Reform wants women barefoot and pregnant

I'm afraid this doesn't make sense economically.

We can at the moment import as many adults as we need to pay tax to cover pensions, we don't need to breed and bring up children for 18 or more years to do that.

There are already too many people on the planet who can't be fed.

The only arguments for a wealthy western country breeding their own are that parents want to have them and, the Reform one, to prevent dilution of the majority culture.

It was an example of politicians not future proofing society. Do you want a population collapse to happen before they deal with it & then like they have with net zero put in damaging policies in place that see us getting poorer and poorer. I wasn’t saying we don’t need to move to renewables but I’m 45 and the climate was a big talking point yet we have solutions that are not going to work & to hit our own target we now import our gas by more expensive and more dirtier means than drilling our own. My energy comment was making an example about not future proofing against problems they know that are coming.

i didn’t say any ones physical life was of less value, i was on about the value you are providing society. The minute you’re claiming more than you’re contributing. As a person you should be looked after in old age, but the people who’s made that a possibility are the ones having children now. So not only are most contributing as well as raising children now they’ve secured the future providers. I think that’s worthy of subsidy to their income. Trust me they’re still massively out of pocket raising a child.

It's all a bit childless cat ladies

Maybe people would like to introduce an award, a Mother's cross?

That all sounds very lovely, but there are women who have disabled children who will never work. Are they worth less?

I also don't see the link between having babies and thereby not needing to move to renewable energy sources.

Because your value is more. I’m sorry but it is. You’re providing the future workforce who will be paying your state pension, potentially your additional care. Paying for the NHS. Whilst sacrificing the freedoms you lose being a parent. By having children your are by default contributing to the future. It’s refreshing to see politicians looking past the end of their noses. Had other governments did that maybe we wouldn’t be paying ridiculous energy prices now. To cut net zero they’ve not considered long term energy supplies. Knowing that successive governments will likely take the credit for any initiatives that uou had started.

Not taking tax off someone to then pay back to them as a benefit has merit.
I think Farage spoke about everyone's tax potentially starting at £20,000 but seems to have backtracked due to the state of the current economy due to Reeves' diabolicial anti-business policies.

I understand that having children is expensive and I also understand that children are our future society and taxpayers. I also understand that creating a family is something very many people wish to do. Saying that this is women being used as "cattle" is offensive and sounds akin to some of the abuse I've read from trans activists who demean women to a costume and breeding purposes (ie only seem useful for surrogacy). I note the Labour women having kittens about this (joke) are the ones that also say TWAW.

If someone decides not to have children, then other people's children will be the ones doing the jobs around them and supporting society as they age. Those children will also be the ones shaping future government policy. The world carries on whether a childless person has children or not and that childless person will benefit from other people's children (society) without having incurred the costs of raising children themselves.

There has been huge public discourse about climate change and people in the press saying their own decision not to have children was affected by worries around climate change. Public discourse has negatively affected people wishing to have larger families (even those that can afford it being described as selfish/negative to the planet etc). So there is a place for discussion about future demographics after years of the opposite being thrust upon us.

Goodwin's essay was written 18 months prior to becoming a candidate for Reform. Yes all candidates and MPs will have their own opinions, that doesn't mean it is party policy and that applies to any political party.

To extrapolate from this the concept of starting tax at £25,000 for people with children could result in women performing fertility tests is beyond daft.

All taxes may eventually shape behaviour, not FORCE behaviour. The current financial situation of houses being out of reach of young people is entirely down to government policies over the last 30 years.

From what I can see, a lot of people in their 30's would like children but are renting/feel like they can't afford to have children. This generation are also impacted by the awful unversity loan scams (Mandelson no less was driving this whole system of indebtedness for our young people). His links to financial misconduct in office might lead to some review on university debt/interest rates for students and who is really benefitting?

My children are grown and I didn't get child benefit after Cameron changed the policy of everyone with children automatically receiving it (had to be paid back via husband's tax). I don't think I've ever extrapoloated any crazy theories from that particular government policy. Labour are looking very silly and their activists are currently sounding hysterical.

I don’t know how many times I can say it. Yes, I read the title, I am able to see how it can be interpreted in more than one way.

Generally I agree with you (though I wouldn’t use the phrase ‘dilution of British culture).

The problem with Goodwin’s statements for me less about them being in policy (even if they are, who cares, Reform won’t be forming a majority government any time soon and taxation policies have been shown to be ineffective, as MG doubtless knows). But they move the Overton window, which is the aim of these manospehere talking heads, and which does have a cultural impact over time, particularly on children.

I'm afraid you don't understand the meaning of 'ironic'.
I have not insulted you. I have not even quoted you in my previous post and it's interesting that you took it so personally. I will absolutely stand for my views and express them.

How very ironic.

Nobody said it was. all about anything.

However, in a situation where strength is likely to be an asset at any time, with a ready supply of equally strong people, why would you not fill a team with people equally likely to be able to carry an unconscious adult out of a burning building?

There's is good reason why even the shooters are split into male and female competition in sport.

Report away!
That says more about your stance on freedom of speech than it does about me.

I have reported your post.

I don't believe that anything I wrote justified you accusing me of gaslighting.

Gaslighting is a vile practice. I am not a snowflake with regard to name calling but I will not stand for being accused of gaslighting.

Oh yeah, I asked the question because I’ve read all about it.

Obviously I haven’t read whatever the post is about. I’m looking on my news homepage now and still can’t see any reference to it.

The idea that firefighting is all about carrying people around over your shoulder is a bit (being polite) antediluvian. Much like Reform's views on workers' rights, women and culture.

Stop it with the gaslighting.

The agenda is clear: Reform is a regressive reactionary party. They want women to be subservient. They're anti-feminist. They do not want equality. They're following a script written for them by alt right think tanks in the US. They're backed by the current US administration which has no issues making that fact pretty fucking clear.

And no, Reform will not put their agenda to roll back women's rights in their manifesto, just like DJT claimed to know nothing about Project 2025 yet it's all going full steam ahead.

There's no reasoning with people like that. Only resistance. Best done before they get in!

Dropping weight carrying requirement for fire fighters to enable the recruitment of more women.
The Army trialled a fitness test for specific jobs. Some artillery shells for instance are very heavy and must be handled manually at times. If you are not strong enough you don't do that particular job.
I think it was adopted.

Have you read the title?

I am against encouraging British women to have more children with the aim of preventing immigration for several key reasons. The first is that the world eventually has to learn to share its wealth equally among its nations and properly controlled immigration so as not to disadvantage each nation's own people is a very good way of doing that. (Stealing poor nations' doctors is not. Taking someone as a lower skilled care worker and upskilling them into a nurse or therapist is.)

Secondly, it's cheaper to take in an adult than it is to raise a child, so it's potentially to the benefit of over-populated poor countries without work for people to do and the wealthier country for that exchange to take place.

Thirdly, the more room we have available to give help to those escaping war and tyranny, the better.

There's no doubt Reform's policy will be intended to reduce the further dilution of British culture. But as long as women actually want more children, and many on this forum and elsewhere say that they do but cant afford them, I don't think that policy would be as evil as many people on this thread are suggesting.

As a woman who is childless by choice I'm conflicted, in an over populated world, about paying higher taxes to enable British and NI women to have more children while there are adults desperate to live in this country who are refused.

This is a useful representation of how much pensioner poverty has fallen. The other groups, not so much. I'm sure pensioner poverty was even worse prior to the 1990s. Despite all the improvement, and relative poverty of other groups, policy still directs financial flows from young to old, rather than adapting to the changes in circumstance. As you say, it's based on the fact that they are a large group of voters rather than need or fairness.

I don’t interpret it that way, the OP is saying the thrust of these comments leads her to that conclusion. Others have said they don’t, because it’s not policy.

Both valid.

Most of the thread has been discussion of the merits of these policies or the validity of the person saying them. They do align with the party’s overarching policy, so it’s been a reasonable discussion.

So what is your view on the written Reform policy? Because it will have to be enacted somehow, and most countries that have tried to influence the birth rate have done so via the taxation system.

Most sensible comment on the last few pages. It’s all about men dreaming themselves as slave owners and men seeking control. Otherwise they could actually come up with some solutions to the fact that we are all working g harder than ever for nothing.

The economy is not working. The male answer is always to stab women in the back, remove them from the workforce, put out lying propaganda to claim that women were never in it. Most recently they did this en masse at the end of WW2.

Men are not to be trusted. And that alone makes some of us with them wish we’d never had kids, and puts other women off giving up their lives for this half of the species.

We need to dispel the myth that older people are a financially vulnerable demographic - they haven't been for some time (and I say this as someone in my 60s). The reason they are so protected is that they are a large demographic who votes, so all political parties are afraid to upset them. Overall poverty rates for children, working-age adults and pensioners | Joseph Rowntree Foundation

I don’t think anyone has said that though. (That this is reform policy.)

I don't think you're reading the same thread I am. 🤣😂🤣

The whole thread starting with the title is based on the premise that what Matt Goodwin said is Reform Policy.

One person's 'misogyny' is another person's pro-family.

I thought we already knew that it isnt Reform policy?

It would probably be too late when you found out a the firewoman was unable to bear your weight.

I'm against any discrimination for women unless it's physical and then it has to be for practical reasons. Then it's just logical.