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 ?

I don’t think that folk generally love reform and are racist bigots. I think in most cases, people feel more broke than ever, mortgage rates or rents and essentials are expensive and they’re working to struggle to survive.

As a result, people want change. I’m fairly sure this is a huge part of Trump being voted in and why a swing to the right is happening in a lot of places. Extreme changes might actually make a change. Same as the misguided brexit votes based upon a desire for change and false promises.

conservative lost any faith
labour isn’t having a good immediate impact
noone thinks Lib Dem have a chance

what next?? For some, it’s reform

Talking of people from Asia and Africa - interesting and surprising article I came across last week (although the article is from 2023);

There are roughly one million people living in the UK under EU freedom of movement rules, who were born outside of the EU ...

during the UK’s membership of the EU, freedom of movement was a major driver of immigration to the UK of people born outside of the EU

• including hundreds of thousands of people born in Africa and Asia:

Continent of birth:
Africa - 245,770
Americas - 182,066
Asia - 392,128

...
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/diversity-eu-national-population-uk/

Brexit was a vote to control migration, and it failed epically. But controlling the 'who and how many' dicussion is still a very live topic. It is an argument we have to have, loud and out front.

In my (completely ignorable) opinion, the issue is population size. How dense do YOU want the UK population to be? At 55m it was comfortably sleepy, at 60m it was quite buzzy; at 70+m, it seems (to me) a bit overburdened for the land mass and infrastructure. If the water companies and Tesco Clubcard figures are right, then the population is already well above 70m. So we all feel over-populated.

The UK's landmass is 25% of France, but our population is larger.

Sadly it's because many people are racist and xenophobic. I l know people who voted for them, they are no longer friends

I don't think I know anyone who is racist or zenophobic, and I live in the rural SW. I do know quite a few people who came to the UK as (white) refugees, from Zimbabwe mostly. I cannot think of one who has made a successful career transition, except people who went to UK schools. A senior police officer who never worked after arriving in the UK? Yes, bust his rank but use his skills and training, surely?

Except we aren’t particularly crowded, it just feels that way. Not enough investment in housing , schools and healthcare. It’s 2% of the landmass that is occupied by housing.

Lots of reasons why housing is an issue. Lack of social housing due to the sell off of council housing and no use of the money to replace that asset. A planning system that is glacially slow and raging nimbyism. Land banking by builders hasn’t helped and given the obsession with building 4 bedroom, 3 storey “luxury “ houses on postage stamp size plots makes what houses that are built entirely unaffordable for first time buyers.

Schools have seen year on year cuts in funding for economic and I suspect political reasons as well. Health care has suffered similarly as well.

Labour have painted themselves into the corner with the no tax cuts mantra and have no way to make things better. At least tax cuts for billionaires will (probably) be off the table.

The reform manifesto is absolute nonsense because they know they will never have to deliver them. If they do look like getting close to power I suspect they will see some rapid rowing back.

@travellinglighter

If it feels that way then surely that needs to be taken into account

Loads of extra people constantly arriving is doing very little to help this situation

What's the point of building more affordable housing if it is for the benefit of people born overseas

I think Farage is popular because he is gung ho about Britain. I strongly feel that the British people are in dire need of love and care from the government. people feel so disregarded by the government, now that the nhs is so underfunded and pension age is being pushed back. There is no longer a sense that the government is Pro Us.

the mental health crisis is a mystery to them, whilst they withdraw validation, respect and care toward the resident tax payers.

Farage is an Uncle figure who’d slip you a tenner and slap you on the back, and give you a lift on his way.

Could it be because there are some sane people out there that recognise a small island cannot home close to a million arrivals a year?
And British people are allowed to preserve their culture the same way as people in other countries are?

I do know Romans, Vikings, Normans, etc over a thousand years ago but they weren't nearly a million a year and had a comparable culture. Now it's people from developing countries whose views and beliefs aren't compatible with human rights particularly women's rights and that contradict everything we achieved for women.

Gung ho about Britain? Not really, he’s more interested in sucking up to the orange man baby and sponging money from Putin. He showed an unhealthy fascination in Adolf Hitler during his school days, so it’s less about Britain and more about pushing his right wing agenda

The way to solve the issue is not easy. It’s going to take time and patience and Reform giving simple solutions and telling you it’s easy means they are lying to you.

Of course

But don't all the parties do this

Not as much as Reform does though. They knew that they were lying but the agenda was more important than the country.

Keir Starmer part-edited a Revolutionary Marxist magazine in his 20s - should we be worried?

I'll repeat the point I made upthread:
Reform UK are only as "popular" as they are because they have a not news channel pumping out their shite 18 hours a day.

GBN can't afford 24hours a day, but that's OK because it's not an actual news channel. It's a Reform UK mouthpiece.

@Papyrophile I guess that's why people find it so surprising to hit roads in France.If you catch the ferry here it's absolutely chokka getting to the ferry as soon as your off its bliss! Beautiful quiet roads until you hit a city ring road.

We are gridlocked here and it will get worse and worse. Quality of life has plummeted.

yeh but he’s grown up since then, Nige is still peddling hate speech in his late fifties.

Is that because the French have spent money on infrastructure whereas we have pushed austerity forever?Have you sen how difficult it is to build infrastructure in the U.K.? The French don’t mess about, if they need a new road it gets built. A British minister once asked his French counterpart how he overcame local opposition to infrastructure projects and the reply ironically was” If you want to fill in a pond, you don’t ask the frogs.”

Whereas we have public enquiries lasting years

@travellinglighter you mean they built a magic transporter machine to dissappear traffic?
It's not the quality of the roads, it's the point there is little traffic on them.

Or you build a decent railway system that takes a lot of freight off the roads, lots of pay as you go motorways and you don’t concentrate your population in an absurdly small section in the southeast of your country.

You posted that Farage 'showed an unhealthy fascination in Adolf Hitler during his school days' - does he still show a fascination with Adolf Hitler?

I think they only seem popular because the Tories aren't atm.