If you support Farage, would you be able to explain why please.

I supported Reform until the other parties started to take notice - now I’ve gone back to conservatives.

Ok expand that cross party team to all of them.then

Do you seriously think it’s one person’s decision?

I mean, let’s look at the Liz trust situation where the lettuce got thrown under a bus. It was an absolute disaster and they’re crucified her but I don’t think for one moment she thought of it do you?

Do you think if people started saying "It's very intelligent and sensible to vote Reform" people would stop voting for them? Are that many people really that contrary?

Agree and not only the deaths ,camps and punishment for entire families if anyone spoke out but also the fact the "east " as in Eastern Europe became one giant prison camp for decades.

@Mamma123838 many voted to stay in the EU based soley on their DC ability to travel across the EU

I don't find that worrying but I do find it concerning that anyone can be our.chamcellor and do untold damage with stupid schemes like taxing growth. They are the ones who need to pass some sort of threshold tests and have a rigorous team cross party /business leaders and eccomimists to sigh off any proposals by these people

Yes thats the latest line trotted out when people can see Brexit was a mistake

Maybe people should think about why amazing, educated, female role models like Ann Widdecombe supported Nigel Farage.

It's not because she was "thick as mince" or sat in the pub ranting about "boat people" taking her job?

Because brexit was never done properly. It was a mess, if it had been done well by people who believed in it things would be different.

To annoy people like you, OP

Sure, it was a choice that politicians took. It wasn't a choice that had popular backing. And for an individual voter who disagrees, it's reasonable for that individual voter to vote for a politician who will vote against immigration.

I think "businesses were crying out for the workers" is not true. In times of an acute worker shortage, you should see rapid wage growth, as employers compete for workers. You can just search for data, this hasn't happened. Maybe businesses wanted cheaper labour, but if your main asset is your labour, I dunno why you'd be excited by this.

"We're not having enough kids," this is true. However (a) if you bring in immigrants who are net recipients from the state, as we're doing, this doesn't help pay for anything (b) I think house prices are one contributing factor to lower birth rates, so importing people faster than you build houses suppresses birth rates.

I haven't bothered reading all this thread as alot of the usual middle class political cluelessness but @ThatMauveQuail is spot on with all her comments. I am similarly at a loss to understand why anyone votes Labour - they have a track record (unlike Reform) of making the country much worse, but wouldn't dream of asking the politically unaware people of Mumsnet about it.

Ah, another thread of people basically suggesting that the reason people like or vote for Farage or Reform is because they’re “not very bright.”

It’s a mystery to me why you can’t see that attitudes like this are the root of the problem!

😆

DB voted for reform in the last election.

The reasons he gave were based on their manifesto:

-Immigration/too many people putting pressure in services
-Scrapping net zero
-Banning trans ideology in schools
-Increasing stamp duty threshold
-Doing more for small and medium business

He said recently his views still stands and has been very concerned about actions Labour has taken, especially their impact on businesses and job losses.

Businesses were crying out for workers to exploit, that is not the same thing as needing workers.

But we have taken back control!

in the Boriswave of immigration we chose who to let in - nearly two million in two years because businesses were crying out for the workers! The immigrants were needed for economic growth and because were not having enough kids to pay for pensioners. It was a choice!

I think this is a good point. But I don't agree that all parties want to fix this. Immigration went up a lot under the Tories. Voices in labour want to extend indefinite leave to remain to the Boriswave, explicitly because of high child poverty in the Boriswave (i.e., hurry up and give immigrants benefits)

I just dont think commitment to reducing immigration is equal across the parties.

Could you search for a graph of housebuilding over time? You will find this is absolutely not an era of high housebuilding.

Furthermore if you dislike this level of housebuilding I think you're obliged to be radically anti immigration, as this level of housebuilding is far below the population growth rate that our current immigration system causes.

The establishment used to be defined by class & wealth. Today, it’s defined by attitudes & institutions. That’s why Trump & Farage are anti-establishment, while lower-paid BBC journalists & academics are part of the establishment. The left wilfully misunderstand this.

I’ve tried to say in my post, probably a bit clumsily, that for some people it’s all about the boats (they say as much in interviews!). I’m sure other supporters have other reasons.

I have a friend who I love dearly and she is intelligent and deeply thinking and she voted for Brexit because of a single case that turned her against the human rights act. She had teenage children and didn’t prioritise how Brexit would affect them. My FIL voted for Brexit to protect British farmers (he didn’t explain the reasoning). He is the loveliest most forward thinking guy wrt family but he didn’t consider or care how Brexit would impact his son or his grandchildren. The only point I’m making is that single issues don’t necessarily blind people to the shortcomings of politicians or other issues, but they might have such strength of feeling that they are willing to overlook them. We all do it to some extent.

It's not all about stopping the boats. Please see my previous post. And if you think you're one of the people who sees "deeply" into things, please answer my points!

There was an article I read last year about why Americans continued to support Trump in spite of his repellent personality, and one of the points it made was that some of his supporters don’t actually like him much, or they are very aware of his shortcomings. But they are so consumed with single issues, like immigration, that they are willing to overlook and defend those shortcomings. That made so much sense to me because I couldn’t fathom how someone like Trump who is not a great speaker, with long winded and confusing speeches, has developed such a cult.

I feel like that’s what’s happening here too, to some extent, it’s all about “stopping the boats” to the extent that supporters are willing to look past and defend anything dodgy about Farage. As well as a number of people who find him “refreshing” and probably don’t look too deeply beyond his soundbites.

To be serious though, the Muslim population has expanded by something like 44% in the last decade. In some London boroughs it's now around 40% of residents. So you can see how people might think this.

And Mohammed has been the most popular boys name in the UK for years, although admittedly it's down to the fact it has a number of different spellings and is hugely over represented as a choice.