To think Starmer has shot himself in the foot.

[TheQuickRobin]

This isn’t about my own opinion but political strategy.

So he does this Island of strangers thing wanting to appeal to Labour heartlands who have gone to Reform. But.

I just think Reform voters won’t believe him?

Tories hate him becaus he’s Labour.

Middle class Labour lefties will be put off by the message.

Who does he think he’s winning over?

Anyone on here had their opinion of him changed?

IABU - I thought he was a prat now I think he’s on my team

IANBU - EITHER I thought he was a prat, still think he’s a prat OR I liked him now think he’s a prat.

Very unscientific poll here!

My husband with multiple and severe disabilities but not 4 points in any one category of daily living PIP would say otherwise. There is more chance of our dog being able to hold down a job than him (and he has tried, many times, husband not dog) but luckily Starmer will soon cure his lifelong and degenerative disabilities!

As a lifelong Conservative voter, Starmer has actually won me over and I never thought in a million years I would ever vote Labour. But here we are!

i can’t stand Reform and would vote tactically to prevent them getting in at the next election, but would now vote voluntarily for Starmer if tactics not needed.

I suppose therein lies the rub for Labour; if they can win over centrist voters like me then they are probably alienating their traditional left wing voters.

Point taken.

The last government had open borders so that's not saying much.

Yes, I can see that it might win over traditional Tory voters who can't stomach the far right. I guess the question is, how many of those are there, and will they be enough?

The government needs to prioritise our Country’s interests at this time, we have children going without meals, pensioners not being able to keep warm in winter and disability payments that are going to be slashed so they wont be able to survive and crippling businesses etc. Our country is bucking under the strain of the Government taking off Peter to pay Paul, our taxes should be going into the U.K instead, our NHS, emergency services, Universities and unchecked people surging into our country getting all living expenses paid for before our country goes bankrupt. Any money left over obviously goes on foreign aid but if there isn’t anything left in the pot then we can’t provide for them.

I used to be a member of the Labour Party and I've voted for them every single time for 30 odd years.

This year was the first time I voted for another party. Strategic vote.

Before this polling day, I decided to never vote again and was planning on spoiling my paper because, in my eyes, they're all the same hypocritical, out for themselves arses. I feel that there is no real democracy. It's the wealthy v ordinary person and probably always has been.

The only time I will ever vote now is to vote strategically against Reform. It is absolutely terrifying that the far right is getting so many votes.

I would say the very lefty open borders types aren’t that numerous but terminally online so vocally conspicuous. Left wing parties really haven’t won many elections in the last 50 years, if ever, hence the drubbing Corbyn got. Do people really think 900k extra people entering the country every year is sustainable ?

It beggars belief that people still have their fingers in their ears over immigration. The country has destroyed itself.

Even with this new policy immigration will still be about 500k net (and ever increasing boat migrants of undocumented or unvetted young men ). That's a big city every year.

Every single election or referendum people vote for less immigration only to get more of it.

A massive betrayal has been carried out on the British people.

Foreign aid isn't altruistic, it's vital in terms of international relations. Removing even a tiny percentage of it not only causes death and disease globally but reduces our standing on the world stage. And we really don't need that right now, with Trump, Brexit and general global instability.

How come Cameron didn’t borrow to invest when rates were low ? Instead he plunged the country into austerity. If we’re blaming someone for the state of the country it’s him. Sadly some cannot brook any criticism of the Conservatives.

That’s going back a bit. If you are really pro Labour high borrowing costs won’t go down well but it doesn’t make them go away.

Because it was ideological. The previous Tory government wanted to get rid of the remnants of the post war settlement. One nation Conservatism went out of the window replaced by Thatcherite ideology. We could have been in the best economic situation ever in 2010 and they would have done the same. If the cuts then really were to raise money, we would have been better off voting in the London Zoo party which would have undoubtedly done a better job.

The biggest issue for voters in the general election was the cost of living, followed by healthcare, then the economy, then immigration at 4th. There's no doubt that immigration is a major concern for a high number of people, which Reform have played to their advantage. But if you look at the things Labour has tackled since coming to power, they pretty much prioritise these top four issues (and now security too).

Their PIP, pension and NI for employers policies have not been popular, but KS has always said he'd put country before party so I don't think I'm hugely surprised by his decisions - though as a Labour voter it hasn't sat comfortably with me at all. The government's SEN reforms will be the factor that I judge them on, at a personal impact level. Other than that, I'll wait until the end of their parliamentary term to see whether the country is in a better or worse state than when they were elected.

I think they’re panicking as polling is up to around 30% and that’s when FPTP starts to benefit Reform rather than do what it did at last GE.

You have a point though maybe the two main parties should sit it out instead of the cycle of blaming the last lot.

the number one issue isn’t the NHS, isn’t the housing crises, isn’t the war in Gaza or Ukraine, isn’t concerns with Trumps chaos,

Yet only nine months ago the two top issues were the NHS and cost of living with immigration third. What’s changed?

Honestly, I like KS more because of this and I’d never vote reform in a million years. I’m politically homeless. I voted Labour as a young woman in the new Labour days, voted Lib Dem in the coalition years and in 2015 in an attempt to keep them in the coalition. I voted Remain (what I really wanted was a future vote on further political integration and a level of reform of the UK system so that we actually used the rules available to us within the EU, which enabled us to send anyone workless home after 3 months, to reform our system to introduce contribution and residence elements for benefits, to ensure that we required appropriate qualifications for occupations where necessary in the same way other EU countries did to protect their own qualified people, and to stop benefits fraud that led to benefit monies being paid to Poland and Romania but no one offered me that option and I thought the status quo was ok if not amazing). I voted for Theresa May over Jeremy Corbyn (and I thought her “dementia tax” was and still is the fairest way to fund social care - no one else will touch this now), but spoiled my ballot rather than vote for Bojo (clearly unsuitable for power) or the alternatives (lib dems fully immersed in gender, wanting to rejoin the EU on any terms and saying they didn’t want a coalition with either party but wanted to win outright seemed to me to be a vote for total fantasy). I also spoiled my ballot last time around as I just didn’t feel like anyone had won my vote, the Lib Dems were still in fantasyland and a still a bit of a middle class protest vote that tells lots of people what they want to hear (yes, carers are great, publicity stunts are funny, but where are the hard choices?), Mr Davy’s explanation as to his stint as minister for the Post Office was pretty unconvincing to me and Labour wouldn’t win in my consituency anyway.

I feel as if I have always voted in a pretty centrist (sometimes centre left, sometimes centre right) way. I actually think that the liberal groupthink of the last 10-15 years has moved the centre ground and it has moved me to the right, rather than me moving much myself. I feel pretty disillusioned and frustrated.

I want a party who is capable of telling the truth and making hard choices. The “strangers” stuff isn’t really to my taste, but neither do I think it is full on Enoch Powell - there’s a truth in it, which is that we haven’t expected enough on integration and contribution within our immigration system and we’ve had open borders for the last couple of years despite people voting against it, so people are feeling as is there is a detriment and lack of cohesion to society which is what was meant.

Immigration is a series of hard choices and should be based on pragmatism and competence. I don’t think they should have made immigration harder for high earners and people making a strong contribution, but otherwise it’s a step in the right direction.

I don’t need my politicians to make me feel more virtuous and better about myself. I don’t care if they change their mind based on evidence. I need them to make a pragmatic decision as to what is best for our country in the long term and be competent running the country.

And yet we have anti semitic people alive and kicking in the Labour Party. It was open and rampant once upon a time in the party but now muted because clearly not tolerated as it used to be. Make no bones about it, there are many anti semitic people still thriving in Labour, it's just that they hide it well.

Farage has very successfully managed to pin the blame for everything on immigration. It may only be 3rd or even 4th priority for many, but high immigration does impact NHS and housing etc.

I think very few people disagree with the need for immigration reform. What many people including myself disagree with is how Starmer sold it. The rhetoric used is dangerous and places individual immigrants and those perceived to be immigrants in the firing line.

There was an opportunity to say Labour will rebalance the economy, reduce net migration, reactivate some of the economically inactive Brits to fill the gaps without the sensationalist Daily Express headline rhetoric. It sounded more like Trumps America than Britain.

This is not a road any of us should want to go down. How will he announce benefit reform? Will it be a big statement accusing benefit claimants of being a ‘drain’, call Britain an ‘island of scroungers’ and set them up for attack when its previous policy decisions not the individual benefit claimants responsible.

my point wasn’t the principle actually, it was his language more so. I don’t think anyone in this country is in favour of unbridled immigration, left or right.

Labour’s policies too have prompted the rise. The rhetoric and higher numbers crossing works well for Reform. The former now switched of course to island of strangers stuff.

Proof?

What happened to Smash the Gangs anyway, have they given up on that?