Reform UK neck and neck with Labour?

[NeatDog]

Absolutely shocked to read that in a poll Reform UK are neck and neck with Labour...

About 25% polling share for Reform and Labour.

I thought Blair was the worst PM ever, but Starmer seems to be giving him a run for his money.

Reform isn't a political party though, is it? It's a limited company, deliberately to circumvent the laws governing political parties.

Is that still the case?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6q0j8pdj4o

From the information you've told me, my best guess would be that the cigarettes are purchased with either the £45/week allowance, or money from their own country or money gifted to them by family/friends. I'm presuming they're not doing any black market work if they're standing outside the hotel all day.

Where do you think the cigarettes come from?

I see Labour are increasingly likely to pull the trigger on reducing the disability welfare bill in the wake of higher borrowing costs, to be announced in the spring. It seems that the work initiated by the Tories to kick the tyres of mental health applications has remained in full swing under Labour governance.

I'm sure the Tories will be happy to see this brought home and it will be hardly surprising for anyone who is aware of Reeves' long standing unhappiness around the scale of disability payments.

No doubt we'll see the Labour faithful up and down MN telling us all of the people who they know who have been collecting disability while swinging the lead, the same way they delivered on the narrative that the pensioners they knew were blowing their wfa on bollocks and tat in defense of the party but I don't think that your average Labour voter will have seen this coming down the pipeline - certainly not after being told that it was the Tories who were the nasty party, out to make their lives harder.

Reform doesn't even have to say a thing, Labour being increasingly unpopular will be the only lever that they need to tip the balance again.

Asylum seekers only get the higher allowance if the accommodation does not provide food, otherwise its around £8 per week.

As people cannot be deported before any decision made, if we gave them nothing and no accommodation, we'd all be complaining they are living on the streets, committing crime and begging.

Whats wrong with making sure anyone claiming any benefit is entitled to it?

Its hardly going to be an unpopular policy? as for the Tories, the welfare bill tripled under their tenure, they had no clue or plan to reduce it or they would have done, they had 14 years.

Some people are never happy, just moan.

I'm not moaning, I agree with it. You are deluding yourself if people who loaned the Labour party a vote in the last g.e. thought they were voting for this Tory policy.

Yet did their level best to prevent them doing anything about it!

At least Germany gets to feast on our groundwork.

You re assuming all Labour voters are disabled and falsely claiming?

It was never a Tory policy, as i said, they had years to crack down on fraud of all types, across tax and benefits and did nothing.

The Tories had an 80 seat majority, they didn't need Labour support, let alone their votes.

The Tories didn't do anything about migration, in fact they increased it to 900k per year.

Thats a city 3x the size of Plymouth, needed in the UK each year.

Yes, this is a Tory policy, announced by Hunt, it would have kicked in in 2025. It has a glossy new, 'get britain back to work', wrapper but it is essentially the same. The Guardian called it performative cruelty.

Well, we can just all sit back and watch the slow car crash. I guess it takes some people to see what's in front of them.

It’s not that they’re different. It’s that some of them hate our culture. I don’t want those people here and the ones that are here can leave. That’s why reform gets votes.

True. I notice each time numbers go up there’s a new attempted headline

Ultimately it won’t work and will still cause him issues and this rise in Reform we’re seeing

Banning? Hilarious.

So he announced something he knew the Tories would never implement, being so far behind in the polls..... so it was never a policy, he had many years to actually do this but didn't.
Hunts plan was actually more about getting the early retired/older but unemployed worker back to work, one aspect was to reform life time pension allowances.

Now Labour are going to try and address our out of control benefits bill but thats now a "Car Crash"

Like i said, moan moan moan....

The problem is that years ago people didn't get the level of benefits that are available today. What are the British people who don't want these jobs doing. If they are at home on benefits then that's wrong. It's ridiculous to fill these low paid jobs with immigrants because they also will then need help with housing benefit, council tax etc and they won't be paying much in the way of tax and NI.

It is completely wrong for someone to be able to work 16 hours a week and get top up benefits yet if they increased their hours they would be worse off. No wonder this country is in such a mess.

I always thought that 16 hours a week cut off was insane. My friend wanted to work longer hours because the kids were in school but couldn't.

I see there's a mass resignation of councillors from Reform today. Didn't read the full story but apparently they're unhappy about the undemocratic way the party is run. It's a limited company like the Brexit party. But surely they knew that when they joined? Farage and Tice can't be voted out since they own the 'party'.
Musk wants Ben Habib as leader and these guys from Derbyshire agree. Then again Musk Snr thinks Tommy Robinson will be Prime Minister. Such exciting times. No doubt some final decision will be reached on Britain's future over in Mar a Lago.

Yes it is still the case - Zia Yusuf has said this week that changes will happen in ‘weeks’…again. So, we can wait and see with that one. It’s not looking good for Farage this morning (the odious cretin isn’t quite offensive/right-wing enough) so what happens - does he sell the Reform out to the highest bidder? I can’t see Farage sticking about, doing the hard-graft, expect he’ll be happy to cash in. The members certainly can’t remove him. So, what are Reform supporters getting with the £25 they’ve paid? Is it just the validation and normalisation of irrational, hate-filled views on immigration by their leaders on the pre-text of ‘free speech’?

Things will not end well for Reform and that’s no surprise when you form a party based on hate alone and entice angry people fed a diet of GBeebies and daily outrage on X.

people will do the jobs if they are paid properly and are treated with respect

I agree with this and I agree it is a left wing view.

Big business has always loved immigration because it enables greater profits. There is an awkward economic case to be made for allowing immigration to drive wages down in some public sector jobs, such as the NHS, where access to cheap healthcare might outweigh wage stagnation. For example, the additional £17bn pledged by Reform to the NHS would be swallowed up quickly without cheap foreign care workers.

However, as Farage's aim is to move the NHS to a "French-style insurance-based health model" perhaps the additional funds required will not be an issue.

I'll admit that I'm surprised so many Reform voters are happy to pay for 20-30% of their NHS treatment given the absolute outcry on social media when pensioners lost their £200-300 winter fuel allowance.

I wonder what the reaction would be if Labour or the Conservatives proposed people self-funded 20-30% of their NHS treatment?

Here's how much the French (including pensioners) pay for GP appointments and health insurance. It's a lot more than the winter fuel allowance: https://www.connexionfrance.com/news/health-insurance-in-france-what-you-should-expect-to-pay-per-age/652833

Like i said, moan moan moan....

Respectfully, if what Labour do about reducing benefit claims had been done, or were even planned, by the Tories, the left would be circulating bloodcurdling doom warnings from left-wing think tanks published in the Guardian.

As a Tory, I hope that undeserved benefits are reduced, and benefits generally are made less generous where employment is possible, just as I support the removal of WFA.

But I get increasingly depressed about the dishonesty and inconsistency of all political parties and their supporters.

The Starmer threads are an object lesson in one-eyed, unthinking cheerleading for this government - a government that is very obviously just as bad and incompetent as what it replaced. It baffles me that people get anything from discussion that’s clearly worthless for being so partial that it bears no relationship with reality.

At the moment the NHS isn't really working. We've all seen the reports of waiting times at A & E departments. Same with waiting weeks to get a GP appointment.

We all know that mass immigration puts pressure on the NHS.

How much pressure do the annual 35,000 asylum seekers put on the NHS?

The country badly needs an honest discussion on immigration. There are loads of benefits from immigration, but there are also lots of disadvantages.

I agree. I think eventually we will have to go to a French based insurance system, but Reform are disingenuous when they say this but don't mention that everyone, including pensioners will have to pay into it, out of their pensions. No free appointments or prescriptions. I wonder how many of their supporters have read all their policies. Not just the one about net migration?
As an aside how are France allowed to get away with different levels of insurance based on sex? Presumably it's about giving birth, but we can't charge differently on car insurance anymore, and women don't get pregnant by themselves!

Yes, it’s ironic isn’t, that the very people who championed Brexit and all its glorious freedoms (haha - you know like us costing billions), seem to be pandering to unelected puppet-masters in the US. It’s obvious that Musk will favour anyone who agrees with him, but turn on them immediately at the slightest change in opinion. Weird really, given his values of free speech.

I’m not sure they thought to care that it is an undemocratic party. I have seen a few people trying to claim back their £25 and complaining there is no process to do that, so maybe that is when the penny drops.

Having tried to calmly engage with Reform voters on X this week (I know, what a fool) and explain that this week’s vote was FOR a an essential children’s bill and not against a public inquiry, I’ve come to the realisation that they mostly don’t want to know the truth or facts on things.

@HappyPanda613 How do you propose we do this? Are you buying land on the moon? How much do you put in for the taxes pot? Why are you so happy panda about other people hard earnings? I bet you are either a young teen idealist or one of those who never worked and live on benefits and want to extend your rights to any one feeling they deserve them too when they arrive to the UK