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Reform UK rising in popularity with young men

175 replies

ILoveCustardTartsFromTescoBakery · 04/12/2024 23:47

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 Confused 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.

OP posts:
tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 05/12/2024 15:16

Yes and I've said I agree with you in many respects. I'm unsure what's made a few of you leap on me based on what I've posted?

I commented on another posters post. In particular the idea of going back to a golden age may be attractive to men who are feeling hard done to.

Also I mentioned the behaviour that will be displayed in some of the young men (not all) this thread s referring to and how that's not acceptable. You say I'm deflecting ... the same could be said for you by talking about men coming en masse from other countries.

I didn't try and minimise (actually I didn't even bring this up) what's happening under Taliban rule. But it's been assumed I'm somehow saying life for a white woman in the UK or USA is worse. Which obviously I'm not. Confused

meatyryvita · 05/12/2024 15:20

It's because generations of men have been raised to believe that they are superior to women and only feel good about themselves when their feet are on our necks. Remove the foot and they bleat about being 'left behind'.

30percent · 05/12/2024 15:36

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 05/12/2024 15:16

Yes and I've said I agree with you in many respects. I'm unsure what's made a few of you leap on me based on what I've posted?

I commented on another posters post. In particular the idea of going back to a golden age may be attractive to men who are feeling hard done to.

Also I mentioned the behaviour that will be displayed in some of the young men (not all) this thread s referring to and how that's not acceptable. You say I'm deflecting ... the same could be said for you by talking about men coming en masse from other countries.

I didn't try and minimise (actually I didn't even bring this up) what's happening under Taliban rule. But it's been assumed I'm somehow saying life for a white woman in the UK or USA is worse. Which obviously I'm not. Confused

I apologise if you feel personally attacked, my comment was not just aimed at you but others on this thread too you may of been tagged in my first comment but I was just making a general point because there's a lot of posters on the first few pages of this thread raising alarm about reform voting men being "sexist, misogynistic" etc but the average reform voter I speak to is mainly concerned about mass immigration.

Which in my opinion most educated feminist women who want their granddaughters and daughters to be safe in this country should also be concerned about.

User135644 · 05/12/2024 15:41

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 05/12/2024 13:21

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

///

Quite. And if you've watched Handmaids Tale and the backstory to Gilead being formed it's horribly familiar

Men are always more prone to nostalgia as well and rose tinted specs.

User135644 · 05/12/2024 15:43

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 05/12/2024 13:19

Ahhhh the old "men feel left behind" shite.

Women have been oppressed and downtrodden and left behind for eons. You don't see us starting summer riots and getting behind idiots like NF because it's crap being a woman.

Women were willing to resort to domestic terrorism for universal suffrage though.

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 05/12/2024 15:45

@30percent

Fair play and thanks.

I think another thing we can probably agree on regardless of our thoughts for Reform is that while times move on and political landscapes change the need for feminism to keep fighting to protect women and girls everywhere, has a long long way to go Sad

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 05/12/2024 15:48

To be fair though user that was to give women some of the basic rights that men already had and women's suffrage wasn't used an excuse to set fire to their neighbours wheely bin and surround hotels full of forriners.

SouthernComfortable · 05/12/2024 15:51

Do we know for a fact that young men are supporting Reform in higher proportion than the rest of the population?

ExpressCheckout · 05/12/2024 15:56

SouthernComfortable · 05/12/2024 15:51

Do we know for a fact that young men are supporting Reform in higher proportion than the rest of the population?

It depends on what data you use. This article provides a good summary (and see the final paragraph that puts a lid on some of the hyperbole around this).

https://news.sky.com/story/something-remarkable-is-happening-with-gen-z-is-reform-uk-winning-the-bro-vote-13265490

'Something remarkable is happening with Gen-Z' - is Reform UK winning the 'bro vote'?

Reform was quick to engage with a younger audience on TikTok - racking up more than 300,000 followers - more than any other major political party. But is it enough to capture the 'bro vote'?

https://news.sky.com/story/something-remarkable-is-happening-with-gen-z-is-reform-uk-winning-the-bro-vote-13265490

SouthernComfortable · 05/12/2024 16:17

@ExpressCheckout thank you for posting that link.
I wonder what will happen in Wales for the Sennedd election which I am told will be full deHont not FPTP.

RingoJuice · 05/12/2024 16:52

was commenting on the opinion that a move back to traditional roles in society, women safely and snugly back in the home while removing reproductive rights, could be an attractive prospect for some men

This is kind of a misunderstanding of the American pro-life movement, which is very Catholic, very female-led. I think it’s misguided tbh but you should be aware of who is actually pushing this in the USA.

EasternStandard · 05/12/2024 18:46

The OECD put out a report on how much migration is changing politics in wealthier countries

It's toppling parties via votes. I thought this would happen a few years ago, I think it will continue to get more pressured

mrandmrsrobinson · 05/12/2024 19:51

I was recently in a labour ward, in a working men's club......

1, Labour has lost the plot. Referring mainly to WFA and proposed single persons council tax allowance. bearing in mind that a lot of pensioners benefit from that benefit.

2, Reform is a possible alternative because of the shit show that is labour in the short time they've been in power.

These were not young men. These were men in their 60's.

Not a reflection of the general public I know but it opened my eyes.

Frowningprovidence · 05/12/2024 20:04

mrandmrsrobinson · 05/12/2024 19:51

I was recently in a labour ward, in a working men's club......

1, Labour has lost the plot. Referring mainly to WFA and proposed single persons council tax allowance. bearing in mind that a lot of pensioners benefit from that benefit.

2, Reform is a possible alternative because of the shit show that is labour in the short time they've been in power.

These were not young men. These were men in their 60's.

Not a reflection of the general public I know but it opened my eyes.

I saw your first line and thought 'what a strange place for maternity services to be located'

I'm very tired!

ByMerryKoala · 06/12/2024 09:01

No, it's not just young men. Recent polling suggests that 24% of the population would vote reform in a g.e. That's a significant gain on the voting share back in June.

And I don't think they've been particularly active since the election. It represents a continuing failure of the Labour party and the Conservatives to connect with a large chunk of the voting population far beyond young men.

They have a few years to work it out but if it looks like more of the same then they will have delivered an election to Farage &co. And no amount of accusatory pointing finger will mitigate the fallout.

Ihavearedbag · 07/12/2024 06:33

article by Janice turner in the times about this today. Headline ‘Suddenly Reform are starting to look plausible’

Lyannaa · 07/12/2024 06:34

Ladamesansmerci · 05/12/2024 00:09

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.

Great post.

lucylurcher · 07/12/2024 09:50

Ihavearedbag · 07/12/2024 06:33

article by Janice turner in the times about this today. Headline ‘Suddenly Reform are starting to look plausible’

I have just read that and it indicates that it is not the knuckle draggers that are driving this.
There are glaring mistakes being made by Starmer. There are definite policy shortfalls - many are described in other articles in the same paper.

TomPinch · 08/12/2024 00:17

There was talk upthread of young men in the US joining churches, as a sign of radicalisation. As a church member myself I have seen no evidence of this, and in the US the churches are declining. I have also read that while the US conservatives who supported George W Bush in the 2000s attended church, Trumpites do not: it is just identitarianism.

It also got me thinking. Public morals in the UK when, when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, were loosely based on a kind of legacy Christianity. Incidentally, my experience of Christianity as a young man was that the oafish bullying I endured at school by other boys wasn't tolerated in the churches, and being a man who wasn't stereotypically very manly was absolutely fine. So I stayed there.

By the 2000s, that had morphed into a live-and-let-live liberalism, and now it's morphing again into a set of ethics that are very concerned about categorising people and identifying advantage and disadvantage in the abstract, and reassessing every part of society, including its collective memory, on that basis. Front and centre is that men are advantaged over women. @RamblingEclectic said we should "follow the evidence and stop pushing this lens at the individual level." I agree with that, but I think that is unfortunately precisely what the concept requires, ie, every man has benefitted from male privilege just by being male.

Some men have absolutely cashed in on male privilege and been highly advantaged by it. Others, with a hard life and bad luck might have benefitted from male privilege but find that counts for very little against their other disadvantages. And yet others might actually not have benefitted from male privilege at all despite being male: it's hardly beyond comprehension that male privilege doesn't get distributed evenly, but the theory has nothing meaningful to say about that.

Another point. Something that is still seen as stereotypically 'manly' is doing one's best, hanging in there, and invididual effort. I'm not saying women don't also subscribe to that, only that it is seen as a traditional male virtue as well. But a paternalistic system of ethics that redistributes merit from groups perceived to be advantaged to those that aren't is completely contrary to this. It gets worse: if disadvantaged groups are identified by outcomes, then the fact that white boys aren't given extra assistance in school looks very selective. The whole system is full of inconsistency and contradictions, and so I don't think anyone should be surprised that a whole lot of men don't want a bar of it, which leads to my final point: as this system is now the establishment view, it's hardly surprising that lots of men will support whoever rails against 'wokeism'.

As for men who are capable of being bullshitted: well, they've always been around. In the past they read the Sun and looked at Page 3. Now they are getting weapons-grade bullshit from the Internet, but they're scarely the only ones. It's just a bad situation all round.

User135644 · 08/12/2024 11:42

It's not just young men fed up of mass immigration (mostly of young men from hostile cultures).

Haggisfish3 · 08/12/2024 11:45

Ladamesansmerci · 05/12/2024 00:09

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.

Totally agree with this. I’m a teacher and this has been on the rise for a good ten years.

SuzieNine · 08/12/2024 11:53

Because it’s easier to blame women and immigrants than to figure out the real reasons why you still live with your parents at 25, have a dead-end minimum wage job, and can’t get a girlfriend.

RingoJuice · 09/12/2024 05:43

User135644 · 08/12/2024 11:42

It's not just young men fed up of mass immigration (mostly of young men from hostile cultures).

tbh we should care way more about unvetted young men than anyone else. Just the other day an American woman was charged with stabbing an Eritrean on the train who groped her.

They want to put her away for ten years! I say she did a service to the German state.

OutandAboutMum1821 · 24/04/2025 13:24

I’m a 38 year old woman, and he’s rising in popularity with me too. His ‘Children and Families’ contract is excellent, totally reflects my values. Well done Nigel for speaking up explicitly for marriage and choice for SAHMs and SAHDs! 👏🏻 Unlike the other major parties purely offering more hours of free childcare my family doesn’t need or want. What a refreshing change 👏🏻

User135644 · 25/04/2025 17:02

OutandAboutMum1821 · 24/04/2025 13:24

I’m a 38 year old woman, and he’s rising in popularity with me too. His ‘Children and Families’ contract is excellent, totally reflects my values. Well done Nigel for speaking up explicitly for marriage and choice for SAHMs and SAHDs! 👏🏻 Unlike the other major parties purely offering more hours of free childcare my family doesn’t need or want. What a refreshing change 👏🏻

Nige is great but Rupert Lowe a huge loss to Reform

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