To be really worried about Reform?

[FiveHorse]

Just that really. They’re predicted to gain the most from the upcoming elections, if this carries on could we see a reform government at the next general elections? Or is it press scaremongering as usual?

Bit light on detail, but basically keep the foreigners and benefit claimants at the back of the queue.

Ideally, I am in favour of a global handling of migration and asylum. It should be global organisations such as the UN or the EU coordinating this rather than nations.

Everyone should have the right up sticks and move if they don't like their country, if they are persecuted, there is a war or natural catastrophe, to improve their prospects etc.

The current system makes it so that who wants to apply for asylum somewhere need to "pick" a country in the world and stick to it. It is actually not fair because the rules and outcomes are so different country to country.

I think of another system where people who want to leave their country for whatever reason and cannot do so through other legal channels, can ask the help of an international institution to be resettled somewhere else, in a decent place where they can build a future. And they can apply from where they are, no need to cross countries illegally and dangerously to start the procedure.

And I am sorry to say, places like Rwanda have something the UK cannot offer anymore: a booming economy. Their growth rate was 8.9% last year, the UK 0.3%.

I have lived in such places, it's booming, it's easy to find work, start your thing, find investment, clients, there are opportunities. Everything needs to be done over there, basic education and hard work can suffice to really build a good life for oneself, there is really space for growth and prosperity for everyone.

The UK is much richer but it simply cannot offer the same opportunity anymore. It is a post-industrial economy that doesn't need low-skilled people, except for menial jobs, unstable poorly paid, no possibility of social progression, super high cost of living.

But I still need to listen that immigration is a huge issue for people and make sure the party I support has that on thier radar

There is some research that reveals the people most concerned about immigration live in areas where there are few immigrants.

I'm working class.

There is difference between being concerned about immigration (I think most people are in some way) and blaming immigration for everything.

Can't see a GP, immigrant's fault (Farage)
Can't get a council house, immigrants skipping queues (Anderson)

Farage and Tice aren't

I don't want to get my hopes up, but this is slightly encouraging:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/apr/30/tactical-voting-to-stop-reform-may-hamper-farage-in-local-elections

Labour won’t be able to tackle the issue with current policies so it’s preferable to either get it off the topic list, which is increasingly impossible, or accuse / demonise those who do want to talk about it.

It just skews politics more. In the U.K. and EU there’s the requirement to do something bigger than a country with its own court system, laws and policies.

That’s why Aus and now US made changes earlier, but it’ll take outlier parties in EU and U.K.

So Reform want to prioritise people already here, and working.

Just British ones

They lie about Foreign Nationals jumping queue

Many benefit claimants are working or cannot work due to disability. Why do you want a two tier society?

What's wrong with prioritising people already here and working?

Many foreign nationals are already here, working and paying into the system and how will you define 'British' workers?

Even If you don't care about housing "foreigners" and refugees and the feckless unemployed, where will unemployed disabled people be housed?

Also Reform gives little detail on how it will build all this new social housing for local working people. Oh, that is because it has no plans to do so.

The sheer audacity !!

The majority of the elections today are about electing local councillors.

No doubt there will be lots of excitement tomorrow as Reform candidates will get elected. Whether in sufficient number to run any of these Councils - either with an absolute majority or as largest party supported by others - remains to be seen.

however harsh reality is going to hit home pretty quickly.

if they are in charge - SEND deficit to deal with. The government has allowed Councils to keep these off balance sheets, but that override is currently due to end in March 2026. Adding to balancing budget - a legal requirement for Council - challenges.

they’ll suddenly discover that whilst they’d like to fix all the potholes there is no money to do that - with all the statutory demands.

Disillusionment will soon set in. I predict a raft of resignations and ward by-elections over the next 12-24 months.

and probably even quicker for those who find themselves in opposition at their Council. Slog of being a ward cllr will soon lose its lustre.

I really hope Reform takes over an entire council. Let them put their money where their mouths are. It will be very entertaining for everyone other than the people living there.

Lots of the people "here and working" will be "foreigners". But they will be at the back of the queue.

What do you think Reform means by "foreigners"? It is a bit of a wooly term.

This is a thread about being worried about Reform, not ‘other people’s concerns’. Loads of threads are started worrying about things other parties do or say, but when someone questions Reform at all there’s a whole load of outrage from some posters about being silenced or people questioning their right to vote or nonsense about open borders.

Immigration as a political topic, yes. Immigration as the only topic, not so much. It’s all that’s been said by Reform supporters on here, and then no practical solutions. Plus these are local elections - immigration isn’t likely to be something local councillors can do anything about whatever their party.

Tony Blair actually built fewer council houses during his entire tenure than Fatcher did in one year.

So it's not just the Tories to blame for our current housing predicament.

Successive governments have failed to build enough houses for the population, or make housing affordable for everyone. I'm not expecting the current government to do any different, but the jury is of course out on this.

If there was/is something that people should be really worried about then it should be stuff like this.

Absolutely.

Yet here on this thread you have people welcoming the rhetoric from Farage about "foreigners" being put at the back of the queue for social housing, the inference being that they are the cause of the shortage of social holding. They also wilfully ignore the fact that Reform has no other policies on social housing.

I’m sure people are aware it’s local elections. And some mayoral too. If they do well it will still influence politics generally, even more than they have done so far.

I don’t know much about UK politics so probably shouldn’t be commenting but it appears to me that underneath the veil of the anti-immigrant voting public is a sense of identity and nationalism and a dilution of that by ‘foreigners’ which people find upsetting. Instead of just owning up to this (like a child who doesn’t want to live in a blended family with other kids and adults thrown together) and saying it like it is they need to pin their concerns on ‘facts’ like housing and NHS queues and assign blame.
I live in a country where identity, race and culture are a political commodity and there are no bones about the hatred they have for each other based on these differences. The Brit’s just seem too polite and politically correct to admit it. Call it racism, call it right wing but people have a deep seated sense of nationalism and find integrating a bitter pill to swallow. I myself come from a mixed nationality (not race) family and we often come to blows with my mother who was born in one country, birth registered in another to foreign parents and UK nationalised citizen by virtue of marriage to my father about how she views herself as she can be so anti-immigrant when she is a migrant in more than one way.
it’s a very complex issue and there is so much emotive political narrative around it that it becomes hard to sift fact from fiction.

Plenty of other civilised countries cope without being in the ECHR. I'd say being unable to deport criminals because their kid only likes a specific type of chicken nugget or, the latest travesty, is 'afraid to catch Covid' is deeply unpleasant and divisive.