living with other cultures is also different. Seeing the street where your granny lived now only lived in by people of a different culture can be threatening.
White men are higher earners so paying higher taxes effects them. Loss of Christianity in the UK means people no longer see that they should help others.
The ukip councillors were very useless so if the reform MPs treat their constituency similarly they may not last long.

In case someone have not watched this yet

No it was not a hired actor

Reform - the party of the ‘proper’ English

because all foreigners are bad and inferior

where does Lucy Letby come from?

@TroysMammy I'll volunteer in the community on my 8th day of the week because I'm busy the other 7 working full time and running a house whilst raising a family. So fucking patronising, it's people like you that will make sure Reform do well.

I think there is a lot of naivety on this thread about what Farage and his cronies really stand for.

Farage is not a 'straight talking', anti establishment man who genuinely wants to address illegal immigration to improve the lives of working class people.

Farage is a wealthy man with racist, xenophobic and sexist views with some questionable backers and alliances to other countries who does not give a damn about other people.

This is a man who thinks Trump and Andrew Tate have something worthy to say.

Reform's hatred of immigrants/non white does not stop at those who come here illegally. It extends to British people who are not white and immigrants who are here perfectly legally.

It must be absolutely awful and worrying for people from non-white backgrounds in this country to wake up on Friday and find out that millions of people voted for this party.

We should not show any complacency when parties embrace extremist views.

You don't turn a blind eye to dangerous people with dangerous, divisive ideology. This is not what democracy is about.

Do you think that Trump or Farage care about democracy?

The media have a lot to answer for because so many outlets have constantly platformed Farage but failed to call him and his candidates on their dodgy views...

Just like Brexit was a disaster, and Farage was one of the main reasons why this disaster happened, no good can come from Reform.

Most decent people can see that and should not remain silent.

I am not a reform voter either, but this is what happens when valid concerns over immigration get swept under the carpet and nobody listens.

There is no quick solution to any of the issues faced by the U.K. Farage gets votes by pretending there is - if he were in power and failed then he’d blame someone else or some other country.
Regarding small boats, I would prefer a party that gets asylum applications processed rather than either sticking folk in hotels or ignoring the backlog - and much rather that than declaring war on France by towing them back there or tipping human beings into the sea. We should remember that a number of people in hotels are from Afghanistan whom we promised to resettle because they fought alongside us - most of these were flown in by the RAF - what’s the solution for that?
Regarding legal migration I am happy enough that students pay incredibly high fees to help maintain our universities and workers are filling shortage areas where employer can’t fill role from inside U.K. and also pay for privilege. Happy enough neither route is taking them to settlement, and is paid for including NHS use additional fee, and happy enough they can’t bring their mum on these visas - all of this is already in place and perhaps needs better administration rather than just stopping and crashing our services and economy. Seems reasonable that to reduce this, if desired, is addressed by upskilling at home, and making occupations such as care more viable in terms of wages and conditions. We perhaps also would have had less of a problem if we were still in EU with free movement where people could come and go more easily to do short term work in shortage areas, and/or recognised and addressed this issue that was ignored by leavers prior to exiting the EU.
I think NHS needs looking at - the only way to get waiting lists to zero is to turn it private overnight- not practical and very costly for all both financially and in health terms. Farage would choose US style.
Farage is selling a ‘vibe/dream’ and can’t deliver any of these most desired policies - definitely not overnight and legally and definitely not to the benefit of most of the U.K. - maybe the other parties won’t but at least their solutions are potentially workable and humane.
I see Farage has already outlined that he will need to be on the national stage as leader rather than hanging around Clacton - less than a day to more or less say he won’t be doing the actual job he got in Clacton - why do we think he’d do his job if in power?
Edited to correct some dreadful typos.

Oh it’s ok, this poster is (pseudo) Lib Dem which apparently makes her more highly educated and accepting (as long as you think like her) than the rest of us.

Op, on the basis that I'm an eternal optimist who tries to see the good in most people, I have to assume for the sake of argument that 4 million of my fellow country men and women are not all racist, nor indeed stupid - though I accept those types may be over-represented by Reform. I agree with some others that you can't just dismiss the feelings of 4 million people who have been moved to vote for a far right party. Perhaps they see it as a protest vote against the mainstream parties. Perhaps, in a similar way to Brexit, they truly believe that uncontrolled immigration is the root of all their problems. They wouldn't be the first in history to have their heads turned by a charismatic leader telling them there's only one way to put things right.

I believe that Nigel Farage/ Reform is absolutely ad abhorrent and odious as you say they are. But the only way we can make 4 million people (well, the ones that aren't racist and/ or stupid) understand the threat from the far right is to engage them in constructive discussion and by creating a political environment on both sides of the political fence that is about cohesion, unification and collaboration.

Exactly, I think unless you have experienced the effects of uncontrolled immigration and lack of desire to integrate its hard to understand the effects.

One of the Reform policies I liked was the Patriotic education. It all seems to be how awful Britain is/was, learning about other cultures whilst simulating ignoring our own traditions.

British education should primarily be about Britain, about British culture etc. We should expect people living in Britain to act in accordance with British traditions and norms. If people want to celebrate a different culture on top of that fine, that’s up to them. But when the school allows kids to drop out of PE and disrupt the lesson for a month because they’re fasting (which they don’t need to do), what message does this give for work environments?

"Reform is the reason we can't have proportional representation to prevent another Hitler which is what Nigel is."

I can't even with this comment. Are you seriously comparing Farage to Hitler? Do you often downplay the atrocities of the holocaust?

I think the problem is that people see Farage sat in the pub pretending to be like them and they don't believe he'll shaft them, and they do t believe private healthcare will mean they barely ever see a doctor. They don't believe the USA healthcare model includes a much larger proportion of untrained nurses and that you have to be rich or very ill to actually visit a real doctor as opposed to an assistant to one. They don't realise that a large proof Americans can't afford health insurance and that we'd be told endless lies or given a cheap initial insurance deal to get the policy through.

And yes, Brexit was a fucking disaster, and people don't seem to realise that it caused the majority of people who immigrated here to actually be invited. So we should get over it, or care for ourselves in old age. Or trudge of to dignity, as much hinted recently.

@Devonbabs that really isn't a big issue right now! I've got a hen party next month my underwear covers more than the bikini I have been given, not making a drama out of it like some people are over changing rooms and toilets! I'm more interested in how we are going to pay off the COVID borrowing and protect our kids from the country going bankrupt

@TroysMammy i think they were trying to say that those on minimum wage are too busy slogging their asses off to make ends meet to have the time to volunteer, not that they were lazy.

This is exactly my point!! Why are you having a go at me when I specifically said I did not vote for reform.

JFC it’s like talking to toddlers. Ask the question in a way that creates discourse and not division. Ask a woman why she voted reform in a way that is not mud slinging.

I agree but we need to look at the issues that got us here and address them. If it's based on misinformation and false beliefs this also needs addressing.

Perhaps if people listened to each other and tried to understand why instead of ranting off and being rude about people who have different opinions the world would be a better place

I didn’t but 4m did vote which is nearly half of Labour’s vote share

They may have disproportionately fewer seats but I think we’ll see more pressure still. Especially since Labour’s policies are the opposite to what they’re after. Eg increase in trafficking