To hope all the reform voters take a hard look in the mirror?

[Tukmgru]

I have to wonder how you live with yourselves. It’s like you know you’re awful people, not just filled with spite and hate but also motivated by it. I genuinely am so baffled how you can sit here on this forum that is largely about supporting others through difficult times - perhaps you’ve found help and comfort in the various threads MN has to offer, and then you go ‘yep, fuck everyone else’.

My aunt was a BNP and then UKIP supporter, and a grifter par excellence throughout her life, and all of her arguments were the same as the arguments I’ve seen on here by Reform voters here. 4 million people went out there to declare ‘I’m a complete dickhead to everyone around me but want everyone to hand everything to me on a spoon’

Just fuck off.

(I’m not even a labour or green or whatever voter, I just think you’re awful people and deserve nothing but contempt)

I agree that a lot of their things are completely disgraceful, but my hubby considered voting for them purely for their renewable energy/ environmental factors. Every party has good points and bad points. I think its wrong to put an entire group of people in one bracket of being racist when actually most are probably decent people just trying to choose the best option out of a bad bunch!
I didn't vote reform, but I also wouldn't put anyone down for what they used their free right to vote for.

Reform with Nigel Farage as leader are very dangerous. Having achieved seats in Parliament they will normalise appalling bigotry from the security of a respectable, credible mainstream platform. Much of the media seem to be pandering to their apparent allure.

Some of their voters share their racist and nativist views but not all.

However, those who don't should ask themselves whom exactly they are climbing into bed with (or, to mix metaphors, selling their souls to) and whether the price is really worth it.

Ah yes, throughout these threads we see the words 'bigot' and 'bigotry' directed at people with a different world view, but with no sense of irony or understanding what those words actually mean.

No @ll09sm not smug or self-righteous at all. Disappointed and horrified are the words you needed to use. Regardless of policies, for anyone to vote for a 'party' whose leader supports Putin and fox hunting, along with all the racist, homophobic and sexist comments that have been said by some of his colleagues over the last few weeks, yep, I'm not smug, I'm dumbfounded.

It genuinely made me feel sick to see how many people voted Reform. Disgusting, uneducated and vile stance. If they gain more influence in the next ten years I’ll do everything in my power to leave the country!

I didn’t vote reform. But if I lived in Birmingham and saw the abuse that Jess Philips got purely for being a white woman beating an independent standing for a non U.K. issue I too would vote reform. I sometimes think that a lot of us live in nice little safe bubbles. Just read some of the posts from women who live in Birmingham. Look at the poverty in Clacton. I disagree that anyone should be shamed for who they voted for. We live in a democracy and let’s keep it that way.

Excuse me, but this is a perfect example of a post that would be better elsewhere - like the Politics forum.

I voted for Reform and to the best of my knowledge, am just an ordinary person who isn't particularly filled with 'spite and hate'.

My reasons were that I couldn't vote for the Tories and I really struggled with Labour too. Figuring that Labour was sure to get in and that the Tories would be wounded badly, it seemed like Labour would need a robust opposition. And that was it, so I gave my vote to Reform. I don't particularly like Farage but even a broken clock is right twice a day. It was the same for several of my friends.

It had nothing to do with race or immigration, it was a protest
vote because the other options seemed so unappealing.

Now that Labour are in, I'm fairly relaxed about it and I'll watch with interest to see if they do what they said they'd do.

To me, this is democracy at its finest. We can all choose to vote for whichever party we'd like to. You don't have to like it but it's pretty unpleasant to attack others for thinking differently to you.

@wakeyakey what about the Lib Dems or the Green Party. Did people who voted Reform really believe NF could run a Government?

You believe that reform want to help the vulnerable. I just cannot comprehend that level of naivety. You voted for a bunch a vile racist misogynists who wouldn't spit on someone on food poverty if they were on fire. And their plan for the NHS is a US style insurance system.

This 👏

Its idiotic, superior, patronising like this that pushes people towards Reform! The shutting down of debates about immigration by screaming racism! Labour under Blair started this sneering and intolerance of anyone who doesn't conform to their views and if this carries on you will see a far far greater turn out for reform next time! When will people learn that instead of people calmly explaining the facts about Brexit the sneering and calling people thick and uneducated was what caused people to vote for it! This type of behaviour tends to be worse under a Labour government so i expect the next election will get a huge turn out and labour will get absolutely thumped!

Absolutely

And im sure that the country will be far nicer without your sneering, patronising, arrogant, intolerant self!

You see I totally get that & some of this has been caused by the Conservatives & their imaginary ' Super Majority' rhetoric!

But protest votes are really dangerous, look what happened with Brexit, lots of people voted Leave, not because they actually wanted to leave but because they wanted to protest .

Some of last nights results were won or lost on as little as 15 votes, every vote really does count.

What I don't understand is how they don't realise that all Reform will do is make things worse? There was a £100bn black hole in their "contract". They can spout the bile that they do and promise the earth because they know they'll never have to deliver it.

Worst of all, much of what they propose isn't even the interest of their average voter. Tice has made it quite clear in the past that they would like to privatise the NHS. Can the average Reform voter pay for private health care? I highly doubt it!!

Those who I've seen be attracted to Reform tend not to be particularly politically aware. You'd have to be to buy the horse shit that they're selling.

"Ah yes" those words used far too liberally by self-righteous pomposities who think themselves intellectually superior and can't possibly be racist bigots because they're 'only saying commonsense facts'.

Like Nigel, good ole patriotic man of the people that he is.

So if you call a bigot a bigot you're a bigot too? So we should never call out bigotry?

I defend my right to be intolerant of intolerance.

Society at large needs to retain that right or the paradox of tolerance emerges.

Do Reform voters think NF is a decent man or a dangerous, misogynistic bigot?

Be quiet

This.

Plus you have to understand where people are coming from. That their lives may be, but may not be, as privileged as yours.

This morning, for the first time ever, I fell for a scam. It was the twitter thing - Graham Norton show cut off because someone was talking about this AI boosted money trader that I could lodge £200 with and sit back as it grew at a ridiculous rate. I have never fallen for anything like this before. It was cleverer than I'm making it sound. But hey, I'm not as clever as I think.

I did some "due diligence" (googling) then put my phone number in the online form, which at that point ceased to work. I swear I have had more than 50 nuisance spammy calls today (all blocked now) as a result.

I fell for it because I need money and I wasn't concentrating. it's exactly the same with Reform - yes there's the grievance stuff with immigration but most of their manifesto is uncosted promises for things that everyone would want - no NHS waiting lists within two years, raise income tax threshold, scrap stamp duty, nationalise utilities (yeah, why won't Starmer nationalise utilities?)

So while I would never vote for Reform I appreciate that people who I think are less informed than me (who actually think they are better informed than me) would vote for them.

Hey ho. That's democracy.

I agree. Ranting gets you nowhere, just raises your blood pressure.

I don't expect anyone will care. People can vote for whoever they wish. They don't need your approval and actually it's none of your business.

@Tukmgru

You sound exactly like the MAGA people in the US.
Crude, rude, and nobody is rushing to join them in their crusade to demonize “the other.”
Good luck with that. You’re gonna need it.

It’s this sort of attitude, only looking around your own neighbourhood, not talking to anyone outside your own little bubble and thinking that anyone who voted for something different is a thick racist that gave us Brexit and the 4million who voted reform.

Instead of trying to understand the reasons people did vote the way they did.

You might not agree with the reasoning but if parties tried to understand why Reform got so many individual votes and addressed some of the concerns these people had they might find that it would show up in the ballot box