AIBU to be utterly baffled at how many people are falling for Reform after the Brexit mess?

[TheCoralShaker]

I’m not into any political party or ideology – honestly, they all seem like varying shades of grifters to me – but I just can't believe how many people are jumping on the Reform bandwagon like it's some magic fix.

After everything that happened with Brexit – the lies, the infighting, the broken promises, the economic fallout we’re still wading through – how are people still falling for this kind of simplistic, shouty politics? The "common sense" soundbites, the "tell it like it is" nonsense, the constant scapegoating of whatever group is most convenient that week... it's all so transparent.

I'm not saying any of the main parties are perfect (far from it), but Reform seems to be just a bunch of media-savvy populists spouting whatever will get the loudest headlines. What’s worrying is how many people lap it up without even questioning what’s actually being proposed, or whether it’s remotely feasible.

Where are the critical thinking skills? Why are people so easily seduced by these pantomime figures who tap into anger and offer no real substance? It’s like the more outrageous someone is, the more they’re celebrated, and never mind whether any of it makes sense.

I get that people are frustrated, disillusioned, sick of the status quo, so am I. But falling for another bunch of opportunists who thrive on division and offer nothing beyond slogans seems like doubling down on the same mistake.

AIBU to think that we should have learned by now? Or is this just how politics is going to be from now on, performative outrage and no actual plan?

😂😂😂 oh where to start with this?

True, but somehow the penny never drops.

Labour are done in Wales but I think the vote will be split between Plaid and Reform. I honestly don’t see Labour or Conservatives doing well when we vote next and the First Minister knows it. They’ve had a good run of over 25 years so a change is well overdue.

Labour’s policies cause that shift. It was inevitable after the GE.

Labour leading to Reform isn’t a surprising trajectory. Not definite but on track.

It's the appeal of the simple solutions to complex problems.

Vote for Brexit and we'll all be living in the sunny uplands.
Reduce immigration and all of your problems will melt away.

Of course, none of these "solutions" will actually make people's lives any better, but they want to believe it so they do.

They will, of course, be bitterly disappointed when they realise that the "solutions" have failed to deliver. The danger, at that point, is that they will increasingly turn further and further towards extreme options.

Worrying times.

It is a sign of how pissed off people are with the 2 so-called "major" parties.

For years it was the anti-Tory vote that was fragmented. Now it seems the Tories are getting the same treatment.

Perhaps Tory and/or Labour will now come to the conclusion that PR in place of FPTP actually IS in their best interests.

Isn't there a thing in phycology that if you fall for a con, you are more likely, not less likely, to fall for another con? I think online scammers have 'suckers' lists of people they've conned money out of before as people to target again. Maybe it's something like that?

That’s absolute rubbish. What do you think caused the worst Tory defeat in the party’s history? The Tories are done so their supporters are looking elsewhere. The total right wing vote isn’t increasing, it’s just moved to a different place. It’s not left wing voters who are joining Reform’s ranks.

How can people gloss over the mess Tories made?! it's mind blowing

Sucker list - Wikipedia

I would never vote Reform but I fell for a Labour!

That’s not true in my area. It’s the Labour voters that are switching to Reform, Labour has never lost its seat here and always win by a landslide but in the last election Reform came second and Labour had lost a huge amount of votes. I don’t think it’s as simple as the voters that previously voted Conservative switching to Reform because Conservatives have always come either last or last but one to the Green Party here.

Of course voting is linked to who is in power and how those policies are perceived.

Reform is a reaction to that. Labour had a low vote share and that makes a lot of people not supporters already never mind those they are actively alienating. They are pissed off and Reform is there to take those votes.

ETA if Labour stayed at GE polling level they’d be fine so they are losing support early on.

@BIossomtoes Do you think Labour still have solid support to the traditional Labour voting northern towns? I don't.

Yes! It's exactly this - recovery fraud, I think it's called.

"Hello, this is PC Farage from the fraud section at the local police station. I hear you've been the victim of a scam? If you could just please stay on the line, and have your card details and passwords ready to give me, we should be able to recoup your money..."

They’re people like you who are pissed off we have a Labour government at all. They were pissed off on 5 July. Once again, because you seem to really be having trouble understanding this, people moving to Reform aren’t those who would ever vote Labour, disillusioned Labour voters are looking to alternatives like the Greens or Libdems.

No but they lost those in 2019 when they all voted Tory.

The point is they are looking at “evidence” presented to them within their social media echo chamber and being told that the “mainstream media” from which you and I might take our “evidence” is lying due to <reasons>

And I agree with PP saying sneering and being rude about those with different political outlooks is not helpful. The fact is that millions of people voted for reform in national and local elections. Many thousands have Reform led local authorities (the bodies that arguably most impact our daily lives). Let’s see how that pans out over the next couple of years.

We don't do enough talking to different people in this country. Middle class people really struggle to understand why bullshitters like Farage/Trump are popular but if you talk to those who do support them, it is because they don't feel represented by anyone else.

They hold views that middle class people find a bit uncomfortable. They see their local areas changing in ways they don't like and they are poorer than they've probably ever been and they see a whole load of issues like Trans rights, BLM that are disproportionately covered in the news because it serves the right wing agenda to whip up hatred and they buy into it all.

Unless the mainstream politicians accept that there are huge swathes of our society who are really pissed off and find ways of appealing to them and having a dialogue with them, then Farage and his goons will fill that gap, by whipping up division and saying any old shit to get themselves more power.

So who do you think they will vote for now? Do you think Reform or Labour will get their vote?

Obviously not as they wouldn’t have lost so much support since the GE. The poll for them would be static. It’s dropped markedly.

It’s not just conservative areas going to Reform. Scotland a big swing, the by election by 14k and Wales.

I know you feel the same amount of people like Starmer and co as much you do since the GE. It’s not the case.

Nigel Farage is the same sort of upper class, privately educated politician as Oswald Moseley in the 1930s. They exploit the politics of grievance and convince working class voters that their quality of life is poor because of foreigners, ethnic minorities (Jews for Oswald Moseley and 'boat people' for Farage) and socialists. People prefer to punch down and blame people that they view as inferior to them.

Of course Nigel Farage, a former public school boy, is going to have more polished oratory skills than Angela Rayner who left school when pregnant at 16 and came from an extremely deprived home with a mother who couldn't read or write. I know who has had the more difficult journey into politics and government.

Apart from Brexit (which I believe has been an unmitigated disaster although I assume that you would disagree), what has Nigel Farage done in office to improve people's lives apart from making it socially acceptable to hate the people that he blames for all the UK's ills?

It’s not a case of ‘falling’ for Reform. I voted against Brexit, agree Brexit has been a complete shitshow, also agree most of Farage’s policies are half baked at best. I’ll still vote for them at the next election if that’s the only credible conservative alternative to Labour. And no amount of calling me stupid/racist/fascist will change this.

There’s a bit head in the sand here. Reform are picking up voters. Hence Starmer panicking with policy changes. Even he knows it.

Because the others are crap and if the system totally collapses we might get a reset.