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

Islamophibia? Is that when they start swimming across the channel? 🤣

(sorry)

I have relatives in their late 60s/70s who I reckon vote/would vote reform (not 100% sure there was a R-UK candidate in their constituency). They're financially comfortable, are second gen immigrants themselves have mixed heritage grandkids and grand nieces/nephews who they adore. But they HATE Islam with a vengeance and genuinely think London is being 'taken over' by Muslims. It's wild to be around. Their kids (my age) don't understand where they've developed those views. I don't think this attitude should be underestimated in the reform vote ie it's not as simple as racist - Islamophibia is a bigger factor I reckon, including these viral ideas/tropes of young militarised single men from countries with different values etc etc.

Indeed.

The Nazis killed 11-20m from memory. What was Mao? 80m?

His is exactly what’s happening in Australia at present. A party no one in their right mind would have ever voted for historically (obviously, a very small minority did) have now surged ahead of the 2 major parties in the polls, which is causing them to amend their proposed policies. People have had enough and are now taking drastic action such as this.

Exactly. When I was a teacher, every student knew about Hitler. None of them, hardly, had heard of Stalin or Mao. Terrifying.

It's odd that the left talk so much about fascism when far left ideology has killed so many more people.

Lots of typically daft MN comments on this thread.

1. OP, it doesn't matter that Farage is a stockbroker etc. What a ridiculously blinkered view. He can still care about ordinary people, regardless of his background. Churchill had an aristocratic background but oversaw welfare state measures that benefited people beyond his class. Castro came from a privileged background but fought for communism in Cuba etc etc.
2. Farage resigned after Brexit because he likely believed, like many who voted for Johnson, that the latter believed in Brexit and would take advantage of the many opportunities it offered. Farage had spent decades campaigning for Brexit and thought his job was done.
3. Farage is not just about immigration. In the 2024 election debates he was the only politician honest enough to say that we spend so much on the NHS and yet, compared to other countries, we have worse outcomes relative to the money spent and that the model needs reform.
4. UK businesses have crippling energy costs due to net zero zealotry. Labour want us to be highminded, poor and cold. Farage doesn't want that and nor do many of the electorate.
5. Brexit was about democracy and sovereignty. Those things may not mean much to the majority of MN. More fool them. Farage is a conviction politician, who campaigned for decades to get a referendum and won.
6. Finally, as an ex-teacher, who knows how much the "qualifications" MNetters love to use as evidence of their "intelligence"....these qualifications have been so dumbed down, particularly since Blair, and so many degrees are not worth the paper they are written on. There was a woman droning on in a previous post about how her gardener is a Reform voter and a bit thick. She is thick. There is a peculiar way of being thick characteristic of the left-wing middle class. You cannot have uncontrolled immigration and a welfare state. You cannot import thousands of men from misogynistic cultures and keep women and girls safe. People will vote for Farage because he, and they, are not insane enough to engage in the doublethink required to believe that diversity is a strength. "Diversity is a problem to be solved, not an advantage to be sought." ( Thomas Sewell)
7. Finally, Farage and many of the Reform MPs are businessmen and know about creating wealth, unlike many of the Uniparty politicians, who only know how to reward the public sector and kill the private sector that pays for it.

He's a man of the people. Will nip the immigration problems in the bud.

Can you explain what this means?

"people who have most to lose from
a Reform govt are the ones to support Farage"

I'm still a Conservative party member but would be tempted to vote Reform tactically in my area at a general election.

OP points out in the opening post that he isn't really any different from the rest of the political class so you could say why not vote for him?

Reform feels like it could offer right wing conservatism and is not comparable to the likes of BNP/EDL.

I also want maximum distance from the far left who I consider the most disgraceful political leaning.

It's not just Farage. They voted for Carswell(UKIP) too. Now what could it be about the people of Clacton that they voted for both Farage and Carswell?

Well didnr starmer say he would stop the boats? and what has he done?
Fuck all

@ResprayingmyaferrarisIt’s shameful that voters cannot understand how the economy works yet get to vote on who will be running it. I’d quite like a basic test in order to vote. Because the low level of understanding is very worrying and that goes for the left too.

Anyway I find the reocuring theme of "stupid /I'll educated " and so on very distubring. It almost sounds like some people want to deprive people of the vote ??

@5128gap but this problem has been going on for years and before massive boats it was lorries wasn't it. .
So why Havant these laws been tackled and changed ?

It's like the evil rapist from Pakistan ,people are saying to the authorities you've had 14 years to sort out how you will deport him why wait now when he's actually loose and his victims are reliving trauma ?

Oh bore off. And FWIW I will be voting Conservative. What is it with the left though and not accepting that other people are entitled to vote for parties that aren’t left wing? So over invested 🙄

I thought lefties were supposed to be tolerant?

Infact all these anti Farage posts are getting so annoying that I might just vote for him next time.

@Qb2654 I’m politically homeless too but that doesn’t make me vote for the far left or Reform to shake things up a bit! It’s madness but that’s what people are going to do. We deserve better political parties that are able to have non political policies.

@LiuBei I've never known such house building , flats/houses huge estates are going up all over our green spaces. Id hate to see what actual house building looks like.

I think there are many people who don’t think about politics from one election to the next. They’ve got other things going on in their lives that are more important to them than that. Especially party politics. They might be likely to vote for Farage because he’s famous. He has a high recognition factor. Just like Boris Johnson and ex tv star Trump in America. Maybe if you live in Clacton you might find it flattering to have a celebrity MP standing in your constituency.

Reform don't have a good policy on immigration. And I say that objectively.
You may think they have a good mission statement on immigration, but the policy to achieve it is very thin, very flawed and comes with serious consequences.
There is a great deal of complex legislative changes required that will have significant impact on our own laws and protections, they will take a long time to draft and even longer to get through both houses. Reform would need a huge majority and to convince the Lords.
Twelve months notice is required to leave certain commitments before they could even get started.
When you dig below the ra ra to the nitty gritty work needed, you're looking at at least a year, probably more, before they could tow the first boat back to France.
All our political parties except the Greens are committed to tackling illegal immigration. But there's no quick fix. And that's the case for Reform as well.

I assume that they felt that they didn’t get any help under the tories and once Labour got in it would all be wonderful.
When nothing changed they are annoyed especially when they see billions being spent on immigrants. So why is their money for people from overseas and not people born here?

Although I’ve never been to Clacton so that could be a load of rubbish.

Maybe those who voted leave and who agree with Reform, are not bothered in the slightest about Mumsnetters who demonstrate sneery superiority by being so rude about the ‘knuckle dragging thickos’. Maybe the Reformers think they don’t have to justify themselves to the self-appointed ‘elite’ who demand explanations, the sole purpose being to enjoy their echo-chamber pile-on? 🤷.

Why can't it be immigration?

The average immigrant costs more to the taxpayer than they pay in
There is a huge amount of social housing that goes to immigrants
For some reason, no politician can get houses built, and due to immigration the population is growing faster than housing stock, so we're all squeezing into less housing per capita

Yes, lots of reform's other policies are bad. But all parties have terrible policies! Reform have 1 good policy and many terrible policies. The rest are all terrible.

Give me a politician who will reform the planning process and let people build houses, give me a politician who can credibly make sure we only accept net contributor immigrants, and I'll vote for them enthusiastically - but that isn't an option that I have open to me.

Clacton has a mix like most places but includes a very poor, almost shanty town area. There is serious, serious deprivation. I think they just want someone who seems to care about “people like them”. It’s terribly misguided but I can understand why he appealed. My hope is that his evident lack of attentiveness for clacton may mean he loses their respect.