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 also live in a now shit hole northern town one that very much did not used to be and has been systematically ruined . A Town that has had a labour council for most if not all of my life. Around me people are complaining and moaning about the awful decisions that the council has made and how they have mismanaged serious failings in local public services, yet they vote for the same Labour council and then when asked why they blame the Tories It’s like Turkeys voting for Xmas.

I am politically homeless I just want better everything with someone I trust, I want change and not the same old same old !!

Genuinely if you do live up north is your council Labour like mine and if so do you not hold them to account for some of what is happened/happening in your town?

So it’s very clear that most are unhappy with the current choice of corrupt liars, ideological corrupt liars, and corrupt liars.

Would it be more productive and useful to work out what we need? If we can work through the awful polarisation maybe we’ll find there’s a more unified aim that could lead to actual change, rather than the shitshow that is current government.

I think a free NHS is no longer viable, but if we vote Farage because of that we likely end up with a US fat cat insurance type health care, which no one wants. So where are the proactive politicians trying to find a health care that works and isn’t catastrophically grown out of its boots? We need to be changing it to be the best for everyone whilst acknowledging that a free NHS just isn’t working.

We have an education system that’s crumbling and barely fit for purpose, particularly for those with SN in their hugely growing numbers.

Life in the UK is increasingly shit, but surely with an aim of what’s truly needed things can really change? Why are we stuck with the same political system even when it’s clear it’s broken?

Instead we moan about the way it is and become ever more polarised and nothing changes.

There’s a huge gap there for something different, human- led rather than puppets benefiting themselves and their rich mates.

What is perplexing is the phrase being repeated ‘reform offers something new’. I mean they don’t. Their policies are what we’ve had for the last 14 years, which blatantly haven’t worked. Why do people keep saying this ?

yep

This is complete nonsense btw. It's not "work" that makes people rich, it's owning property and assets! Once you own everything the you can lease it out to the "poor" people who don't own it but NEED it (whether IT is somewhere to live, or farm, or whatever) for however much you like. Have you ever played Monopoly? It's a pretty fair reflection of real life.

We've got GPs where we are doing 2.5 days. I've thought sometimes if they were permitted like consultants to do an extra day privately within the surgery @ £100 per hour. Say £25 a patient there would be takers. It's working for consultants. It used to work here. I remember when we got married the senior partner had private patients.

A neighbour now retired head of MRI, ultrasound department said that they could be renting out the machines in out of office hours to the private sector to bring in some money.

Years ago they had private rooms and consultants surgeons utilising the hospital paying well into the coffers. But under Wales labour government all that was stopped. So now we've two private hospitals. What an opportunity missed

It's a tale as old as the hills - he's charismatic and blames all ills on outsiders. People like to have somebody to blame.

Nonsense you can work, save, buy a property, then another and so on. It doesn't fall into your lap. I know plumbers, gardeners and teachers who have done this. Ordinary people who got stuck in saving hard doing without holidays, new cars, meals out to achieve this . No inheritance, no lottery win, just graft.

Too early to judge this Labour government

You would think after Brexit that people would be able to see through Farage. So disappointing.

Local council funding was cut by successive Tory governments, impoverishing councils.

Additionally they took levelling up funds earmarked for poorer areas, and awarded them to local councils of Tory ministers. You couldn't make it up:

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/02/levelling-up-funds-awarded-to-local-councils-of-tory-ministers

How dare you speak so much sense!!

Where I work not where I live another unmovable Labour council of 90+ yrs with one of the nation’s largest uncollected councils tax . Tories did make harsh cuts. The first place the council looked to make that cut and made it was Disabled adults transport condemning lots of vulnerable adults to their homes .

Not subsidising the local professional sports club and ground facilities. Not paying a million a year rent for an empty office to a company who they are still in the pockets of . Not looking to improve the council tax collection rate.

No they cut is punitively from the vulnerable to cause outrage and the Turkeys railed like against the Tories, you can’t make it up . If these are the good Guys, then were all in trouble!!

As above a new human led movement fair and equal and honest.

@JennyElection what area is that please?

This is why they are doing so well. People like @Stealer who are themselves, ironically, not able to see why.

The Tories destroyed productivity and alienated the workers and many others. People voted for Labour based on populist policies because they are not the Tories. Turns out they are probably worse. Destroying people’s chances of employment and pay rises. All the while everything is going up. Any chance of social mobility and hope has been killed stone dead in areas of deprivation. We aren’t even on to the welfare cuts yet!

People feel failed and let down. Then combined with some areas in the country where there a real issues with integration - well you’ve got a real powder keg. Hence why Reform came 2nd in many constituencies.

Whatever your thoughts on them, there are many disenfranchised voters who don’t feel heard. When people use the charming, insulting language used here. Let’s not forget the age old, ‘far right.’ People have not been smart enough to link this to the rise of Reform. Ironic really. People’s concerns and worries have been demonised for so long - people no longer care. Starmer himself found that out the hard way. From calling people ‘far right’ he’s now done a full 180 unturn. He and others like the poster here are fuelling the attention Reform are getting.

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/how-have-english-councils-funding-and-spending-changed-2010-2024

1. Taking the period 2010–11 to 2024–25 as a whole, councils’ overall core funding is set to be 9% lower in real terms and 18% lower in real terms per person this year than at the start of the 2010s. The reduction is set to be larger for councils serving deprived areas (e.g. 26% per person for the most deprived tenth) than for the less deprived areas (e.g. 11% for the least deprived tenth). This reflects the fact that the funding increases seen since 2019–20 have offset only part of the overall cuts seen in the 2010s, which fell hardest on poorer areas. Average council tax bills are around 2% higher in real terms than in 2010–11, and little changed since 2019–20, with high inflation offsetting high nominal increases over the last few years. This compares with a real-terms increase of over 60% between 1997–98 and 2010–11.

More info at the article.

18% lower real terms per person in local council funding (caused by the Tory govt) vs before they came to power.

It is a scandal. Caused by successive Tory govts.

I think another factor is that, with the best of intentions, certain issues that immigration / weak borders and the benefit system bring, are downplayed / glossed over for the fear of fuelling the extremist narrative.

However, this has backfired massively and given the party endless material which other parties refuse to address for fear of being labelled racist etc. also it has made a lot of people lose trust in the other parties and system in general which plays into their narrative also.

Personally I couldn't vote reform due to their links to the extreme right and don't trust they would deliver their policies.

However, I do t trust any of the e other parties to deliver anything also

Why are they popular?

Many people's lives are hard. People want easy answers to hard questions. People want to blame someone else for their problems, ideal someone or a group who can be 'punished' easily and people like that fall for politicians who promise performative cruelty. Some people whose lives aren't hard want this because they're just awful people.

And they don't understand that these days, with these populists 'good for business' generally means good for those at the top - it doesn't translate to prosperity for most of us because the full intention is to give the benefits to the top % and dangle over the rest of the population that they just need to work harder to get there themselves.

Labour and Conservative are closer than Reform

Although Labour seem to be trying to chase Reform votes lately. Not that it'll do much to get them

Too early to judge this Labour government

Considering what they have done so far that they said they wouldn't do, it's really not, it's not looking good for them.

You would think after Brexit that people would be able to see through Farage.

In some ways we haven't felt brexit as badly as it was expected to be.
We've had covid, Ukraine war, cost of living, etc, which has affected a lot of countries in Europe and across the world not just us.

I also live in a northern town that has had a Labour council, election after election they get back in, yet people continue to complain about them.

I've never known any other council for the last 40 plus years, you could put a red rosette on a steaming pile of dog pooh and people will still keep voting for it.

Decades of Conservative and Labour governments have given us:

• Men who say they are women
• An NHS that is not coping in many areas
• A culture where it is sometimes more immediately beneficial to not work
• Town centres that are crumbling
• Unprecedented immigration
• The lauding, in many quarters, of cultures that treat women and gays badly
• Children who are not allowed to be disciplined, no matter what they do
• A rise in mental illness-real, imagined or utilised
• A rise in knife and other crime
• Institutions-like the National Trust-who have been captured by flabby 'woke' thinking
• Ill educated generations to whom it is easier to feed shit
• Masses going to university, who have neither the brains nor the aptitude
• Plastic universities rising to meet this demand
• An ineffective police force who now call themselves a service and who choose not to investigate many crimes
• A European Court that trumps our own laws
• People with no manners, fucking and blinding in public while sometimes wearing outfits displaying their minges, bum cracks, bare chests and tits or, at the other extreme, wearing dressing gowns.
• Some people, shitting or pissing in the street usually when drunk.
• A new religion of "net zero" which simply means prices are put up-again easier to feed this to an uneducated population .
• A world in which to be called racist is seen as the worst possible insult -again easier to train an uneducated population to believe this and shiver-Pavlovian like- with rage when another culture is criticised.
• House prices and rents shooting up, beyond the reach of many
• Politicians of Labour and Conservative stripes accused of jobs for the boys, financial misdealings and other lies, while pretending they are above the grubby business of getting money and that , provided they fill in the correct bit of paper, they have done no wrong.

This is a long but not exhaustive list. Most will disagree with some of these points but most will agree with at least one of them.

If anyone agrees with several-and many people in the real world where Reform is surging will-then it is easy to see why there is a disenchantment with the two main parties who have overseen these things.
From there, it is easy to see why some people hope-maybe fruitlessly-that another party-free of the establishment-might do better. At any rate, they reason, it could hardly do worse and maybe they have a point.

If the only retort to be levelled against people who feel like this is that they are "thick racist arseholes"-usually by a poster who has displayed in earlier posts that they rarely crack open a book- then they demonstrate how little real opposition there will be to a party like Reform or another like it.

All of this is true. I won’t vote Reform but it doesn’t negate what you said.

Right. But I bet they're not "rich". They MAY be able to afford a house and holidays - great. But even that is out of reach for young people. When homes cost an average of 9 X salary HOW can you get rich by hard work?

Excellent assessment

The Tories were hopeless. Labour are proving to be just as bad. The LDs, Greens etc are a joke. 🤷‍♀️

Voters are just looking for any feasible party to vote for. 😉