For not understanding why "populism" is seen as such a bad thing

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Is the point of democracy not to have popular support?

So tell me, what would make Brexit a success?

Starmer purged the left during his leadership. There's very little of the left left which is currently reflected in the Labour party and their policies.

@dotjones the increase in immigration from other areas is a lot to do with trade deals. Immigration visas is something we could offer that other countries wanted. Having slashed our trade opportunities with Brexit we had to flog what we had.

Look at the death penalty. It's always had popular support in this country, but no government will bring it back. I'm glad that we do have adults in charge who can legislate from the point of view of objectivity, legal competence etc instead of emotions like 'a length of rope costs a fiver, let me hang the fucker'.

I don't always agree with government policy of course, but there's a baseline of sanity.

Populism usually lacks nuance. It depends on emotions rather than facts. It ignores negative consequences on minority groups. It promises unicorns that are unobtainable.

Yes immigration is high. Yes it's causing problems with social cohesion.

But care agencies and other low paid industries are reliant on immigration because British people don't want to do those jobs and because we have an aging population and falling birth rate.

So you stop immigration because it's populist. But then who looks after your Gran? Or picks your crops?

Populism doesn't look at the consequences. It seeks simple solutions that inevitably cause more harm than good.

I agree, but wanting to reduce immigration shows a level of ignorance about how a modern economy works. Cue massive vacancies post-Brexit in health and social care. They didn't have a plan, and that was entirely obvious at the time. That's how populism works, it plays on ignorance.

I am not sure you understand what populism is. The idea that it's a movement to support the "common" people against the "elite" or the "establishment". And of course it can be right or left wing. The core premise is "it's us, the common people, fighting for justice against the big mean people in power who are doing everything to make life harder for us and who don't care about us."

The problem is that often with just a tiny bit of analysis and thought, the things that populist politicians are saying or that populism movements are agitating for are based on lies or massively biased views.

I could get behind the isea of "none of the above" as an option. The problem with voting for a party as a protest option comes if they get into power with no plan. Reform don't have a coherent plan.The other parties do, whether you agree with their plans or not.

That is what every political party does in every election campaign. Political advertising, like all advertising, appeals to emotions not rationality.

Populism is a slur used to try to control what is an acceptable narrative.

The slur is failing as the current elites aren't selling what people want, hence the repeated calls for banning certain parties with policies that don't fit the WEF/globalist agenda.

I think this is close to a good definition of populism: it is a smear used by the established political elite to tar any leaders, people and movements who oppose and want to dismantle this current elite system.

In this country, we basically have a two party system, with both parties operating within the structures of elite privilege. A populist is anyone who appeals to the general population with the aim of breaking this cosy set up.

Populism isn’t politicians representing or proposing what is popular, nor is it politicians proposing what most people want. Populism isn’t based on democracy.

Populism is a term that describes politicians/political parties who claim they speak for the people, who claim that they will act for the benefit of the common man/woman using terms like “I will fight for working people”. They generally present as anti-establishment even if/when the establishment does what they say they want done. Though when they get into power, they tend to become a fascist version of the establishment they claimed to abhor.

Part of populism is highlighting what people are concerned about and then making promises to fix it just to get votes. Even if you end up promising different groups conflicting things or promising things that are based on outright lies or completely impossible. There will always be voters that will vote out of hope that the claim they will act for their benefit is true even if the promises are an unrealisti dream sheet or will vote for them out of protest against other parties because they like the revolutionary, anti-establishment vibe and there will always be voters who vote based on the illusory promises because they’re ill equipped to see which promises are impossible or based on lies.

It’s not a smear, it’s a very real and dangerous type of politics fostered by the lack of ethics and truth in campaigning laws in this and other countries.

Because it's easy to be against something but more constructive to be for. It feels like the Tories for example don't quite know what they want to be. So they flounder around in a mess.

Well from the pov of the politicians that sold Brexit, it is a roaring success. Their net worth has ballooned massively.

Now they are out there with their sad faces pretending to empathise with the people & country they have literally robbed and trashed, claiming that Brexit wasn’t done right, or it was sabotaged by Remainers. Why anyone trusts any of these thieves is beyond me. They must have some sort of personal charm.

But my view is that ALL politics lacks ethics and truth.
So what differentiates populism from other political operations? It is that it deliberately uses the rift between the population and the "elite". This is of course extremely dangerous to the established order.

On the flip side how do you keep increasing the population?

It's a bit like a Ponzi scheme otherwise, always going up.

So why is that difficulty overlooked? It sounds like it meets the idea of populism to ignore that problem.

The difference between populism and policies that are popular is that populism is anti-political. So by definition it's designed to suggest one man (usually) or small group of people can solve all your problems. It's anti democratic and by definition leads to totalitarianism. It's dangerous. And in the short term, leads to all the other issues previous posters have pointed out

I mean this is a very broad question. I really don’t have time to launch into a politics lecture on all the “isms” of political tactics and movements and tell you how they differ from populism.

It’s not just a lack of ethics and truth that = populism. It’s one of many types of political approach that capitalises on a general lack of laws requiring ethical conduct and truth in political campaigns.

Sort of like your garden…the lack of ethics and truth is the soil within which many sorts of nasty harmful plants can grow.

I don't think anybody thinks immigrants are solely responsible for all our ills. That's obviously ridiculous. Don't we have enough migrants? If every NHS worker we bring I comes with 2 dependents, this is always going to be a losing battle.

Your post is how populism works: "I voted Reform with no idea what was in their manifesto. Why would it matter? Politicians renege on their word all the time. They weren't going to be in a position to implement it anyway."

It matters because if nobody thinks their voice matters - and nothing ever changes - despots take power and dismantle the democratic process leaving them free to do whatever they want. Even if that is overhaul the rule of law, commit genocide, create gulags or whatever else they choose.

If you don't think this is possible today, look at china and its imprisonment of Uighurs.

No, it isn't.

Look up the definition of populism.

Can also look at the USA today. Musk is in the middle of a full blown bloodless coup after funding a puppet (Trump) with hundreds of millions to win the election.

Musk has employees barricaded in OPM and the Treasury. He has control of all the country’s money and all federal employees.

Well exactly @LoremIpsumCici - but I have the feeling the OP might be MAGA adjacent so I wanted to give an example that really speaks to them.

Excellent point.