Reform winning big

[Keirawr]

Reform had a good night, winning county councils, probably will win a mayoral seat and won the parliamentary by election also.

You don’t have to be a Reform voter to acknowledge that they are taking votes off Labour. Or that they are being electorally effective.

No doubt the ‘basket of deplorables’ crowd will be along in a min with their usual quips calling reform voters names, having learned absolutely 0 from Brexit. Insult the voters at your peril.

These same people also totally miss the point that winning is winning. Feeling all moral and superior about ‘oh well, what will they actually do’ changes nothing.

Perhaps those who label everyone that wants immigration limiting as ‘racist’ Will think again. But likely not.

Exactly!

No but people need to stop throwing insults and trying to pretend this isn't happening it IS happening closing your eyes putting your fingers in your ears saying it's all AI is just dumb

It’s bigger than that. It’s the swings to Reform including Runcorn and generally Labour losing any lead they had.

@badwithnumbers , Perhaps we need to consider that the 20% or so of the electorate who decided not to vote are also expressing an opinion. Not all of them cba.

It isn't a race to the bottom.

I don't think generalising about any race or ethnicity benefits anyone you just sound racist

How can Reform become the party of working people ? And which working people ?
Insurance based health care will hit those of us not fortunate enough to be wealthy and who work.
Cuts to public services that are already decimated a la Musk. When people want change do you mean they just want Tory but more extreme ? Are you sure people want that ? No way are Reform the Labour Party of old.

Every time Farage wins any kind of victory my every day experience in this country worsens as I have to put up with ever more blatant displays and expressions of racist sentiment and supremacist behaviour. I am the child of immigrants and have been a British citizen my whole life, but people often assume that I have been "given" the home I worked my butt off to own, the car that I drive (and believe me people like me have to work our guts out in any given workplace to prove ourselves while watching many others get by on mediocrity). His ignorant rhetoric has a lot to answer for because for many people immigrant = black/brown.

All Farage ever talks about is immigration, which has been a vote winner for decades. I have never heard him come up with ideas any different to armchair politicians who fantasise about what they'd do if they ran the country.

Nobody talks about the traumatising fear experienced by people like me when Farage incited last years' race riots. It was terrifying to see those poor people who were directly in the line of fire as well as to wonder what would happen if the violence spilled over into an attack on the homes of people suspected of being asylum seekers.

Not a single party has made any attempt to educate people around the issue of immigration or asylum seekers so that we can have an intelligent discussion and make better choices. I think about the way in which Ukrainian refugees were treated and welcomed in comparison with other (browner/blacker) peoples.

I hate what people like Farage have done to politics in this country and around the world. And yes I do think that he has brainwashed people into following him. Just like Trump has in America. I never dreamed that I would ever one day be wishing/hoping for Tory victories, but that day has arrived. I think that if it came to it I would hold my nose and vote Tory if it meant keeping Farage out of office.

And yes I know that there are brown and black people who follow Farage, but that doesn't mean the party isn't fundamentally racist.

I won't be responding to any replies to this post.

Agree 👏

I’m not generalising and saying everyone of a race or religion does that I’m saying large numbers of the ones I have observed in my town have done those things

The conservative party is on it's arse, that's true. But Reform are taking votes from Labour, as we have just seen in Runcorn and Helsby. Labour won that seat in the GE with a majority of 14700 votes. Reform came second with just over 7000 votes. It yesterday's by election, Reform won by taking votes from Labour.

@Kreepture

"No-one with a functioning brain or iota of intelligence should be touching that party with a barge pole."

Hmm so your solution to stop the rise. In support for Reform is to call their voters thick or an "iota of intelligence ".

Alternatively you could try the "democratic" Romanian approach and annul election results or the French approach and seek to prosecute Farage.

Instead how about looking at the reasons why people voted for Reform and addressing them.

Reform don't want legal immigrants either. If they were in power, your Reform voting immigrant friends and your XH wouldn't be welcome in the UK.

If you are educated, surely you understand the history of fascism and what starts with the demonisation of certain races/religion, never ends with that.

You can’t really complain when you use the exact same tactic yourself. It is your party be proud of the gains they made but your first post is just unpleasant. The winner should be able to shake hands you’re just cussing the people that didn’t vote for your party.
For his old mouth and no trousers, his views of the NHS will never make him a prime minister. Nevertheless, it’s an impressive achievement to wake up call for the other parties

Generally correct. Though not quite, as it’s a two-tier system.

• All destitute people awaiting an asylum decision are entitled to accommodation. It’s unlawful for them to work or claim benefits, so otherwise how would they accommodate themselves? They’d be destitute on the street, unable to buy food.

• Not all British people (and foreign nationals with leave to remain in UK) are entitled to accommodation. Only those with ‘priority need’ as you say (e.g. with kids or vulnerable). This is inhumane. They should be.

To end homelessness we need homes people can afford: council housing. We’re still selling it off.

Tories are screwed. Let’s be honest. If Kemi goes, they’ll go further right and end up with busted flush and corrupt Jenrick.
Labour have still got 4 years and are starting to act on immigration. Reform have got time to fuck things up big style. Tories, everyone hates them.

Immigration is just a tried-and-tested distraction used by 'politicians' so they can stuff their pockets and those of their mates without being noticed.
You know democracy's dead when you look at your ballot paper and realise it's effectively just a gofundme for the candidates' donors and a choice of how you'd like to be screwed over.

Look them up

I don't and never will support Reform and the odious Farage but i think many people voted for them as a protest vote.

• Labour betrayed the people who voted for them (I always voted Labour but never will again) with targeting pensioners, disabled people and small businesses instead of big corporations/the wealthiest and failed to do anything about our outrageous utility costs, sewage and illegal immigration
• The conservatives created a giant mess when they were in power and their new leader is equally useless.

So people are fed up with the endless cost of living crisis and the fact that nothing ever changes under the leadership of the main political parties so they get tempted by fringe, snake oil sellers like Reform.

Are Labour starting to act on immigration? No visible results so far.

We learnt 0 from Brexit? Well the one thing we did learn from Brexit is that people can quite happily vote against their own interests after hearing a load of whining spin from the likes of UKIP and Reform. No change there.

I think the main difference is that Bojo had a track record of being a self serving liar. So they all knew what they were getting. By their own admission, the Conservative party backed him as they thought he would win, and not because he was the best candidate.

Farage's supporters seem to actually think he is good and talks sense, despite the evidence of Brexshit. It is all populist sound bites, with no substance, and the electorate are falling for it.

I disagree that they have no policies, they do. What they are lacking is the detail of how they will achieve those policies. Stop the boats is a great tag line, but how will they do it? Starmer is finding this out with his 'smash the gangs' tag line.

Richard Tice was interviewed recently, and was asked what the first thing he'd do if Reform won a general election. "I'd get rid of quangos" was the response.
"Which ones?"
"There are hundreds of them."
"Yes, but which ones would you start with?"
And he couldn't answer. There is no depth to any of it.

As an aside, and IMHO, the best way to control immigration is to create a channel for people to apply for it before they reach UK soil. Currently there is no such option. I would also educate the electorate into the differences between economic migrants, asylum seekers, and illegal migrants as many don't seem to know, or that asylum seekers have their status reviewed every 5 years to see whether their asylum status is still valid. Etc.

I can totally understand why people are so utterly fed up with the main political parties.

I voted labour at the GE and felt relieved when they won, thinking "finally, a change from 14 years of conservatives" and have been bitterly disappointed. And I understand they can't just change over ten years of shite in a matter of months, but still. Some of their decisions and narratives they are pushing is just Conservative policy on red paper instead of blue. It is not what I voted for.

I also voted remain, but I accepted the result. And I understand a big part of why Leave was successful was down to Remain hardly bothering to campaign effectively.

With all that being said, I still wouldn't vote reform if old Nige drove a truck of cash up to my door. I disagree with them so fundamentally it gives me headaches when I read about their "policies".

They want to sell off the NHS to America yet say they are "for the people". They want us to accept chlorinated chicken, from America yet sat they support UK farmers. They have close links to far right "Christian" groups, from America. They want "discussions" on abortions.

They've got bloody Liz Truss on board FFS, you know, the one who crashed our economy in literally days with her big master plan...

I also don't think it's a coincidence that he made his bs statement about children with Sen/autism right when his mates in America have been pushing the narrative of it needing to be "cured" (eliminated) and children going on to a register and setting up "farms" for them -this is not tin foil hat stuff, this all things they're openly discussing.

Do people really look at America with their economy, the people struggling, the lack of rights and think Yeah, give me some of that?! Do they really think Reform care about people struggling and not about lining their pockets just as the other main parties? Are there really no concerns about how they talk about entire groups of people like they are nothing?

I get being pissed off and wanting change, I really do. And I don't think people should be written off for being angry or worried. I truly believe that is why Trump got such a following. People were desperate and felt unheard. But I just cannot get my head around how people can listen to the things Reform are saying, look at who they are aligning with and think they care about people or will make things better?

And when I ask Reform voters about these things, they NEVER answer. It's just insults, "sick of the woke brigade" or cries of "all the others lie" and yes "immigrants" - but never anything to back up how they will actually improve things.

What are they doing on that, the smash the gangs pledge?

Look it up. They’ve done more than the Tories did in 14 years.