Reform😱

[ForKeenDeer]

Gaining popularity by the minute. Scary times

GDP is no reflection of how rich people are, nor does it say anything about their living standards.
There is also a lot more to the 'cost' of immigration than simple pound notes landing in the treasury.

Anyway, my sources from earlier:

NHS staff 81% British: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7783/

Population 74% British:
https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/national-and-regional-populations/population-of-england-and-wales/latest/#by-ethnicity-5-groups

Social care workers (misremembered it at 10%, it's actually about level with population): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-adult-social-care-2022/adult-social-care-and-immigration-accessible#chapter-2-the-social-care-labour-market

The CPS has released an interesting report recently crunching numbers from various studies and sources, and they found that the benefits are not what they're made out to be:
https://cps.org.uk/media/post/2024/mass-migration-not-delivering-promised-economic-benefits-say-jenrick-and-obrien/

Can we also make it clear that by “privatising” the NHS, what that literally means is that they will SELL the NHS. They’ll break it up and sell it bit by bit to American healthcare companies. That is their “reform”. There is billions to be made, and after all Farage has spent the post-Brexit years schmoozing with the Americans and strengthening his networks. He will be rubbing his hands together, while carrying on with his grubby little act of being the voice of the common man standing up to the elites. They can’t see that he is one of the elites!

That was why he wanted Brexit. It was good for his finances and those that bank rolled him. He’s a greasy, slimy, greedy toe rag.

Thepeppapigfanclub · 09/06/2024 10:06
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Many people on here are happy about being a minority in their own towns and cities. I am not. I think Farage is great and I will definitely be voting Reform. Don't care about being called 'racist' either”

Surely they are just as much the towns and cities of the newcomers who have settled there?
What do you mean by “their own” towns and cities? I can probably hazard a guess.
Great Britain has been a melting pot of immigrants for thousands of years. It wouldn’t have become the powerhouse that it once was without them.
Heard disgusting Farage today state that he could take the interviewer to a street in Oldham where no-one spoke English. So what? If they’re recent immigrants they will, as will their children.
No doubt I could take him to whole towns on the Spanish Costas where the residents can’t speak Spanish. People serving and working for them can of course but they tend not to live in these Little Englands on Sea.
What’ the bloody difference? Oh, hang on, of course, they’re white, British and just have to shout slowly. .
Yes. You are racist. I’m so sorry that you’ve fallen for this despicable grifter’s snake oil pitch. He’s made millions out of manipulating people like you.

Can we also make it clear that by “privatising” the NHS, what that literally means is that they will SELL the NHS.

The end goal ("happy ending", if you will) is to create a subscription based model that just rakes in £££s every month while delivering fuck all except a few carefully curated cases for the advertising.

Which is already with us. Loads of ads for private healthcare on my FB feed. Particularly GPs, if you're paying a subscription.

My very first job came with healthcare as a bonus. I converted it to cash as I knew then it was a waste of time for anything chronic and/or pre-existing. In teh intervening years I've known a colleagues partner be declined treatment and a friends wife in the US used up her lifetime allowance for medications when her diabetes changed.

I can post some US healthcare bills if people like. You'll need a wide screen.

Ha. That reminds me of being in Cypress. High street full of English signage - fish and chip shops, Irish bars, British pubs etc. nothing authentically Cypriot.

talking to a fellow holiday maker. Said that’s why they love it. It’s all Brits and British restaurants and shops. Said they were planning on retiring there for that reason. When I told them where I was from (Midlands) they screwed up their nose and said isn’t that where there are lots of (insert racial slur). I said yes it’s a lovely vibrant mix of lots of different cultures that’s one of the things I like about it. (I should have been more assertive but I was young and shy then).

They had no idea of the absolute double standards. White British people are perfectly within their rights to set up home in a different country, live in close proximity to other brits, demand the signs are in English and that there are shops and restaurants selling familiar things from home. Not learning the language. Using the local infra structure, services. But if brown skinned people do that in the UK it’s a terrible issue. Arseholes. Racist arseholes.

Aaaaand it reminds of the comedian who jokes about people should go back to their own country. Keeps going back. Romans. Then right back to the Beaker people 😂

The only people that should be 'scared' by Reform are the Tories. And the only constituency with a chance of getting an elected Reform MP is Clacton with Farage. At least there might be some dash of amusement in some Parliamentary debates on the odd occasion he's given a chance to speak beyond his Maiden.

I'm a floater myself, but this GE was thinking of tactical voting myself, the incumbent Geoffrey really needs to go and add to his considerable wealth in other ways as he's hardly representative of the 'deprived' most populated wards. The local Party are just as happy to sit on their laurels, oblivious to the local deprivation and needs.

Was considering the Lib Dems as they've been known to oust the Tories way back, but have now been swayed by young adult DS who announced he's voting Reform!! My first reaction was to advise him to not tell anybody as they'll think he's a 'racist' and narrow-minded (very much he is not); then said you know they won't get in.

His reply: well they never will if you don't vote for them. He's never told me who he's voting for before, because I've educated him from a young age how valuable casting a vote is for any election and that he doesn't have to tell anybody, including me.

Having checked out my local Reform candidate I can't really find anything to be scared about, so he's got my vote.

Just waiting for some little snipe about our lack of 'critical thinking skills' which will be quite pointless as that is such a boring, overused trope I will simply ignore them.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1cgeXd5kRDg

So funny.

Excellent . @TheHateIsNotGood tactical voting is very worthwhile in some constituencies. Reform won’t win but every vote for them helps throw the Tories out.

And so is the way....,.

@TheThingIsYeah , that made me laugh. 😂

It is terrifying, I agree. I heard Farage talking about the environment and he was raving. So many short-sighted men and women. I wish humans weren't inherently selfish.

I'm not sure a tax haven is the best example of an integrated socuety due to immigration. They do it because their ' immigrants' are multi milionaires like Lewis Hamilton

Elections in this country are won in the centre. When Labour lurched too far to the left with Corbyn in 2019 and with Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock, the Tories remained in power.
Labour got in in 1997 when they moved centre wards, and look overwhelmingly likely to win this time, now that the Tories have lurched too far to the right and Labour have taken the centre ground. We don't seem to like anything too dramatic in this country.

If you're hell-bent on being scared and terrified by The Right and/or populism just check out what's happening to the politics of our very near EU-neighbours.

Nowadays whilst it's considered 'normal' to be ashamed to be British in it's many undefineable forms, mostly, like the climate we're very mild and tend to extinguish any extremist 'flames'. Which is easier done for us given our Island geography, rather than on the Continent where extremist values and discontent have more oppurtunity to spread.

Sometimes, having a bit of isolation, can be beneficial.

Personally, I think that if you move to another country it is incumbent on you to "do as the Romans do". That means culture and language - you have no right to impose your country on the place you have moved to.

However, you're overstating the Brit living abroad stereotype, which is in no way comparable with our situation over here.

In 2022, the UK-born population living in Spain was about 300,000 out of 48.6m (<1%).
The total foreign-born population over there is about 8.7m (18%).

Spain also doesn't have an NHS for our lot to be taking advantage of.

This phenomenon of hating the locals and the culture when moving here. It is only here in the U.K. As well as locals going out of their way to defend foreign criminals over the rights of their own people. When in Rome never accepted here.

@TheHateIsNotGood

If you're hell-bent on being scared and terrified by The Right and/or populism just check out what's happening to the politics of our very near EU-neighbours.

Good point. The UK cannot possibly contemplate re-joinong the EU anymore given that they've embraced the far right.

You’re trying to tell me the 40% in Switzerland with migrant heritage are multi-millionaires?

They’re mainly working class or middle class immigrants from places like Italy, Portugal, Germany, Albania, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro. Absolutely not multi millionaires.

Off topic, but Cyprus was part of the British Empire until 1960;

‘Although without official status, Englishis widely spoken and features widely on road signs and in public notices and advertisements.[223] English was the sole official language during British colonial rule and the lingua francauntil 1960, and continued to be used (de facto) in courts of law until 1989 and in legislation until 1996.’ (Wikipedia)

the cultures are intrinsically aligned so I don’t think that example illustrates the point particularly well.

Fair point. However…The hypocrisy stands.

Not being mentioned is climate change.

I suspect there will be an increasing move to the right as the impact of climate change becomes more and more apparent - including increased migration.

Unfortunately right wing parties generally seem to believe that there isn't an issue with climate change - or if there is it's nothing to do with anything humans have done.

@EilonwyWithRedGoldHair

Unfortunately right wing parties generally seem to believe that there isn't an issue with climate change - or if there is it's nothing to do with anything humans have done.

Probably more realistic, and concede it's pointless haranguing folk who forget to put their recycling out when it ends up in landfill aboard anyway, for example. Or the hypocrisy of being lectured by the wealthy because we dare to fly to Tenerife once a year whilst they all take private jets to COP28.

All this against a backdrop of a rising population (200,000 per day globally), and a growing middle class in India/China, maybe right wing parties think Jemima glueing herself to a painting is all a bit silly.

No they seemingly don't believe in it - outwardly at least, who knows what goes on behind closed doors.

And it's not so much about recycling, it's about CO2 emissions.

Anyway, I thought this was interesting as to what various governments do and don't believe - https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/jun/12/the-grab-documentary-review