Why on earth are Farage and Reform so popular ?

[Nonamenoblame]

Their ideology is essentially heated up Thatcherism, more deregulation (if that’s possible) and laissez faire light touch for businesses, more cuts to public services because they love an even smaller state, cuts to benefits apart from those for pensioners, no real solution to the immigration issue apart from sinking the small boats.
So why isn’t Farage being challenged ? Everywhere you read that Farage is the next PM in waiting but his policies are a rerun of the last 14 years but worse, they haven’t worked so far, why would they work with a Reform government ? What’s an even worse thought is a Tory/Reform coalition, are we as country daft enough to fall for it ?
And how long would we give a Reform government to turn things around ? 6 months, a year ?

@suburburban that was a mistake by Blair and Brown.
Once the horse had bolted they told us how wonderful it was when many areas of the UK were on their knees and then simultaneously hit by the global credit crisis. It couldn't have happened at a worst time.

No wonder we have just been drowning and struggling ever since.

Because the countries gone to shit under the tories and labour and they want change

There are people who stay and don't claim asylum but the main reason people attempt the crossing is because the grant rate is high

So even if you clamped down somehow we'd still be very attractive for those crossings and traffickers profiting from them

Well obviously a multi pronged attack is needed but what can reform actually do to stop boats reaching here

I wonder what our actual spend is on all this area compared to school and bhs6

"Don’t be disingenuous. It is widely known that people voted for Brexit as a protest against unfettered levels of immigration"

Well we don't really know why people voted for Brexit. I'm sure there were many reasons.

The fact remains that voting for Brexit has meant that

We cannot send people who come into the UK on boats back to France.
We have facilitated triple the amount of cheap labour to legally settle here from Asia and Africa, Instead of eastern Europe.

It's a bit disingenuous to blame things solely on the Tories / labour because people didn't realise or think through the consequences. "The will of the people " had something to do with it.

We cannot send people who come into the UK on boats back to France.

This comes up often on these threads. We took more than sent back and it was a few hundred

The agreement is not stopping Germany and others who remain having similar problems

"The agreement is not stopping Germany and others who remain having similar problems"

Obviously the Dublin accord meant we could only send back immigrants that arrived from other EU countries. It is difficult to see how illegal immigrants could arrive directly in the UK from outside of Europe.

Germany voluntarily accepts more asylum seekers. Just like we currently accept very high levels of immigration. Both of these will cause problems.

My point is the parties making these decisions were given the control and democratic mandate to do so.

No the DA wasn't a big number return programme. It was a few hundred, and they had to be accepted.

Your statement on it being a major factor isn't the case

Farage is just another Boris Johnson. But the Tories wrecked the place for 14 years and if Labour make a mess of things then Reform will be voted in next time.

Reform are ultimately just dissatisfied right-wing Tories. Their anti-immigration rhetoric appeals to the working class/red wall voters (who suffer the most from open borders') but a return to Thatcherism will go about as well as it did for Liz Truss.

Don't forget Farage claimed her budget was the best he'd seen since Thatcher.

This^^

The Tories went on and on about stopping the tens of thousands a year coming in in boats (and failing), to distract from the fact they were opening the borders to a million people every year.

'Smash the gangs'. We've heard the same rhetoric for decades over illegal drugs. They never stop the supply though.

You have to disincentivize people to cross the channel on boats. For example make it clear that anyone breaking into the country will not be granted leave to remain or asylum. Instead they're rewarded with hotel rooms, free meals and all the rest of it while thousands of Brits sleep rough on the streets.

"Your statement on it being a major factor isn't the case"

And yet ever since we left the EU, the boats across the channel just keep increasing....

The Tories planned on Rwanda's being a deterrent but we got rid of one that seemed to work....

People were told that immigration was the cause of the country’s poor infrastructure when in fact it was mainly due to underinvestment in certain areas, economic neglect. Why would the Tories admit that their policy of austerity had caused so many problems ? Like pps have said, immigrants were made into scapegoats for the sorry state of parts of the country. I don’t think most realise how many billions councils, particularly in the north, have lost in central government funding. It’s actually frightening. Not a clue why well off southerners voted to leave tbh. Now they have less excuse.

I think some people do have an issue with integration, not necessarily with migrants but also certain British born communities where their loyalty to the UK is questioned. Round me there’s a definite increase in women dressing in a very religiously conservative fashion, niqabs, even burqas, and there were a lot of local negative comments about the massive pro Palestine demonstrations in our town. But that has nothing to do with immigration.
I’d like to know what exactly Farage will do about immigration that Labour/Tories haven’t done. Some concrete plans that are workable. People keep saying ‘we want a change’, but how ? They’re no different from the others. At least Labour are trying to do something.

The world is full of stupid people. It's as simple as that.

It will make the UK a less attractive place to come to, especially for those who cross in small boats or overstay visas.

You're missing that increased flow has happened in many countries. Only those with hardline measures eg Italy have reversed this somewhat

You're also missing that we had very high asylum claims in 2002 it was just by lorry instead

Traffickers just worked out how to get people in boats as that was clamped down on.

The DA has never been a major factor

I disagree. Nigel Farage, awful as he is, would actually make an effort to do what Reform campaign for. Do not underestimate him.

@LlynTegid why would it? A grant rate that is as high as it is is attractive enough

You might get more people leaving but it won't stop the numbers going up as the odds of getting approval are high

I don't support Reform, but I'm fed up with both parties, immigration, lack of infrastructure, local councils being incompetent, etc. aren't most people?
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How ? What new workable policies has he thought up ? Let’s know something concrete. I mean at least Labour are trying to do something.
@Oblomov25 Did you think things could be turned around immediately? It took 14 years for the UK to end up in this state, how can Labour improve things after 7 or 8 months?

Farage hated the EU and was genuine in wanting Brexit (Boris jumped on the bandwagon for personal gain).

Aside from that though I don't think Farage is any kind of revolutionary. He's a Conservative and used to be a Tory member.

What's more important than who the leader of a party is, is who funds them. Reform is funded by venture capitalists and rogue billionaires. Reform have no real answer to the crisis the country is in, but are telling people what they want to hear over immigration.

Absolutely. But Reform would also likely fail and then what?

It's just more Thatcherism in a completely different time to the 80s. Thatcher sold off our public services and utilities, sold off our housing stock (creating the housing crisis we have now) and basically wasted the windfall from north sea oil.

We can't just tax cut our way out of this mess which is what Reform want. Truss tried that.