Reform UK rising in popularity with young men

[ILoveCustardTartsFromTescoBakery]

It's just being spoken about by Ben Kentish on LBC

Just about how Reform UK have a large following of 18-35 year old men. Specially men, not women.

Why is this? What's driving them?

The fact that some many young men voted for very far right leaders elsewhere in the western world is also being spoken about

So far, the opinion seems to be that it's because Reform UK are very active on TikTok/Instagram seems unlikely but I don't have a better idea

I personally know a few young men who are 'all for' Nigel Fanny but I don't understand the appeal, although I also noticed it's always men that seem to support him the most

For context, I'm 27. Married. Own husband seems to say 'well I don't hate him, no'. Argh.

Current caller saying 'well men today feel left behind'

I don't know the answer as to why, but I saw the same on Twitter earlier.
It's worrying, that they feel left behind or something like you say?
What on earth they feel Reform can do for them is beyond me, though.
I genuinely think online radicalisation is a big worry and drive towards stuff like this.

Because working class poorly educated men are being radicalised online to despise both women and anyone not white British, by people who are wealthy like Farage and Tate. They don't not give a shit about the people they represent, they simply want to push their hateful agenda, and these men are easy targets.

Working class men hear they have privilege from left wingers for being men/white, which is probably hard to hear when they have grown up in relative poverty and a poor education. Unfortunately feminism and immigration are the scapegoats, when in reality the primary driver is economic and social inequality. There are a generation of men harmed by generational poverty, cost of living, and austerity, who feel they have no place in society. That results in angry young people who are easily taken in by right wing bullshit. It's hard to have sympathy though for people who riot, resort to violence, scare women and children, and who are just generally vile people, even though I understand the root cause. There are plenty of vulnerable women living under same circumstances, but it isn't us out there causing a problem.

As a woman, I find it all terrifying. What is happening in America with things like abortion laws could easily happen here. I truly despite far right men, but I despise Farage and his ilk more.

@Ladamesansmerci great post

It's mainly because the right and far right are great on social media. The far right German party AfD for example, have a big following with young people specifically because of TikTok. That's because they get all their news from social media.

Farage is a populist and very good at saying what people want to hear (like Trump). He's an admirer of toxic masculinity such as Andrew Tate and 'strong' male leaders such as Putin.

Women are generally more left wing than men although the recent election in the States bucked that trend. I think 52% of female voters went for Trump.

It’s a worldwide trend - not just UK and Reform. All driven by online influencer stuff of course. We have the same in Australia - one of my daughter’s old school friends became a Nazi and he was someone who spent too many hours online with minimal parental supervision.

I read that in America, young men are joining churches in larger numbers, whereas the young women are leaving. This is significant because in the past, it tended to be women that were more religious than men. Women have worked out that they don’t do well in churches!

I think the young men have been sold a more traditional order of the past - “the golden age” as Trump called it.

The US party system is really just a question of Chocolate, or double Chocolate. They're both well to the Right of centre by the standards of most democratic political systems, so I'm not sure it's fair to characterise women who voted for Trump as eschewing the Left, US women just voted for two Right of Centre parties, with marginally more of them voting for the further Right of the two.

I think things feel hard right now and people feel like they are ignored by their leaders and are looking for something. Badenoch is going around apologising incessantly for levels of migration whilst the conservatives sold themselves on sensible migration numbers, same thing happening in Canada. I think theres a big lump of truth in that, we had progressive attitudes in the UK where people were hounded out of jobs and worse for pointing out they know what a woman is. Yet most people don’t actually believe this stuff. Things like luxury beliefs, very high immigration etc signal that there is a gap between institutions and the poeple.

So I don’t think it’s just social media, I think theres a real problem. Before politicians were able to walk the line on being fundamentally more liberal but not to go so far as to make the more hardline look reasonable. If immigration had been running at 200k a year would there have been such a backlash, probably not. The Uk public has always accepted ton the whole that some immigration is required and that it can be a very good thing. Policing is poor, you can have pictures of children being abused and walk out with a suspended sentence. Or punch a police woman in the face on camera and yet not be charged with anything. It does often feel like no-one is in charge.

I also think men joining churches or any kind of group are seeking connection.
I follow a neuroscientist on twitter who spends quite a lot of time dealing with incel types. He made a point about a lot of young men complaining about their being no men only spaces etc. he pointed out that anyone who has some male friends can go for a beer or go fishing and be in a male only space and it’s not women’s fault you don’t have any bros. Social media is the main way these people have connections with other people. But social media is a poor, it often lacks nuance and it’s basically people shouting their opinions at each other. Normal relationships don’t work that way. It’s very hard to get immediate access to people who will approve of you, be welcoming and happy to see you. Churches can provide that, so it’s not surprising. They are meeting a psychological need most people have.

I think there is something very fundamentally wrong in western societies at the moment. A lack of responsibility for oneself and ones family (40% of children are not school ready when they start), disconnectedness from society as a whole, a sense of things being out of control.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Some of Trump's policies are way beyond centre right and inciting an insurection is far right.

The Democrats have clear left wing policies on labour laws, the environment, healthcare, welfare and taxes.

@Ladamesansmerci Absolutely spot on. It's social media propaganda.

They are only "Left wing" if you hold them up against the GOP as your barometer for what is "Right Wing".

The Dems don't have a single policy that would be discordant in the manifesto of most Centrist or Right of Centre parties the world over.

Just because the GOP is to the Right of the Dems does not make the Dems, or any of their policies, "Left Wing". That's nonsense. They are not as stridently Right as the GOP, but they are not recognisable as "Left" by any reasonable standard. But the US is an outlier when it comes to Democracy, so hey ho.

World's tiniest violin.

Gen X are the first generation of women to be able to do things independently from men, which means men are no longer necessary for a woman to have a bank account of her own, own property etc. That means women can decide if marriage and children are really what they want.

Women aren't responsible for male loneliness, but men seem quite unable to cope with the idea that they're no longer entitled to women and girls by default, so they're having a bit of a strop.

The stats are striking on social connection. Time spent face to face socialising is down 30% for American men and 45% down for young people. I think there's definitely a difference between the friendship types between young men and young women as well which offer much more emotionally supportive relationships. I enjoyed this Atlantic article on the subject.

My own face to face socialising has collapsed since covid. I used to pop round to neighbours so often but now that's gone completely.

It will be interesting (horrific?) to see how this goes. Farage is getting or going to be getting much more funding from US right wing groups. I see he is beginning to bring up abortion.

I always thought he would have a natural ceiling of voters in the uk because he was basically a one-trick pony and no understanding of policy outside of "kick 'em all out".

But if he is getting all this outside help to radicalise young men, then who knows?

(Also he is an absolut wally with little charmisa. I almost understand why young men look up to a hardnut like Andrew Tate. But Farage in his Barbour with a pint and fag? Don't get it!)

I agree with your points, but I can't get on board with the flippancy and dismissal of the phenomenon as a "strop".

It's an existent problem that has very real, horrific consequences for women the world over, so while women might not be responsible for male loneliness, or responsible for solving the issue, it's entirely in our interests to get it solved regardless.

Exactly, people feel alone a lot I think. I don’t really have any friends but I do have family and a very happy marriage and I talk to people a lot due to DC social commitments. I think if I didn’t have those things I would be miserable and I do consider myself an introvert. Some social contact or emotional connection has a really positive impact on your wellbeing.

Thanks for the link I’ll read the article.

The problem is, things do not stay static or happen in a vacuum.

The disastrous policies and long-term intransigence of the previous UK Government have helped sow the ground for these sorts of ideas and the people pushing them to flourish. The UK population as a whole may well have been comparatively liberal and less prone to radicalisation at one point in the recent past, but if you drive an economy into the ground, do nothing about deprivation and penury, and actively harm the nation with bampottery like Brexit and encouraging a less tolerant, "hostile" and febrile environment, the attitudes and views of some of your population are bound to shift, and under those circumstances that usually means to the Right, less tolerance, more prone to radicalisation, social unrest, riots and so on, and eventually, Fascism emerges.

The strop comment was meant to imply a gross understatement to what's going on, I'm painfully aware we are battling a horde of Andrew Tate Farage fancying shitbags who hate women and girls.

The other issue is that the men who claim they aren't bad and are nice guys, can't seem to get off their arses to challenge these hideous men. They shy away from it and expect women to do all the work. It's pissing me off royally because it's not supposed to be on women to fix this, but it IS women who will end up fixing this, if indeed it's actually fixable, because a lot of these little shits armed and violent.

There has been a rise in support for reform among young men, but let us not overstate this; the highest levels of support are in grumpy older men in their late 50s and early 60s (which also fits with my impressions). Interestingly, looking at men of different ages, levels of support for Reform appear to be lowest of all among the late 20s and early 30s group. That could be a cohort effect, or it could be that going to university/starting work with women and dating them tends to moderate guys' views somewhat.

Women overall voted for Harris.

52% of white women voted for Trump.
92% of black women, and 61% of Hispanic women voted for Harris.

For white and Hispanic women, as a percentage fewer of them voted democrat this time than in 2020.

Again, nothing I disagree with here, but I can understand (at least I think I do) why it will be difficult for a lot of men to hear "this is up to you to sort", and not simultaneously believe they are being accused of being as much a part of the problem as the genuinely hateful, toxic men who personally inflict harms on women.

OK, I would accept that even the "decent" but passive men very much are a part of the problem, but I think it's difficult to even begin to get that message across in a way that is received as "help us fix this" rather than "you're the problem buddy".

And yes, it'll inevitably be women kicking men up the arse rather than men standing up and getting off it.

DD is in 6th Form and they did a mock election on the day of the last real one. Most of the boys voted Reform and most of the girls voted Green.

What’s their Twitter handle? Sounds really interesting!

I'll be voting Reform if no one sorts out immigration.

People are so disillusioned with what's going on in the world they are looking for something ' other ' . Everything just seems broken and massively divided and the main parties are just churning over more of the same . Whatever you think of Farage / Trump they have captured peoples imagination. Farage in particular is an engaging orator for those with his views .