To wonder why right wingers such sore losers?

Whataboutery.

Then you're mistaken or lying

Matt Goodwin - Political commentator, university professor, political scientist and academic. Lives in Hertfordshire. During the by-election Reform admitted that it sent about 81,000 leaflets to the constituency’s voters from a “concerned neighbour”, which did not state they had been funded and distributed by the party.

Hannah Spencer - Plumber, Plasterer, left school at 16. Lives in Manchester, has lived in Gorton. Famously said, "There's more shit in politics than I've ever found in someone's toilet".

Matt Goodwin himself said Reform wants to "invest in our own people and prioritise the British hard-working majority".

The people of Gorton and Denton obviously made a choice about which person they thought was most likely to follow through on that.

Socially ultra conservative theological influence? Like the Church of England bishops in the House of Lords?

You are making an incorrect analogy, elections are held to choose representatives or leaders and occur at regular intervals, while referendums involve a direct vote on a specific issue such as Brexit. Additionally, the results of elections are binding, whereas referendums in the UK are typically advisory and not legally binding on parliament. Cameron did not frame this correctly and the slight majority that was fostered by charlatans who lied to gain personal gain or to support vested interests who wanted to avoid the EU tax legislation was presented to the country as one of sovereignty, nationalism and patriotism. for such a generational change that has hampered growth, cooperation and security, there should have been guardrails. Cameron was too arrogant to do frame this properly and the referendum was to appease the conservatives who were defection to UKIP and to satiate the rightwingers in the party.

if the referendum was conducted today, young people who have seen the benefits of closer cooperation with people who share our values on issues such as climate,economics growth, trade, security and infrastructure would vote differently but there is not opportunity to change the situation. With an election, there are proper guardrails and this can be overturned ever 4 or 5 years.

why are you so adamant in supporting an issue that has so hampered our country and place shackles and burdens on the young and acted as an impediment on growth? Are you celebrating the 350m spent on the NHS which never materialised? Or the new passports that stopped people travelling easily to our closest neighbours?

Sources please? What was the Jan 6 insurrection if it wasn’t a riot by the right wing because they lost?

Islamophobia is terrible terminology. There is nothing irrational about fearing sectarian socially ultra conservative theological influence in government.

Yes, I think the estimate was something like 4 million Remain voters in 2016 had gone Tory in 2015.

That isn’t actually correct. The local authorities I’ve worked for have a very small department focused permanently on all things electoral. The head of that department is the presiding officer for every election. Clear guidance is provided for everyone working at the polls and the count.

Even if you were correct, why didn’t the observers draw the attention of the polling clerks to any malpractice they saw so it could be stopped?

None, because there aren’t any.

I guess the closest you could get are Antifa and the masked ‘protestors’. You get those on both sides though.

Where are the examples of riots and violence when the left wing party has lost in this country? I can't think of one time this has happened. Please share a source - if you have one.

I’ve been involved in a few local elections.

When an election is in the offing, a mail is sent round to the folks who work for the local authorities, asking if they want a days work at the polling station. They have to be there early in the morning (6am ish) to open up, have to stay on the premises all day, and then usually stay on to do the counting after polls close. It can mean working many many hours, especially if there is a recount. It’s possible to have to work all night on the count.

One of the group is made presiding officer. They get a slightly higher rate of pay, and they make the final decision about what happens in the polling station.

it’s really important to realise these folk aren’t kept in a cupboard and brought out just for elections. They are ordinary folk with ordinary jobs. In my experience most just want a quiet life. I’ve met some who really knew the rules - but in my experience most have had the briefest of training and it’s not unknown for the candidates and/or their agents to know the election rules much better. Even where there has been clear election malpractice ( such as one candidate driving onto election premises with their van festooned with election leaflets etc which is an absolute no no) , even when reported to the presiding officer, all too often no action is taken. It’s not surprising therefore that if there are issues, those folk, vulnerable and sat just behind a table, don’t want to risk their safety by challenging anyone.

So I wouldn’t be at all surprised that if there was malpractice, nothing was done about it at the time.

As for postal votes, absolutely they should be limited. They are much too easy to get at the moment. They offer far far too much scope for abuse.

But I don't think anyone on the left questioned the legitimacy of the actual election which is what Trump and Reform are doing. You can loathe the result without making accusations which undermine the foundation of democracy.

Plenty of centrist right wing voters went Remain. I live with one.

It’s funny you should say that because I’d say they’re all ‘left-wing’ – but then I’m probably looking more at the social side whereas you’ll be looking at the economics.

I don’t lay the blame on being bought ‘by corporate interests’, so much as on the professionalisation of politics. We now get political classes who are very skilled at winning things, but only at winning things. They have no real ideas beyond converging on a sort of lowest-common-denominator as the smoothest route towards winning the competition to manage the system as it is.

It’s becoming very perilous now that large numbers of people are concluding that the problem is that system itself. The political classes have no way of engaging with that problem until it actually becomes revolutionary, because their paradigm is entirely about winning the system as-it-stands.

It's not right wingers per se, for example Rishi Sunak lost the GE with grace. It's this particular genre of right winger.

But Reform should own the fact that they chose a really bad candidate. Matt Goodwin is the sort of person beloved by the more social media brain boiled, own the lefties type. Those people are a minority, they just take up a lot of oxygen. Most of the people Reform would need to vote for them in a GE aren't watching GB News or constantly on twitter.

@ClovisWrites or I just misremembered what the carer said. I remember being shocked at how blatant he was with committing electoral fraud fright in front of and in earshot of officials though. He probably said Brexit then, it’s the same party, same sentiment.
Memory is a weird thing, I hadn’t thought about that since it happened.

It’s an interesting point about the undermining of democracy in the west (and I absolutely don’t think it is limited to ‘right wing’* parties - think of Hillary Clinton in the US.)

As politicians have increasingly become owned by corporate interests, we have shifted in the west to what are referred to as ‘managed democracies’- states in which a veneer of democracy is maintained, but where in reality the ‘choice’ offered to voters every election is tightly curtailed and managed. This is accompanied by an increasingly open contempt in media & politics for what might be described as ‘real’ democracy (‘populism’), and willingness by politicians to undermine democracy still further by seeking to re-run & delegitimise election results they don’t like.

We should be worried by it.

*because of course they’re all ‘right wing’ really - the differences are purely presentational.

My god, how can a grown woman be so ignorant of the facts? Do you get all your news from your AI algorithm social media feeds?

This (and I’m pro EU and desperate to rejoin!).

The left are the absolute worst!

Because they they have a habit of blaming other people. Instead of looking at themselves

Okay… because Reform’s only been called Reform since 2021, so… sounds like bull to me.

It’s because it’s all about them rather than looking out for everyone. I make political decisions based on what I think is better for society (even when it may mean, as a well off person, I carry more of the burden of those decisions).

The right wingers I know are all about me, me, me, what I can get out of this, what’s in it for me! When they don’t get their way, it’s very personal and they feel very individually affronted. Very fragile snowflakes.

If independent observers see something is up then it needs to be investigated. And let's face it Reform may be complaining about it, but I'm sure Labour will also be concerned about it.

And when results don't go your way you can always blame "The Russians".

Bullshit. There was nothing fishy.