shocked my best friend voted Reform

[clearmoon]

Long standing close friend came round for dinner and we were nattering away, and she just mentioned off hand in the conversation that she had voted Reform. i am really shocked. We don't discuss politics much. But I would have guessed lib dems or labour. I love her dearly. But I do wonder if I should think about her differently now, or just carry on as before

YANBU - She is not such a good person as I thought all these years
YABU-its all fine

Genuine question: Do you think there is a traditional working class, still?

Just listened to an interview with Sir John Major. He pointed out that the Tories only lost 5% of its vote to Reform. They lost far more to the Lib Dems and Labour. Quite reassuring, the British people are instinctively moderate and have little taste for extremism.

It comes down to the border policies.

Australia is far from extreme, in fact it has a centre left gov. All countries are going to struggle with this until they work out how to resolve the issue.

That’s actually not the case. They are counted and included in the announcement of the results. Spoiled papers are an indication of voters’ dissatisfaction with all parties or candidates in their constituency.

votingcounts.org.uk/spoilt-ballot

Yes I read their manifesto and it promises a lot, but for the policy areas I know well through my profession, it is evident that their manifesto has very little expertise behind it. Most of their policies are unworkable in the real world and would cause unimaginable chaos and even more hardship for the general population. For example, just scrapping the retained EU laws in one go.

And there are some policies in there that would allow the wealthiest to be able to funnel huge taxpayer funded subsidies into their businesses. About the only thing I agree with it that we need to invest more in UK food production, for everyone’s benefit. But the rest of it is self-serving populist rubbish.

Remember that they can promise the world to the electorate when there is almost no chance they will be in power, and they will not be held to account.

This.
I was shocked when a friend I’d known for many years, made an anti-Semitic remark. Someone else had said that X person, nearby but not within earshot, was Jewish (there was a valid reason for saying it) and my very old friend said, ‘Ugh, Jewish’. Not loudly, but still….
I’d honestly had no idea.

People who hold morally repugnant views are never going to be capable of understanding why others find them so repulsive.

Fair enough.

Thanks @PoppyW1979 . I voted Brexit for very similar reasons to your Reform vote. I had watched the EC segue into the EEC and then the EU, without any consultation on what were great constitutional changes. I am a Clause 4 socialist and had listened to Tony Benn on the aims of the EC in 1975. He pointed out that it would impinge on parliamentary sovereignty. I believed him although (a naive 24 year old) could not see quite how it worked - I suppose I had an instinctive idea that the deal meant less agency for the UK. I voted No in 1975. My experience of the EU, and especially its treatment of union issues when they came into conflict with the right of establishment and the free movement of labour, alerted me to the idea that this was not an organisation that supported workers when their interests conflcted with those of capital, and I saw finally what I had instinctively apprehended in 1975: an neo-liberal cartel with crumbs for the majority whilst that remained cheap to do. So I voted Brexit (as did the majority of my family). On MN, whenever I say this I get a wedge of MNetters who assume I am a rightwing nut job, and totally ignorant of the benefits of EU membership and how the EU works. The only benefit I ever came across was having a shorter queue at immigration occasionally. Not one of my family have benefitted, even the 2 who voted Remain. I perceive the free movement of labour as a tactic to lower wages and also workers' rights across the EU and also as racist since it prioritizes white Europeans over other immigrants (a particular problem for the UK and its relations with the Commonwealth). A socialist has great difficulty engaging with the EU, which is neo-liberal in its outlook and pro-big business in its activities. It is notable that Brussels is very keen on identity politcs, which are divisive in nature.