Mumsnet is now backing Reform UK - survey

I agree with you on Badenoch and Jenrick. The problem is the media - which as we've seen with the BBC is incredibly biased and with an agenda - seem to be against them. Perhaps because they are quite boring and effective and don't make for good headlines nor go along with the BBC lanyard class ideologies (especially Kemi who spoke to detransitioners even when the civil service didn't want her to - the heresy!).

It's such a shame as I've been impressed with the substance from them so far. However, on the other hand, I think large numbers of ordinary people are rather fed up of the media class telling them what to think so the fact the media are against them doesn't necessarily mean the electorate will be.

Transparently misleading bollocks. Though it's certainly true that over the last decade MN has 'diversified' and I find myself coming across one hell of a lot more rightwingers across the whole site, one in five supporting Reform is hardly 'turning to Reform'! 😂

Sadly (because I loathe Reform and virtually everything it stands for) I think this is just representative of UK society across the board. I'm seeing it all over.

For the record, I care very deeply about feminist issues and about safeguarding women and girls, but I won't be swapping my vote over to the extreme right end of the UK political spectrum on that one issue. I care about a lot of issues, and frankly our lives with a profoundly autistic son who desperately needs his special school, additional provisions and will need appropriate college/residential care as DH and I get older, will be unliveable if Reform get in.

Labour don't run candidates in N Ireland and, apart from the DUP and Aontú and possibly UUP, most of the parties here have adopted TWAW as a way of distinguishing themselves from GB parties (virtue signalling in the manner of Scottish and Welsh parties). So I also won't vote for an NI party that supports Labour in Westminster.

I find myself thinking that I've had enough of spoiling my ballot and that I would vote Tory before I'd vote Reform. That is a huge head-melting thought for me who has always been a Lefty.

I have become a voter who votes based on parties' policies affecting women's rights, free speech, and reducing illegal immigration and halting authoritarian legislation like the introduction of ID cards and widespread facial recognition technology. If the SDP ran candidates over here, I'd vote for them.

I have had enough of the managerial, lanyard class politics but it doesn't mean I want to give protest parties like Reform my vote. On the issues I've mentioned above, I like the arguments coming from Badenoch and Jenrick enough to take them seriously - from what I've seen of them they seem to be temperamentally different from previous managerialist Tory leaders.

Plus, people know very little about their actual policies beyond the headlines.

When they used to be UKIP, their policies were very pro employer and anti worker. Yet, at that time, their biggest supporters were working class men. Turkey’s voting for Christmas came to mind.

If only there was a political party willing to recognise that immigration is a problem for many voters without also trying to make it more divisive an issue than it already is.

I was also a LD voter a few elections ago, but wouldn’t vote for them now their focus is virtue signalling on everything apart from protecting women’s rights.

And same my Tory MP actually seems sensible.

The world is so topsy turvy. One crazy theory would be Putin engineered the LBGTQ+++ revolution precisely to bring about the downfall of politically progressive parties in the West. Sadly, it’s just the fatal combo of older men with a fetish, social media algorithms, and a middle class seemingly incapable of joining the dots.

This.
Not. A. Chance.

I'm not voting Reform. Its not and never will be on the table. Some of the justifications people give are, while their own business, fucking stupid. They're friends to nobody.

Agree. I'd add to that the grooming gangs failure of accountability or even appearing to give a tiny shit if working class girls are raped and tortured on an industrial scale. They are morally bankrupt. They clearly don't care about safety of women or children at all.

It was mostly Labour councils where this happened and the Police and Social Services were complicit in horrendous crimes against children. No-one has lost their job (many of those who let it happen knowingly have been promoted) and the miniscule number of rapists actually investigated, charged (usually after a ridiculous number of years - meanwhile out on the streets free to abuse) and sent to prison have not been given adequate sentences and the survivors have been given little to no support . It's appalling.

Before the whataboutery many Tories haven't been great on this either but I do think Kemi Badenoch personally HAS been good on women and girls' safety and has supported the Grooming gangs survivors. And yes, reform are a hell of a lot better on this than Labour too.

Edited: Tried to include a link to the triggernometry interview with Grooming gang survivor Jade and Maggie Oliver which is shocking but it didn't work.

They weren’t self employed. They were all employees if a small local flooring business. But almost certainly not in a union.

I'm tempted to vote Reform. As is my husband.

He's working class, went to university, and is a high earner. I'm middle class, went to university, and my wages have stagnated. I am now on the process of setting up my own company after being made redundant.

Meanwhile, his peer group who have done nothing with their lives are being given ever increasing hand outs for knocking out kids they can't afford, bigger new build houses in lovely areas with nice schools, all without any of the stress of a mortgage or keeping a job.

People talk about quality of life, but at this point we have just been able to afford our own nice house in a nice area after delaying having children because we wanted to get on the property ladder. There is no help if you actually want to achieve anything. We simply cannot afford three children while I stay at home, somehow his mates on benefits can.

I'm tired of the erosion of the middle class to pay an ever increasing welfare bill, for both wealthy pensioners and the feckless. Some people cannot work and should be supported. But I have seen too many perfectly capable people decide to do nothing because what is supposed to be a safety net has become a way of life. I will be voting for whichever party leaves my family better off.

Fair enough but I still think they were seen as an acceptable protest vote before then. That’s how they got 3 more MPs after all.

When the time comes, I would consider voting for Reform locally if that would oust my women-hating Green MP. Reform know women exist, they just don't care that much about us. The Green Party deny that women exist at all.

These figures are from August and September, greens increase in popularity is after that, in polls in October and November.

Agree with this too, which is why I think it’s very interesting that the “other” category including the Green protest vote, has had less support on MN.

I think that has always been the case, but Labour came in promising to deliver so much, with both Starmer and Reeves facing accusations of lying, coupled with the Rayner and Mandy scandals, the backbench rebellion, the u-turns, the WFA and farmers IHT, the public sector pay deals, the budget leaks, the rumoured leadership challenges, the freebies, the delayed local elections, the digital ID, immigration...

Not all of which can be blamed on the previous 14 years - it doesn’t wash with much of the electorate.

💯

Which is what Labour had - years in opposition watching a car crash of a government mired in corruption, ideology and incompetence - and what did they learn from that?
An entry into government mired in revelations of financial freebies and greed, in thrall to ideological movements causing great harm to society etc etc.
Depressing,

I agree. It’s a great time to be in opposition and a very hard place to be in government at the moment

Honestly, I think Reform's main asset is that they haven't been in power so they can promise people anything. They are just the Green Party, but with different vibes.

Michael Goves interview with Dominic Cummings was interesting. Cumming said that in focus groups, conservatives were seen as irrelevant, labour hopeless, and while no one thought they would actual do anything, were willing to consider reform.

Cummings stated the obvious - that our brightest aren't in policics anymore. But if reform could attract people with relevant skills and talent, and with the right policies, they could make changes.

Absolutely fuck no would I ever turn to Reform.

Farage the pub bore racist windbag might gather a few fans while he’s in a minor party in opposition (much like Corbyn did) but put him in charge of anything serious like running a whole country and he’d crumble and get bored instantly. They can’t even run local councils! Not a serious political party.
They’re just constantly blowing off and othering other people because that’s literally all they have to bring.

Especially dumb for anyone to be voting Reform at the moment because in the UK we have to look to much much closer ties with Europe for our own protection given the strongman bullies who are running America, Russia and China.

All of reform and Kemi Badenoch and the Tories are still guffing on about Brexit, which has caused an appalling economic car crash which they will never admit because it’s what they exist for. And so they are calling for yet more separation from the EU countries,

Yeah more separation from our biggest trading partners is a great idea . While the UK desperately needs economic growth after the stagnation and decay that the Tories presided over.

Anyone who gives a shit about the UK now should be campaigning to rejoin the EU. We all need serious grown ups to vote for, because we live in very serious grown up times.

There are many things that left leaning middle class people don't understand:

-non-urban issues esp rural poverty & crime
-stuff that is popular with the working classes such as football and the royal family
-non-office jobs
-patriotism

Crucially too many of them are not interested in understanding.

I'm politically homeless and I genuinely don't want to have to keep spoiling my ballot.

Probably self employed and not in a union, so I don't know how they fit into Labour's understanding of the world - but how many union members work in traditional industrial and manufacturing jobs now?

Exactly this.
Labour have lost their traditional voting cohort of young working class men. I had 3 workmen over the other month (ages were around 23, 25 and 30) - and overheard them chatting about the budget, all of them were voting reform and were nightly hacked off about paying for people ‘who choose not to work’ - in their words. It’s a fundamental shift in voting.

They don’t feel better off and the narrative is that benefit claimants are better off - they don’t have children yet. I’m not sure 3 people are a good representative of course. TBH - they were lovely guys - hard working, funny and just normal lads. The sort of voter that should be voting labour and that labour should represent.