How could Reform form a government when they are such an absolute shitshow?

[noblegiraffe]

James McMurdock (the Reform MP who beat up his girlfriend) has just removed the whip from himself.

Rupert Lowe got kicked out (presumably for being named by Elon Musk as a better potential leader than Farage).

Zia Yusuf, the chairman resigned saying it was a waste of time, and then immediately unresigned.

And yet the polls suggest that they may win the next General Election, with a majority of MPs. What is the path to victory there?

A whip has to remove the whip from himself.

Hilarious.

Reform will completely fall apart long before 2029.

Unfortunately the bar is low for political office. The more morally corrupt you are the further you go.

Lee Anderson is the Chief Whip. It is James McMurdock, not the Chief Whip, who has removed the whip from himself. If Lee Anderson behaves badly, he could as Chief Whip remove the Whip from himself, which would be very amusing. To be fair to Reform, the same could happen in any political party.

Unfortunately I think banking on that would be a poor strategy. Farage has an uncanny ability to benefit from chaos - think about his political trajectory. Lots of politicians cause division/economic hardship through their policies or are shown to be liars. Normally they are punished for this electorally whereas Farage knows he will be rewarded.

Even if reform does collapse the factors that caused it to be successful are all still there. If people are so disillusioned with main stream parties they turn to disruptors like Reform then when they, inevitably, become disillusioned with Reform they aren't going to go back to having faith in main stream politics. They are more likely to become disillusioned with democracy entirely. And thats always going to be Reforms most lasting legacy.

They're now down to 4 MPs, but they're supposed to have hundreds within 4 years? They can't even cope with the ones that they've got.

And people are looking at that and thinking 'yeah, they'll be able to run the country'?

Many people won’t know they are shit until they are in government. This is what we must be careful about: we don’t want to find out the hard way.

I mean look at the government at the moment (and it could apply to any party)

A transport secretary who loved a new phone, whatever it takes.

A chancellor who doesn't know her own career history.

An mp who likes to punch out constituents.

A solicitor who wasn't

And those are just the few things that immediately come to mind.

Politics attracts lying.manipulators who lie to themselves and others that they are in it for the greater good - well as long as the greater good is really really good for them...

Sadly, I don't think Reform voters care about this stuff. They don't seem to care about how their representatives behave personally, in their business dealings, or whether they even turn up to do the job they were elected to do. Bizarre but true.

It seems like he is (now) acting with integrity - removing himself and not leaving it to somebody else? Unlike some of them who hang on by their fingernails until pushed.

Reform just lost 2 council by elections as their councillors resigned within months of having the job. One to Lib Dems the others to tories. The voters weren't happy.

Their supporters aren't scrutinising them and neither is the media.

Ah, 30p's statement confused me slightly. I know he is chief whip, but thought that McMurdock was also a whip.

So there is only one whip for Reform, which begs the question who is 30p chief of?!

Yes, but to be fair to the government, they have 400-odd MPs, Reform (now) have 4.

How are they going to get from 4 to hundreds by the next general election if they started with 5 and have actually gone down in number despite winning a by-election?

747 of the Benfield by-election voters still didn't care about Reform's cavalier attitude to the rules. (LD 824 votes, L 800). That's a lot of votes in a constituency for a party that just wasted their time and money and showed a bold lack of respect for the rules of the country they so loudly proclaim to love so much.

Hopefully people will look at Reform where they are governing in councils and see the quality (or lack) of the party. It is sad that the people living there will go through it - all the voters not just reform ones.

Nigel Farage and Reform will form the next government. It’s becoming inevitable. Tories failed didn’t listen. Labour cave in to the left. The countries finances will be 10x worse in 4 years. People will keep voting until they are listened to even if it means they suffer.

They’ll never form a government - but what they do ( & are very good at ) is getting plenty of support for what they say, that forces the Tories & Labour to do their job for them.

Labour need a new leader asap if they want any chance of winning the next GE. An old Labour values, working class candidate would be best.
What a shit show they all are!

Hmm.

If there is any danger of Reform winning in 2029, there will be a lot of tactical voting going on to keep them out.

Who's going to win Wimbledon Mystic Meg?

This.

It's a vehicle to shift the Overton Window ever further to the Right.

Labour has already been dragged into the vacancy left by the Tories, god knows what the Tories will look like in 2029 but it won't be pretty.

Reform are far too lazy/grifting/fly-by-night to ever form a government, I don't believe Farage is remotely interested in being PM, and I believe they'll step aside for a Jenrick-led hard-right Tory party who will be aping Reform rhetoric and essentially no different to Reform in most respects.

i think it’s more pertinent to discuss the implications of a reform government. What will they do? But more importantly how will everyone else react? How will reform voters react to these actions?

It might also be irrelevant to discuss how effective or not a reform government will be but why people want to vote for them? If we truly and openly try to listen it can be avoided.

So something is coming out in tomorrow's papers about McMurdock - wonder what that will be.

If enough people are disillusioned,is it possible they could succeed by that alone. I live in an area where I'm not directly impacted by things that another group in another area will be experiencing.

Is there enough of such people to vote any way in attempt to change what they feel they're experiencing. Reform appears to be somewhat attractive on certain issues.

I don't align with Farage. I don't comfortably align with any of them.