Labour voters….

@HappiestSleeping , if you think disenfranchised Conservative voters will vote Labour because TTK has made an effort to look like he gives a 💩 about immigration you’re in for a huge surprise. Getting rid of NHS England was an excellent move for which I applaud the Government but that’s very definitely not going to make me vote for them.

IR35 also forces the contractor to pay employers nic as well as employee nic! It really doesn't equal the playing field to make them like a PAYE workers as some uninformed posters above seem to think. And yes to your examples of travel and accommodation costs - there's also equipment, insurances, professional fees etc which also makes it very different from ordinary PAYE workers.

@BIossomtoes

The personal tax allowance has been frozen for several years. This drags more people into paying tax with those at the lowest end of earnings affected the most.

Freezing the tax allowances is effectively a tax on inflation. Nobody should be taxed on what they can’t control.

If a job is inside IR35, it’s the same as PAYE regards tax and national insurance. Okay for permanent staff who intend to work for the same employer and don’t need to relocate and live in temporary accommodation.

For contractors who move around from one client to another for short durations, it’s not possible as they would be incurring costs of their permanent home and temporary accommodation at the same time. Outside of IR35, cost of travel and accommodation costs are tax deductible.

Property values are indexed to take into account inflation so that only the real gain is taxed.

*No tax for the first. £20K of income. If this gets people off benefits, it should cover the loss of tax and NI. Also remember, that the personal allowance has been stuck at £12,570 for a long time. *

It wouldn’t touch the sides

*Scrap I35 for contractors. This makes it easier for contractors to work away from home. *

Perhaps you could explain how.

No inheritance tax for estates up to £2 million. Assets that people have accrued throughout their lives have been paid from nett income after tax. So, to tax again seems double dipping

Most estates are predominantly due to property inflation, ie money that has never been taxed.

Due to high cost of housing, many young people can only get on the property ladder with help from their parents. If the current young generation are unable to accrue assets, how will they be able to provide for themselves in old age and retirement?
This will increase the number of people relying upon help from local councils to fund health care and care homes. To cover costs, councils will have to increase council taxes even further.

It’s unclear what point you’re making here or which policy you’re referencing.

You'd need to ask someone who thought that there was anything worse than Brexshit. Quite frankly, at the time of the referendum, I thought it was the worst thing, and nothing that has happened since has changed my mind. I am not a big fan of the Lib Dems, but I would struggle to name any single item I think that they could do worse than the Conservative party did. Maybe they would do better than Labour, maybe worse, but at that time, I don't think anything mattered more than getting the Conservative party out.

And, of course, there have been several unpredictable events since then that have further compounded the problem. Ukraine, Covid etc.

My home county is Durham. For almost a century of Labour history (due to mining industry), it’s changed to Reform. So, pleased that my vote counted.

Reasons (in no particular order) why I voted for Reform are:

No tax for the first. £20K of income. If this gets people off benefits, it should cover the loss of tax and NI. Also remember, that the personal allowance has been stuck at £12,570 for a long time.

Scrap I35 for contractors. This makes it easier for contractors to work away from home.

No inheritance tax for estates up to £2 million. Assets that people have accrued throughout their lives have been paid from nett income after tax. So, to tax again seems double dipping.

Due to high cost of housing, many young people can only get on the property ladder with help from their parents. If the current young generation are unable to accrue assets, how will they be able to provide for themselves in old age and retirement?

This will increase the number of people relying upon help from local councils to fund health care and care homes. To cover costs, councils will have to increase council taxes even further.

As for immigration, yes it’s too high. However, look over the channel and it’s higher. UK comes in fifth after; Germany, France, Italy and Spain (in that order). So, I can’t see those countries agreeing to take more so that UK has less.

@HappiestSleeping

Which also recognised that the electorate don't generally vote on a single issue.

Brexit is a single word, but if it wreaks the economy and makes everyone worse off, what were the other issues that were in the Liberal Democrat’s manifesto that were considered worse than being worse off?

As an electorate, I think the opposite - after all did the country not persevere with the Tories, giving them 14 years to turn fortunes round? Patience is our virtue. No one is expecting quick change, but what no one expected is for things to go from bad to worse in such a short time. If this is their trajectory, I shudder to think what else is to come.

I’m happy to give them time to turn things round. They inherited a broken bankrupt country. I’m in it for the long game. Trouble is we live in a world where people expect instant gratification. There were never any quick fixes and they did warn it wouldn’t be quick or easy

It's not quite what I said, and I certainly wasn't the only poster on mumsnet to agree with the other poster's point on that thread. Which also recognised that the electorate don't generally vote on a single issue. Which is common to this thread too.

@HappiestSleeping

I remember that you are the only poster on MN to agree that if those who voted remain in 2016 had voted for the Liberal Democrat’s in the 2019 general election, Brexit would not have happened.
You must have me confused with someone else as I was never of that opinion.

Check your post 07/12/2023 14.09 on the thread

Can someone give me one positive of Brexit

I agree, recent history proves it - Brown and Sunak "lost" rather than the coalition and Starmer "winning". It's really been "best of a bad job" for the past 2 or 3 decades sadly.

I agree. So many services simply no longer fit for purpose - police, healthcare, social care, public transport, roads, etc etc. I really can't see things getting any better. Too many people not working, too many working in the black economy, so too little tax being collected, hence the ever increasing debt and us paying more in interest on national debt than education.

There’s a very old adage that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them. It didn’t come from nowhere. It was certainly true of the revolving door of elections in the 70s.

Indeed. That's how politics works.

I am not sure that any winning party has ever followed through their manifesto. Not in my lifetime anyway. And they all bring in things that weren't in their manifesto.

That's also how politics works. As is the whiff of power. The manifesto gets them elected, what they do after being elected is designed to keep them elected.

I think the difference this time is that I don't actually believe that Labour won the election. It was more that the Conservatives lost. It's a slight nuance, but that hasn't happened that I am aware of (again, speaking about during my lifetime).

I remember that you are the only poster on MN to agree that if those who voted remain in 2016 had voted for the Liberal Democrat’s in the 2019 general election, Brexit would not have happened.

You must have me confused with someone else as I was never of that opinion.

I do agree that a GE covers many subjects, I was merely pointing out to the OP that not everyone thinks that Labour have done a terrible job, or sold their voters out. Politics is a complex business, and now Labour are in, they will try to stay in by whatever means necessary. Time will tell if they are successful.

Political parties should be held accountable to their election pledges and should be fired and ineligible for any government position for lying.
the problem is from 1 speech 10 people hear 10 different things.
regardless of party affiliation there is only so many options possible with the income generated.

Hold your nose. He's posturing no elections for ages now so sit tight. He's also doing a lot of good stuff particularly on the world stage, economy is growing etc. Time to sit tight ...

I think all the things that need fixing have just been allowed to spiral out of control for too long now and probably are beyond fixing. Immigration, benefits, NHS, too many people not working, law and order seemingly out of control. No idea how we come back from the brink.

It's mostly Tory voters who've moved to Reform, not Labour.

Lots of Tory voters were small business owners, tradesmen, self employed, etc., for whom Labour don't represent them anymore, now Labour have shifted to being the party of the unionised workforce rather than all workers.

Sunak screwed over 3 million small businesses, freelancers, tradesmen etc with his ridiculous covid support exclusions, so that's 3 million votes that Tories lost to Reform in 2024 as those excluded would never vote for Sunak!

Tories also appeal to OAPs, other non unionised workforces etc (staff in small businesses etc).

Labour's core support is now public sector workers and heavily unionised workforces (mostly public sector), and those who've retired from public sector.

They're really not been the party of choice for other workers for a long time.

Lib dem voters did that in 2010!

Labour voters did that in 2024!

It's no guarantee that they'll actually follow through their manifesto and not bring in things that weren't in their manifesto.

Once they get a whiff of power, all bets are off.

Very true.

No, they dont. That's why even on here, as a Labour supporter, I find myself disagreeing with other Labour voters continuously - there are huge divisions between us ' old, traditional '(aka working class)Labour voters and the 'liberal elite '(aka middle class/leafy suburbs)Labour voters. Labour itself is floundering because it doesn't know who it's trying to appeal to anymore. It can't speak for both of us, because our priorities are vastly different and dependent upon where in the class structure we sit.

@HappiestSleeping

Bottom line is that our economy is in the toilet due to Brexshit.

I remember that you are the only poster on MN to agree that if those who voted remain in 2016 had voted for the Liberal Democrat’s in the 2019 general election, Brexit would not have happened.

I have this question many times and receive replies such as:

Brexit was a single subject

General election covers many subjects