... to think that Nigel Farage will be our next PM?

@Namitynamenamecan you say how many were returned and entered under the agreement?

For example it was 2017 under the Dublin regulation: - 314 migrants were transferred out of the UK - 461 migrants were transferred to the UK The year before the numbers were 362 and 558

Do you have much higher figures for any year?

Also can you say why EU countries such as Germany and any that are have the same issues with migration don’t use the agreement to deal with that?

It also means if he gets in or even if Reform gets more of a foothold there is 0 incentive to improve anything - in terms of migration, regional inequality etc. Because the worst those things get the more political support he gets -even when there is clear evidence his own policies (Brexit) were responsible for those things getting worse. Whereas other politicians are punished electorally if their policies cause their voters issues. So it's actually in his interests to make things worse for his supporters.

You've forgotten... We have had enough of experts.....

Judging by the support for Reform, this sentiment is widespread.

Common sense? whose common sense? yours or someone who is mentally very ill.....

@CleverButScatty
how much time have you got? 🤣🤣🤣

Do you not feel that racists and bigots are over represented amongst reform supporters as a group, in comparison with the UK as a whole?

Can you explain your thoughts process about how becoming highly educated means you are less likely to have common sense, or that not being very well educated means you are likely to have more common sense?

Even Chris Philp accepts that Brexit has made returns to EU far harder, he even made a speech about it.

Yet some deny this, who to believe former HO minister? or...

And the main point of the return programme was deterrence. People knew if they were caught at the border they could be handed back. You could argue that it's impossible to know how effective deterrence is, but surely seeing what happened after that deterrence was removed is a small clue? Besides another poster praised Switzerland for having a much better policy on immigration - when actually they just have the same agreement we used to have.

Yes the Dublin agreement by itself was failing. That's why...
2003: Treaty of Le Touquet. Reciprocal border controls of French and UK officials in each other’s countries brought in. Effectively moves the UK border to France.
As you yourself said the peak was 2002 (the year before this agreement). Migration then, as you said, went down from that peak. After 2020 (when this agreement and the Dublin agreement ceased to be) the numbers of migrants shot up. From the low 100s crossing by boat in 2019 to the 10s of 1000s annually after 2020.
Coincidence?

Thanks.

Ok. So if NF is the saviour and his one big idea was brexit. Please tell me how Brexit has changed peoples life for the positive?1

Hear hear !

Referring to most of the Reform voters not being educated…

The problem with educated people is that they sometimes don’t have any common sense and it’s definitely common sense that’s needed now to help get this country back on its feet and functioning as it should be functioning!

The return of Sure Start isn't going after children.... neither have they gone for pensioners, unless a household income of 70k is considered "going after..."

UK now the no1 destination for foreign investment....

Amazing how the country was "apparently" booming under the Tories, yet suffered their biggest GE defeat ever.... just 120 MPs and struggling in 3rd place in the 'polls.

Truth is the last 14 years has wrecked the UK.

Listening to Labour MP spin out the same lines inherited, broken, broadest shoulders on SEN reform, I have no idea how that is thought to be ‘intelligent’.

The last standard line is clearly incorrect anyway they’ve gone for welfare and pensioners and now dc.

@Namitynamenamethe last couple of lines really aren’t the case. Peak asylum was 2002 whilst in the EU at 100k grants. We didn’t have a mass return programme. A few hundred a year only. That’s minimal against the grant rate.

Read her posts. She used the tired and ignorant "shut down" = "racist" "bigot" . I wouldn't presume that was a very "intelligent" debate strategy. But it tends to come (in her words) from the "more educated/intelligent"

Yeh. But they don't have refugees in high numbers .

Absolutely this!

My friend runs a museum in central London to celebrate and remember the (mostly white) working class that used to live there before the area was hugely gentrified.

Her efforts are usually ignored by the mainstream media until she has an ethnic slant on it, then they are all desperate for interviews etc.

Even she, who is so left-leaning, said she can see how the white working class have been left behind, and how this leaves the door wide open for Reform.

Its not the same as big tent. Big tent is like a centre left voter sharing a party with a further left voter. The far left voter is angry that Labour aren't going far enough on welfare spending but agrees to compromise with the centre left faction. A voter might think they need to actually reduce the benefits bill.but like their other policies
Or a fiscal conservative Tory in the same party as someone who has no strong views on their economy but is socially conservative. It's the reality of needing to compromise.

This is like someone explicitly saying they are voting for reform because the other parties don't do enough for low wage workers. And someone else saying they will.votr.for reform because only they can stop Labour prioritising low wages at the expense of everyone else. But they see commonality in each other because they both feel let down but for opposite reasons. This is a weird comparison but it feels more like extreme identity politics. Same sense of being marginalised. Same groupings that make no sense from the outside and are hard for people to."listen to" because unless you are in it it feels incoherent even if you really try.

Yes, they certainly have several disparate groups or ways of thinking within the Reform group.

Though that is not unusual in political parties. They are often fairly big tent and have factions with opposed interests and beliefs.

But some other posters on here think Labour are too left wing and want to punish the middle classes. So the people who think Reform will listen to the people at the bottom and help struggling families (and protect working class wages) need to talk to the people who think Reform will reduce the tax on high earners/net contributers**.(And undo the terrible damage Labours reforms have done to employers). Seriously, discuss it before you all vote reform to avoid disappointment and confusion later.

**Being a Net contributer in income tax alone.requires a high salary. You would be very middle class/(latte drinking?) to be in this group.

Sure, the most obvious one is attitude to movement of labour.

Euro-skepticism.

Generally more socially conservative, lots of emphasis on families and localism, but also fairly patriotic.

Suspicious of free trade.

They have talked about nationalisation of some industry, whether or not that would be likely to actually happen, it's certainly a talking point that resonates with the traditional old Labour voter.

It's not some weird random chance that the same people who used to be moved by the traditional labour movement are finding that Reform resonates, any more than it's weird and rando that the same kinds of workers in the US are finding some of Trumps projects seem to resonate. The left abandoned those projects to work for the middle class interests that increasingly make up their voter base, and now elements of those policies have been picked up by conservative parties.

There's basically zero chance this could happen. You just don't go from a few MPs to a government in one election under the FPTP system. No matter what polls say now.

Which post are you replying to?