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)

Does no one here remember Gillian Duffy? Ordinary woman concerned about immigration. Calling her a bigoted woman when he thought he was off-mic did for Gordon Brown. Turns out she reflected the concerns of very large numbers of ordinary, even middle class people. Being seen as a smug out of touch snob did for Brown, unfortunately for us all. We might never have had austerity and the hell that followed if Brown had won that election. I live in a smug middle class area and reform got 25% of the votes here, reflected across the country. So all you smug snobs, it's not just those left behind areas and people who are so easy for metropolitan elites to dismiss and patronise , it's your friends and neighbours too. They're not all bigots. But if that's your starting point how will you ever know or be able to understand, discuss, challenge or change minds.

I think movements like Reform et al is a worldwide phenomenon - as can be seen in the recent European elections and mostly likely a return back to Trump in the US later this year. People believe these movements are going to fix their problems.

It reflects the misdirected stress levels of ordinary people who are battling cost of living, being priced out of home ownership, not being able to rent in their communities and so on. They are encouraged by the right wing owned media and right wing parties to blame immigrants for their problems. Blaming immigrants is as old as time and it almost always happens in times of world stress.

I think the deeper problem is the slow and gradual transfer of wealth from ordinary people to the super rich, which has been happening for the past several years. We are slowly losing the middle class. Many countries are pursuing low tax regimes, which means cuts to infrastructure to afford it. Wealth creation is now shifting much more outside of the traditional wages based tax system and is based on acquisition of assets which are passed down in families.

This is happening in Australia too - ordinary people are still stressed even though we have virtually no “illegal” immigration with offshore camps and legal immigration is based on skills needed in Australia. The immigrants we get are highly educated, young and healthy. Immigration needs to be carefully controlled to promote social cohesion but fundamentally it’s a red herring.

I’ve always wondered this. Some of the most bigoted people are on the left

Well a lot of the nice little safe bubblies will be burst in the next four years. Jess Phillips will not win next time the non UK independents will win her seat and probably a lot more.

I wonder how the OP would talk to my neighbours kids, a young gay lad of 21 and his sister who is 18, both voting for the first time and both voted Reform.

You have a young guy who seeing the demographics of his city change at ever faster rates. The places he grew up feeling safe to be openly gay no longer feel this way, and he is seeing "independents" get elected in his area who support an ideology that would happily fling him from a rooftop, and he knows if he voices any concerns he would be met with shrieks of racist and bigot.

Going back to the Jess Phillips thread, his sister sees similar changes in the world around her, and as young woman is as equally concerned for the future of certain areas. She has seen the way Jess Phillips has been treated, as well plenty of other female politicians. She is not a bigot to be horrified by this, but where are the main parties speaking up against this behavior. Where are the main parties standing up for the teacher in Batley, who had to go into hiding for teaching basic stuff such her brother just being a normal person.

When no mainstream political party is speaking for her, or her brother, is it really so hard to wonder why Farage (who has a zoomer running his TikTok) can gain traction among switched on young voters.

So are they bigots? Are they racists? Should a young gay man get some conversion therapy? Should his sister let the men in her family tell her how to vote and how to dress? Should they do this in the name of tolerance of social cohesion?

Not wanting to be represented in parliament by people who would celebrate you getting murdered for your sexuality, or oppress you because of your sex is not bigotry.

Vote shaming?

politics almost always directly aligns with someone’s morals/ethics. It is very normal to judge others for their shitty views, (of which reform have plenty).

Would you judge someone for voting trump? BNP?

I'm not a reform voter but this doesn't even make sense. Voting reform isn't the same as being Nigel Farage.

I just wonder what the residents of Clacton are hoping Nigel Farage will do for them. Listening to a political commentator on LBC yesterday, it was pointed out that when he was an MEP his attendance record at the European Parliament was far from brilliant.

And does he have any particular connection with Clacton?

Farage is a on-trick pony. He focuses totally on immigrants and nothing else - you can afford to ignore everything else if you're rich.

I think he and his fellow Reformers need to look at the SNP - they've spent years banging the Independance drum. And that's all they seem to have done, so much so that the electorate of Scotland have given them their marching orders this time.

Just glad I don't live in Clacton.

This - I find that people like the OP are so entrenched in their hatred of those who 'do not think like her' that it must blight her life in any area.

OP - I mean this 'gently' but get some help for your bigotry and hatred of others. You are not some important person who gets to judge others for how they live or vote.

It’s like you know you’re awful people, not just filled with spite and hate but also motivated by it.

But also.....

I’m a complete dickhead to everyone around me but want everyone to hand everything to me on a spoon’

Just fuck off.

It's the irony I struggle with.

Keep going with the insults and they will make gains at the next election. "Fuck off", says I don't care what your concerns are, I have decided they don't matter so I'm not listening. It's really not hard to see why people vote for a party like Reform.

I didn't vote Reform

This is an attitude that gets no one anywhere. The ways to reduce Reforms vote share are:
Expose Farage for who he and his supporters really are (from their experience of being Euro MPs - they are freeloaders who do no real work)
Also understand why people voted Reform - and there are lots of reasons not just Racism (gender was one of them in some areas they were the only candidate who unequivocally knew what a woman was)
And Racism itself is mostly not about Race as such but about feeling disenfranchised and blaming the "other"

From what I knew of growing up in an area with a lot of National Front supporters, the NF gave them an opportunity to feel special, and included. Pretty similar to why people flocked to the Nazis in Germany

What I don't understand is why people believe Nigel Farage. Why can't people see that he's an absolute shyster, a lying little toad? He's so utterly abhorrent that I don't understand why people fall for it.

I absolutely understand people's concerns, especially in an area like Birmingham - I was horrified by how close Jess Phillips was to losing her seat. But that is the failure of the Tory government to insist on working on integration. It should never have got to that point. Voting for Reform is not the answer. You need to invest in local groups, infrastructure, gain people's trust and bring them with you. The Muslims that I know are not like that at all, they're not all the same and it's perfectly possible for multiple religions to live together peacefully. But it needs work.

I think that a vote for reform is an absolute mistake but I think hurling insults at those who did is pointless. The people who voted in Farage and Tice will regret it soon enough- those 2 are both selfish, nasty grifters who don’t give a fuck about their constituents or the areas they represent.

The ones who voted in Lee Anderson are the ones that get me most though. A man who is known for being a lying, racist thicko who goes out of his way to be as nasty as he can to those who are struggling. And he gets voted in again. I’m not gonna assume everyone in his constituency are the same (they didn’t all vote for him) but yeah. Be giving Ashfield a swerve from now on. Blimey.

And just out of interest, where will you go? To one of the lovely, tolerant, European countries where no hint of right-wing extremism ever darkens their shores? Or to the US or Australia ditto?

So we're an immigrant family and a non immigrant family member married to a racially diverse person openly posted on social media that he was voting reform. He did the whole claim that Reform aren't really racists because abuse they have immigrants in the party and supporting them 🙄 then said why he was voting Reform. It was another aspect of their manifesto that was clearly his most important issue. (Not getting into what that was for various reasons). But I was stunned he could overlook the racism, even claim it doesn't exist (when his own partner and children are visibly racially diverse) just because they're outspoken about an issue he's passionate about. That to me is terrifying. If there are Reform voters who are not racists, not the bnp supporting 'keep Britain white' types we associate with Nigel Farage but willing to overlook this aspect.

I watched elderly family members who have been here since childhood terrified they would be deported at Brexit and helped them get their leave to remain via the winddrush scheme. It was heartbreaking. They felt rejected by a country they had given their working lives to. So this family member saw this too and can still put aside the racism and vote Reform. That terrifies me because fascism sneaks in in all sorts of ways, not just through out and out racism. This family member is a good, kind, intelligent person btw!

Quite clearly, and without any hint they realise the hypocrisy, the only acceptable view point is that of the OP

I don't like Reform so I didn't vote for them, quite simple really.

OP is probably going to wake up with a raging hangover!

Also, OP, remember that when you point a finger, you have three pointing back at you. Maybe reflect on yourself first.

I’m not old enough to remember the events leading up to the Second World War, or the war itself, but there was a general swing to the right what with Mussolini, hitler etc and I can see a gradual swing in Europe like this now. People said ‘never again’ then and I think we owe an obligation to those who suffered in the last century to not wear blinkers now. Farage and reform are not the nazi party, but the ideologies are not far apart. We must learn from history. Extremism never helped anyone. The books written then can be read now. I am currently reading a book called Alone in Berlin about nazi occupation for example. We cannot, and I mean Europe not just the UK, slide into disaster and the consequence of lost innocent lives and the fall of civilisation. Farage and Reporm are the tip of the iceberg.

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

I understand you wanting to stick it to the main parties but this type of protest vote is what led to Brexit, which has cost our economy dearly and our children's freedom of movement has gone.

If you disagree with them on race, immigration and women's rights I would be very careful.

YABU.

Who did you vote for?

We have all those nice Reform voters to thank for helping to get rid of the Tories!

And for all their efforts they've only got five seats in Parliament - suits me.

I work in a caring profession as well as in a university, live in a diverse area with friends of all cultures and colours. I volunteer for a charity, fund raise and go out of my way to help others.

I voted Reform. It's called democracy. Could you please elaborate on exactly which Reform policies were spiteful and full of hate? Was it perhaps the tax exemption for front line workers or the raising the tax threshold to 20k? Or the scrapping of student loan interest perhaps. Gosh, how hateful to try to help those poorest in society.

Sweden would be good. Social democracy, excellent quality of life, great schools, healthcare, parental leave, holiday, pay etc. Progressive on things like prison.

Jesus. People can vote for who they like, otherwise what would be the point.