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

You believe that reform want to help the vulnerable. I just cannot comprehend that level of naivety. You voted for a bunch a vile racist misogynists who wouldn't spit on someone on food poverty if they were on fire. And their plan for the NHS is a US style insurance system.

This 👏

@wakeyakey what about the Lib Dems or the Green Party. Did people who voted Reform really believe NF could run a Government?

I voted for Reform and to the best of my knowledge, am just an ordinary person who isn't particularly filled with 'spite and hate'.

My reasons were that I couldn't vote for the Tories and I really struggled with Labour too. Figuring that Labour was sure to get in and that the Tories would be wounded badly, it seemed like Labour would need a robust opposition. And that was it, so I gave my vote to Reform. I don't particularly like Farage but even a broken clock is right twice a day. It was the same for several of my friends.

It had nothing to do with race or immigration, it was a protest
vote because the other options seemed so unappealing.

Now that Labour are in, I'm fairly relaxed about it and I'll watch with interest to see if they do what they said they'd do.

To me, this is democracy at its finest. We can all choose to vote for whichever party we'd like to. You don't have to like it but it's pretty unpleasant to attack others for thinking differently to you.

Excuse me, but this is a perfect example of a post that would be better elsewhere - like the Politics forum.

I didn’t vote reform. But if I lived in Birmingham and saw the abuse that Jess Philips got purely for being a white woman beating an independent standing for a non U.K. issue I too would vote reform. I sometimes think that a lot of us live in nice little safe bubbles. Just read some of the posts from women who live in Birmingham. Look at the poverty in Clacton. I disagree that anyone should be shamed for who they voted for. We live in a democracy and let’s keep it that way.

It genuinely made me feel sick to see how many people voted Reform. Disgusting, uneducated and vile stance. If they gain more influence in the next ten years I’ll do everything in my power to leave the country!

No @ll09sm not smug or self-righteous at all. Disappointed and horrified are the words you needed to use. Regardless of policies, for anyone to vote for a 'party' whose leader supports Putin and fox hunting, along with all the racist, homophobic and sexist comments that have been said by some of his colleagues over the last few weeks, yep, I'm not smug, I'm dumbfounded.

Ah yes, throughout these threads we see the words 'bigot' and 'bigotry' directed at people with a different world view, but with no sense of irony or understanding what those words actually mean.

Reform with Nigel Farage as leader are very dangerous. Having achieved seats in Parliament they will normalise appalling bigotry from the security of a respectable, credible mainstream platform. Much of the media seem to be pandering to their apparent allure.

Some of their voters share their racist and nativist views but not all.

However, those who don't should ask themselves whom exactly they are climbing into bed with (or, to mix metaphors, selling their souls to) and whether the price is really worth it.

I agree that a lot of their things are completely disgraceful, but my hubby considered voting for them purely for their renewable energy/ environmental factors. Every party has good points and bad points. I think its wrong to put an entire group of people in one bracket of being racist when actually most are probably decent people just trying to choose the best option out of a bad bunch!
I didn't vote reform, but I also wouldn't put anyone down for what they used their free right to vote for.

These “how could you do that/are you proud of yourself” threads are just like the Brexit ones that still come up to this day. OP, you come across as sanctimonious and very unpleasant. It’s a democracy. This is how it works. I can’t stand Reform, but I do understand why people decided to vote for them. ‘Othering’ is nothing new and we must look urgently and critically at the context in which the Reform wins have occurred if we are to prevent a further slide into the abyss.

I think a more helpful approach would be to try and understand just why SO many pp feel so unrepresented by the main political parties than just condemning them outright. If you scratched the surface, you'd probably find much more things in common. Like, wanting affordable housing, a functioning NHS, pp being worried about the cost of living, unease about the pace of change, feeling like politicians are out of touch, etc. Farage & Co are capitalising on these very real concerns and if the conventional parties don't have any tangible solutions, pp will be drawn to parties who seem to have answers.

Listening and dialogue are the.only solutions and your attitude is just contributing to the problem I'm afraid. ( I'm not a Reform supporter just for clarity, btw )

Ah well because you are alright in your area I must be wrong. Funny how they all get sent to areas already deemed deprived until they are processed. I sincerely hope that Angela Rayner was telling the truth when she said that labour want to put them into every area of the UK while they figure out where they are going to live.

This is perfectly said and now I regret posting my comment.

Sure enough you will find in yourself to feel even more smug and self righteous. If that’s even possible. After all most people are just mere mortals, it’s mot their fault they walk amongst giants like yourself.

One of my best friends voted Reform. I can't comprehend why, but im sure she has her reasons.

I’m from an area that I feared would fall to reform or have the tories back in with people voting reform instead of Labour. I was surprised and quite proud to see an excellent Labour MP (local guy from the area who has worked so hard for it) appointed. Around 8k voted Reform in my home constituency. They were third, tories second. Labour won more votes than T and R combined.

However, whilst I am a left wing Labour supporter I can see that there is many people who feel left behind / disillusioned. Growing up so many blamed the immigrants for their troubles and complained about being ‘second class’ citizens. This concerns have only got worse. Many of them are easily led, Reform UK know this (the way the Brexit campaign did). The five seats they’ve got are in severely deprived areas that are predominantly white yet these people can’t see the irony. Life has been hard for many of these people for a long time, and whilst they blame the wrong people if life doesn’t improve they will only continue on this path.

I am so pleased that Yorkshire didn’t let reform in and that so many new and fresh MPs have been elected and so many useless Tory MPs ousted. Labour have a difficult challenge but we didn’t have Brexit/UKIP/Reform MPs in 2010 at the end of Labours last run, we had a LD/Tory Coalition so hopefully a good Labour govt can moderate some of these views. Pandering to these views and trying to become Reform Lite is not the answer, but neither is arguing and bickering on the left / centre or bringing up brexit. I’m not sure what will happen but reform are a very real and dangerous threat.

@spuddy4 I live in an area with loads of immigrants too. It's never been a problem. Funnily enough, they're not all the same

Shit neighbours are universal

I was disgusted that they got over 4 million votes. I've been wondering how I will respond to someone, who I might love, if they tell me they voted Reform?

Your post is worse than anything they have said

@DragonFly98 I don't believe any other party wants to help people in my area. MN was up in arms earlier about the way Jess Phillips was treated by certain people last night. Imagine living like that every day, I'm absolutely fucking terrified for my daughter who's 18 because we literally have a few hundred of those people who we have to contend with every day. No one sees our problems they only want to help everyone else out, because it doesn't affect you daily you think it doesn't exist and it's the daily mail exaggerating. I really wish it was a lie made up by the media but it's life for us.

Ooohhh, what’s it like on the pedestal high up looking down on 4 million people.

Is it cold up there? Can you give a weather forecast?

Is the what you said just before the Brexit referendum too?

These people never learn

Both my parents voted Reforrm.. and Reform came 3rd where I live.

Vote shaming pisses me off. Happens every time.

Screaming into the void