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.

Not us per se, but other families where 1 parent is at home or wants to be would be better off with married tax allowance being further increased or child benefit adjusted. I know many who have manual, working class jobs who can just about have Mum at home. They can’t compete with families both taking home more money and using free childcare. Some really are suffering financially to do this because it matters to them. The main parties want to price people out of this valid choice for sure.

Trump swore an oath that he would, “to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”. He has actually torn it up into little pieces and shat all over it. I don’t understand how so many so called patriotic Americans are worshipping at his feet for doing this.

Taxes have to go up short term to pay for things like schools, the NHS, social service, care of the older generation- because these services have been cut to breaking point.

Winter fuel allowance has been stopped at a certain income point , arguably the wrong point, but the poorest pensioners get it.

You can’t just evict people to make room for others - in fact this government is making it harder to evict people.

’illegals’ aren’t housed - they have no recourse to public funds and are not allowed to access social housing.

Grooming gangs ( or the criminal sexual exploitation of children) is subject to enquiry and a huge issue for those of us working with young people - but it’s not directly an immigration issue.

Asylum seekers who have been granted asylum might be housed but not always

Oh and also, my DH pays tax and would prefer more of his money to go to me, his wife, rather than random childcare settings he has zero interest in our kids using 👌🏻

The huge bills we have are fuck all to do with immagration and a lot to do with the horrendous cost of caring for the population / the nhs, social care , sen , education

and a huge percentage of that is self inflicted - the diabetes bill from people unable to eat sensibly because it’s hard , people who end up having heart attacks and strokes because exercise is too hard, people who don’t raise their kids well so schools struggle with basic disciple never mind having time to teach kids

we are a lazy selfish bunch as a whole that is driving costs we can’t afford so we blame it on the one group of people who are actually putting more in that they take out as a whole

it’s a car crash on slow motion
iys the collapse of rome all over again
surely brexit showed you that “just stop immagration “ isn’t as easy or as sensible as sone make out

because if it would work so painlessly they would do it . They are keeping immagration open on purpose and it isn’t to drive up house prices

whixh are driven by inheritance but you would not want that taxed when you might lose a few hundred k as a result
eveb though hat would make you rich and you want to target all the rich except yourself ?

@bluesinthenight I wanted to reply and say I hear you and I am sorry. This country is sleepwalking into a horrific place. I recently thought the same re: voting Tory but worry that they will turn into a designer Reform. I am worried for this country. x

In what way? You’ve insulted people in pp

Or a WhatsApp group of Labour MPs threatening to undermine the Supreme Court judgement. The whole TRA movement is deeply unpopular in the country but they hang on to it like a dog refusing to let go of a bone.

Well that’s nice for your parents and Labour that this repeated on here. It isn’t the case for all who feel the impact from policies.

Table of polls here - those actively wanting to rejoin are mostly under 50% of the sample. The most recent poll has Rejoin 45%, Stay Out 38%, Neither 17%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_re-accession_of_the_United_Kingdom_to_the_European_Union

But why should you get a tax allowance just because you're married!
Why should I have to pay extra tax to pay for a lifestyle you've chosen? You weren't forced to be married and have children so why get tax benefits for that? When your lifestyle choice is putting more pressure on the benefits system with child benefit payments, more pressure on the NHS drs appointments etc and more pressure on the government with needing to provide school places etc?
Families with children take more government money so why get a tax break as well?

Labour and the Tories will reap what they've sown. This is just the beginning thankfully.

Well I don't really see as not allowing women a choice in the other direction is really much better? And that's the current situation for all but the most well off.

Of course we're not allowed to talk about this just as we're not allowed to talk about some nurseries are great but others are staffed with min wage workers with huge turnover (one I visited the longest serving staff member was one year) so the children do not have continuity of care (known to be important in child development) and we're not allowed to talk about how this might be fuelling the documented increase in child mental health problems.

You'll find there are lots of women doing shitty, unrewarding jobs when they'd far rather stay at home with their kids which would probably improve child mental health and resilience as well as well as the wellbeing of their mothers (same is true of fathers too but obviously there's not the concern they'll be 'forced' to stay home).

The superior liberals always posit it as there being all these lovely career jobs out there. Yet we need cleaners, shelf stackers, care assistants, there are hundreds of call centre jobs and I've yet to find a woman who enjoys this work. Many people do not find these jobs fulfilling vocational jobs in any way, yet they fuel the economy. They do them to earn money and so they can have a life outside of work. And many would rather the money that currently goes to allowing them to return to work when their children are small go to them staying at home.

It seems as anti-feminist to force women to do work they don't love when they want to raise their children as to force them to stay at home. For many people being a SAHP may be the best job of their life. If you don't accept this, then who's narrow minded?

Of course there is classic classism at play. For middle-class women who've had the benefit of an education and a nice job they love they can't see those who don't have this option, or don't see them as human, perhaps.

Yep - they just can't help themselves.

Ah yes - the I want them to pay me to live the way I want and I don’t want my taxes to be used to support people who are not as well off as I am because single mothers will really benefit from marriage tax allowances

So, my uncle joined reform and he ain't the brightest tool in the box and neither is my aunt.

Yes I know but it is because ultimately they don't want both parents not working. Policies since the 90s has been to encourage women back into the work force due to the aging population and the need for more contributors. I really don't know how Reform are going to pay for all of this, no one seems to be testing all these idyllic promises, where is the money coming from?

I pay tax - and as a single parent, childcare provision meant I could continue to do so.

Great, so you vote for what reflects/benefits your family. I will continue to do the same 👌🏻

She was trying to correct me and it went wrong and made no sense. She proved me right.

Thank you for sharing your reasoning. I do think it could be a bit shortsighted though as when you think further ahead about what kind of country do you want your children to grow up in, will there be an NHS to treat you & them etc..

I was a SAHM too when my DC were little so I do understand it’s expensive years (although we benefitted from child trust funds, universal health in pregnancy grants & fully funded free activities in children’s centres under the last Labour government.) If women do choose to stop working there are longer term implications for them, for example, losing out on occupational pension & career progression. So Reform could exacerbate that problem with this policy. I know retirement feels a long way off when you are in the baby years but 20 years on you suddenly realise you want a comfortable retirement!

So you’ve just completely agreed with my opinion on the dominant view of the major parties towards SAHPs, thank you. I have every right to exercise my democratic right to vote in a way that fully expresses my strong disagreement with them.

As a brown person I feel slightly nauseas this morning. What I see is politics moving to the right, with race based politics at the centre of this move. I am fearful that we could see Reform in power or as part of a coalition government. In my view this would be disastrous for our economy and for civil liberties.

Fab - then your husband’s taxes can pay for me to stay home - they’ll go up though because women will stop paying them - which is nice

You see I do wonder when people say the multicultural "experiment" has failed. I live in an extremely diverse, but fairly well to do, neighbourhood. There are people of all races and faiths here. You know what? We get along very well. I've been here 14 years and never seen any tensions or issues between communities. Various groups respect each other. We have Muslims and Hindus coming to Christmas parties and Christians going to EID and Diwali celebrations. We have many community events and people mix.
My children (who are mixed race/mix faith themselves) go to a school where almost 70% of children are from ethnic minorities. I don't see any problem with this. I see it as a positive. My children have friends who are Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, black, white and brown. I love the fact they're being exposed to so many different cultures. Most importantly they're learning to judge people as individuals rather than making blanket statements about Muslims or any other groups.
I'm not denying issues exist but whenever I see these issues I see them in deprived neighbourhoods. I see them as issues of inequality more than anything. Areas where people are struggling, where there are high crime rates.
For those who feel multiculturalism has failed I wonder just how different their lives would be if immigrants disappeared. I don't believe their problems would disappear. Not at all.