AIBU to be utterly baffled at how many people are falling for Reform after the Brexit mess?

That’s not true in my area. It’s the Labour voters that are switching to Reform, Labour has never lost its seat here and always win by a landslide but in the last election Reform came second and Labour had lost a huge amount of votes. I don’t think it’s as simple as the voters that previously voted Conservative switching to Reform because Conservatives have always come either last or last but one to the Green Party here.

I would never vote Reform but I fell for a Labour!

Sucker list - Wikipedia

How can people gloss over the mess Tories made?! it's mind blowing

That’s absolute rubbish. What do you think caused the worst Tory defeat in the party’s history? The Tories are done so their supporters are looking elsewhere. The total right wing vote isn’t increasing, it’s just moved to a different place. It’s not left wing voters who are joining Reform’s ranks.

Isn't there a thing in phycology that if you fall for a con, you are more likely, not less likely, to fall for another con? I think online scammers have 'suckers' lists of people they've conned money out of before as people to target again. Maybe it's something like that?

It is a sign of how pissed off people are with the 2 so-called "major" parties.

For years it was the anti-Tory vote that was fragmented. Now it seems the Tories are getting the same treatment.

Perhaps Tory and/or Labour will now come to the conclusion that PR in place of FPTP actually IS in their best interests.

It's the appeal of the simple solutions to complex problems.

Vote for Brexit and we'll all be living in the sunny uplands.
Reduce immigration and all of your problems will melt away.

Of course, none of these "solutions" will actually make people's lives any better, but they want to believe it so they do.

They will, of course, be bitterly disappointed when they realise that the "solutions" have failed to deliver. The danger, at that point, is that they will increasingly turn further and further towards extreme options.

Worrying times.

Labour’s policies cause that shift. It was inevitable after the GE.

Labour leading to Reform isn’t a surprising trajectory. Not definite but on track.

Labour are done in Wales but I think the vote will be split between Plaid and Reform. I honestly don’t see Labour or Conservatives doing well when we vote next and the First Minister knows it. They’ve had a good run of over 25 years so a change is well overdue.

True, but somehow the penny never drops.

😂😂😂 oh where to start with this?

Labour chop and change their policies by the day depending on who they are trying to please. Obviously this week it’s the pensioners although I suppose that wouldn’t be in your chart anyway because they never mentioned scrapping the WFP in their manifesto or targeting the disabled.

Yes because the Tory party has imploded and Reform is the only right wing alternative.

Moving to Reform is much higher now Labour are in power. Plus we’ll see what Wales does.

I think you’ll find most new Reform coverts are erstwhile Tory voters.

It’s ironic that Reform and Farage can “promise” anything they want, often things which are in reality undeliverable - and their fans take it as face value that it will be done. Brexit was also like that.

Labour “promised” things too, some of which they delivered, some which haven’t happened yet, and some which had to be put on ice or reversed due to reality. And get treated like the devil’s dogshit. In reality they’re delivering more manifesto promises than the Tories ever did and more promises are being achieved than literally every single upside which was promised about Brexit.

Labour manifesto progress is attached.

I suppose under any system there are winners and losers, and maybe they feel under reform they will move to winner. Maybe they don't care others will be worse off.

Of course the current gov is a factor 🤷‍♀️

People are moving to Reform based on them and also how they perceive Labour.

Same here. We have just learned that we are to have our 15th barber shop in our small town that has less than 6000 people. It’s blatant money laundering and the majority are run by Albanian men but if you question it then you get called racist. It’s worrying when you go through our town in the evening and see all the teenagers hanging around these establishments and I agree it’s only a matter of time before the public will take it into their own hands due to authorities turning a blind eye to the going’s on. As someone else mentioned on this thread unfortunately Reform are the only ones addressing these issues so it’s no surprise that people are swaying towards them.

The Labour Party and Conservative Party both became too inward looking and too London centric. Neither party was appealing to the electorate and when you take voters for granted, it's obvious the environment was right for Reform to come along and take votes. For all his faults, Farage is a good speaker, he is streets ahead of the likes of Rayner and other front benchers.
I agree with others that he is a 'disruptor'. If it pushes the Labour Party and Conservative Party into actually listening to the electorate and getting better quality MPs into Parliament, it can only be a good thing. It's not that Reform are good - it's that the established parties are so poor atm.

Very well said - the idea that you can't call somebody that's done/is proposing to do something stupid stupid, but must instead pander to their views because then they'll somehow do something unstupid, always seemed mad to me. There was plenty of reasoned analysis prior to the Brexit referendum as to why it wouldn't be a good idea, and there's quite a bit of reasoned analysis now as to why what Reform are proposing would be a bad idea (think Liz Truss +). But stupid people don't want to get into all that boring real world consequence and practicalities stuff, they like a nice simple 'common sense' solution being peddled by somebody who'd be 'a good laugh down the pub'. Muppets.

This isn’t about the current government. It’s about Reform.

Labour are reacting this way I agree.

They thought Brexit would make everything all right. It didn't, it made things worse, so now they are latching onto Reform as the new magic solution.