Voting in an hour - tell me why I shouldn’t vote reform

[Wentie]

This isn’t a wind up. I’ve done countless different quiz type things and the policies I most align to come out strongly reform. I would previously have been a Tory voter. I don’t like farage and I do feel prejudiced against reform from what is portrayed in the media - but their policies appeal to me. Anyone have any actual facts or glaring holes that I might have missed?

😂

Well, I wouldn't vote reform in a million years, but I can't, in good conscience, tell you to vote against what you think is right.

But I would urge you to take a look at your own local candidate and see what you think. Because I have met mine several times and he is an absolute joke and an embarrassment. If you can watch yours - he/she most likely has a website - and think "yep, that's my chosen leader" then by all means, vote reform.

But since you already have no faith in the party leader, I doubt you will.

Yep, well said!

Jeez, Farage has now adopted some kind of armoured paramilitary landrover to get around in. He’s NAZIng-up by the day. Just missing the iron crosses on the side.

Perhaps you should have been sending actual protest messages to your MP and the party over the past few years to makes sure they knew how many votes they were losing. Too late now . A “ protest” vote is just a vote for another party - probably Labour as it splits the right wing vote .

Op at the moment because they are new they are attracting lots of nutters.

Walt and see how they got on they may become a viable party but I can't vote for them right now because I can't trust how they vet reps.

Only 16% of Reform candidates are women.

The following are Reform candidates that have been called out for their views:

Mr Oakenfull posted derogatory comments about the IQ of sub-Saharan Africans on social media last year. He previously told the BBC the remarks had been taken out of context.

Mr Lomas reportedly said black people should "get off [their] lazy arses" and stop acting "like savages". The comments were reported by the Times on 8 June, with Reform at the time claiming they were "out of context part quotations" and it needed more time to respond.

Mr Lilley reportedly described people arriving on small boats as "scum" in a social media post, adding: "I hope your family get robbed, beaten or attacked."

Raymond Saint was a former BNP member.

McNamara, who was standing for the Kilmarnock and Loudon constituency, was found to have said that trans people have “severe mental illness”, and their “days are numbered” on Twitter/X.He was also found to share posts promoting gun ownership alongside branding Scottish equalities organisations as ““tax payer funded peadophile (sic) services.”

The candidate for Mid-Dunbartonshire, McNabb, shared a post that said the First Minister was “more Pakistani than Scottish” and therefore should not be able to hold a rugby trophy. He had also shared a video from Katie Hopkins, a far-right commentator.
He had also shared a picture of Humza Yousaf alongside his wife at Murrayfield which included the comment: “Someone should have taken that off of him and shown both of them out the door. He’s more Pakistani than Scottish.”

Pete Addis- Vulgar social media posts uncovered by the Mail on Sunday showed he had called for Sir David Attenborough to be “killed off” and made a racist joke about “brown babies”.

Amodio Amato said London is an “Islamic State” and that there would be “a Muslim army run by Sadiq Khan”.

Iris Leask reportedly called for meat-eaters to “eat other humans” and for the human race to be “obliterated”. Admittedly this one is just bizarre rather than racist.

Jonathan Kay and Mick Greenhough made derogatory comments about Muslims and black people.

Benjamin “Beau” Dade, Reform’s parliamentary candidate in South Swindon, published <a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20221118123517/mallarduk.com/what-is-to-be-done-a-policy-roadmap-b-b-dade/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">an extreme “policy roadmap” in November 2022 in which he anticipated forcibly deporting anyone who has settled in the UK since 1997.

Ginny Ball made a comment suggesting British-born BBC radio presenter Nihal Arthanayake should leave the UK. In a post responding to a Telegraph article from November 2023 in which Arthanayake questioned the lack of diversity at his workplace, Ball wrote: “Well emigrate to a black only country #simples.”

Davies shared a post which featured the text “evil doesn’t die. It reinvents itself” over pictures of Sadiq Khan and Adolf Hitler. Davies also shared posts in September and October calling immigrants an “invasion” and a “silent army housed in hotels”.

This is not a few bad apples. They have had to sack so many candidates for racist comments and no doubt this will not be the last of them.

But we can align to the ECHR as much as it suits us, without having to actually be in it, follow it to the letter and be beholden to it. As you say, Australia manages to align with it and yet it can still make its own decisions and its own rules and laws on how to deal with illegal immigration, without interferance from foreign courts. Amazing, eh? Just imagine.

Being in the ECHR does not stop you dealing with illegal immigration.

Not being in the ECHR - without a suitable replacement - means you have no protection from your own government.

If that government is scrapping the Equality Act, where do you turn if you are now discriminated against by your own government ? If that government is forcing you into an unsuitable job ? If you have to take an exploitative job just to afford extortionate fossil fuels and health costs ?

You can’t fight it. They removed your protections. If that government is run by the likes of Farage & Tice who are corporate lobbyists / oligarchs - basically turbo-capitalists, they’re doing this to profit from exploiting you. They’re using the immigration issue and the emotions that generates to steal your vote in order to exploit you next.

Reform = extreme danger.

I think Aus policy difference is the ECHR

Yeah let’s abolish the Human Rights Act! What an amazing kick in the teeth that’ll be for the Tories, with no negative consequences for us!

I really think this is such an important point. Given the posts some PP have made it seems that many true blue tory voters are extremely angry with their own party for shitting the bed so spectacularly after 14 years of free reign. They are angry that their own representatives were incompetent? Venal? Unprepared? Idiotic? The party is the people it elects and the job it has done. Nothing more and nothing less.

Its a well known trope that for the true believer the Party never fails, it can only be failed. But that is the sort of servile thinking that (aesthetically speaking) Tory voters reject. God forbid you rethink the party principles and selection methods that put Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, snd Sunak into power with all the insight of an insouciant toddler throwing the switch that electrocutes grandma.

some of you are so angry at the incompetence of those you put into power that you will spite vote for any party but Labour so no one can come in and show your crappy Tories how a serious party governs? its the ultimate in sour grapes childish rage. No community spirit at all.

This is not a few bad apples. They have had to sack so many candidates for racist comments and no doubt this will not be the last of them.

I think that it's a really, really bad indictment on all the other parties in recent years, that a bunch of Reform candidates saying unpleasant racist or misogynist things is not even the biggest worry some people have when choosing how to vote.

It's awkward and embarrassing, it makes us feel a bit grubby by association and we wish we didn't have to keep hearing about it, but it changes nothing. And the blame for that lies squarely at the feet of all the three other parties.

They won't win the GE, so I am not overly worried. They have the next five years to clean up their act and screen future candidates much better. Hopefully the Cons will be back on form by then, and capable of governing like actual proper Conservatives. perhaps NF will even join them. But if not, Reform might at least be a bit more fully formed and suitably polished up by then.

No it’s a really bad indictment on Reform that so many candidates are racist, misogynistic and homophobic. There is nothing so bad about the other parties to justify voting for more racism, sexism and homophobia.

The bigotry is baked into the business model. When someone shows you who they are, believe them!

A vote for Reform is a vote to dismantle the NHS and replace it with an insurance system that benefits Farage’s wealthy mates and backers. He’s been extremely clear about this.

I just wish I could have voted in my constituency for Count Binface. He has policies that appeal to me, even if, like Reform, it's undeliverable twaddle.

Basically which is why anyone voting for them is completely fine but I do not want them being shocked and upset when things go bad! Farage made Brexit happen really!

See, this is why I have a problem with people voting tactically for Reform to send a message to the Conservatives. Farage is a disrupter, as I said previously. He is being paid to move the needle on traditional party politics. If enough Conservative voters say they will vote Reform to send a message, then the Tory party will start pandering to Reform politics to win them back. Farage might not have a hope of getting in but the Tories could. And why would he want to Prime Minister, when he can infect a mainstream party with his politics, usher them in through the back door and then he and his backers can stick their snouts in the trough if they are implemented? With no way of holding them accountable to the inevitable shit show that will follow, because they were not elected? It's already happened - Brexit!

They made me vote for the racist loon is a really childish stance. I mean: Im cringing with second hand embarrassment for you that you think that was exculpatory. Just admit that you choose to vote for a racist, misogynistic, flytrap of s fake party because you prefer it .

Thia but written better than me

For everyone thinking Australia immigration policy is the way to go their own Supreme Court ruled late last year that ongoing detention is unlawful and therefore some of whom they have called illegal and not been able to be returned to their home country but remained locked up will now have to be released from detention be able to live there on some sort of visa at least.
Last year 19,000 entering as what they call illegals and most call refugees, remaining in Australia only on temp restrictive visas, were given right to settle and apply for citizenship. Their policies are seen and criticised as flouting international law - as well as being cruel.
Leaving the ECHR will not change the fact we would also be breaching international law, if we follow this model, we do also have a court to rule on it (it was our court who said Rwanda wasn’t a go don’t forget) and we would face future problems resolving the issues - on top of whether you have any care at all for humanity.
Just to note the government can’t just decide and ignore our own court unless we change to a dictatorship really.

I’m all for privatising it tbh. Free market capitalism should ensure folk with scarce skills get paid their market value. So yeah bring it on, £50k for me, an ICU nurse 😂
Sarcasm..

You voted for much higher taxes then.

Farrage made Brexit happen because he managed to convince the country with his lies packaged nicely so it doesn’t look racist and xenophobic. Unfortunately people have forgotten that.