... to think that Nigel Farage will be our next PM?

[ohime]

Or, more accurately: AIBU to be afraid that truly nasty piece of work Nigel Farage who has, by all accounts, always been utterly useless at (or at least completely uninterested in) the actual business end of governing will be our next PM because everyone is so fed up with all the other parties being, variously or all at once, so corrupt, incompetent and useless that we've collectively abandoned all hope? I will never vote for Farage, who is a horrible man, or any of his party which keeps having to fire people for being just a teensy bit too overtly racist - but it seems from the polls that for many people the choice against the status quo outweighs what we may be choosing. (For an example, I can't believe that Farage's stated position that DOGE in the US didn't go far enough with its swinging cuts to the social safety net would be popular with UK voters who recently elected a government on the basis that it would reverse years of Tory austerity... not that that's worked out so well...)

I looked into it extensively after our experience back in 2005 / 8.

Care is patchy and dangerous ,some good care some where is simply not good enough.

The Kings Fund was clear that there was a marked improvement in several areas between 1997 and 2010. Patient satisfaction was the highest it has ever been, before or since.

We know there was a marked improvement in some areas in some Trusts

we also know that Labour were short sighted in finding the NHS and trusts have been left with huge high interest debts

You can’t just throw money at the NHS and now there simply isn’t enough money to save what is left of the NHS

The solution previously was to establish a sort of UK border in France and police that (2003). That worked quite well. Until it ended as a result of Brexit. But short of invading France we need their agreement to set up UK borders in their country

Sorry, but what are you on about here? We still have a 'sort of UK border in France' at major ports - likewise, French Border Force operate at Dover, Folkestone and St. Pancras ... It didn't end with Brexit - and obviously we were not staked out all along the French coast pre-Brexit either;

The UK operates border controls in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. This allows Border Force officers to check passengers and freight destined for the UK before they begin their journey.

These ‘juxtaposed controls’ are in place at Calais and Dunkirk ports, at the Eurotunnel terminal at Coquelles and in Paris Gare du Nord, Lille, Calais-Frethun, Brussels Midi and Amsterdam/Rotterdam stations for Eurostar passengers.

https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/04/06/the-uks-juxtaposed-border-controls/

Apparently, UK Border Force also operate five short term holding facilities/detention centres (STHFs) located in Calais, Coquelles, and Dunkirk.

Usually migrants just turn themselves in because they have no incentive not to now anyway

Well actually, it's quite handy to slip in unnoticed and work in the black market.

Earlier I mentioned that I thought one of the things Labour could do to sort the issue out was process assylum.claims faster/repatriate failed claims/make the whole process less chaotic. (Same as you) That way the.asylum seekers would either be sent back if their claims weren't legitimate or allowed to stay (and work and pay taxes rather than being accommodated.) And other people who were supporting reform jumped on it and insisted that was not the point.
So then someone said that Switzerland just returns people who come to the country illegally to the country they just came from and we should do that. But that's because Switzerland has an agreement with other countries for this. And we used to have such an agreement before Brexit but then someone else said that return policies are a red herring and don't work.
And someone else said the problem wasn't just small boats it was all the other people overstaying their visa that are being ignored. But then also it comes back to the small boats.

Of course, every poster has a different opinion. Reform voters aren't a monolith. But saying confidently "this is why people are upset" isn't so simple because even people who agree immigration is the main reason they support reform don't agree exactly which bits of migration are the problem and what to do. But feel as if everyone thinks the same way they do and are being ignored. I do think there has been a failure of government to listen, but I also feel a bit sorry for them (I know) because I don't know how they could listen and reflect what they heard back to people. When what is being said by dissatisfied voters is quite fractal.

As an experiment, try on another thread at another time phrasing your point:
"Their case is processed slowly and inefficiently and the public are well aware by now that several are working, mostly for food delivery services, even though that's against the law."
But make it be about take Tory government and something that as a labour voter you hope Keir will fix. See how much agreement get from people who are also concerned about migration/thinking of voting reform of it's threaded like that.

You were claiming the DA was a deterrent. If you look at the figures I put earlier I think anyone would be hard pressed to make that claim.

Scroll back and see how many do get returned from Germany for example. You can see why that won’t do much, surely? It’s a few hundred out of thousands.

That’s different to a returns policy which say returned everyone. That does work. See Albania where all were returned. Trafficking stopped.

So yes if people want that then go for it, it’s not what we had before though.

Yes. But @SquishedMallow thought that Switzerland was more respected than us because they don't accept people crossing their borders illegally. Because of a returns agreement. Its not that you disagree with me. If you listen to people talking about Labour, conservatives etc there is a high degree of group think when people still support the sale party. But also, people disagreeing if one person says they don't like the welfare reforms but another person thinks it's necessary.
What's different about discussions concerning reform is that when people support Reform the only interaction between Reform voters is This.! Or I Agree! Different people have different agreements on fixing immigration. But if they both support Farage and disagree on a fundamental there is no interaction on the disagreement. Whereas if they don't it's a fight. Now that might be that I just haven't seen it but it's there. And to be fair online discussions don't necessarily reflect real life. And it makes sense anyway if the main thing uniting people is that they feel left behind/ignored/disenfranchised. You don't have to agree with someone to agree on that. But it's an unusual phenomenon in a political party.
I don't want to offend you but it reminds me a bit of talking to my (ex) friend who was trans and the trans rights people around her. They felt very isolated/threatened by any external disagreement. But among themselves (plural) there was no consistency on what being trans is/what they all needed from the world. It was very hard for me to interact without feeling like I was treading on eggshells because one person would say "of course we don't think trans women are the same as biological women". But if I repeated that, as a non trans person, it was the worst thing to say. And my friend that was trans had genuinely suffered terribly in life and had good reason to feel distrustful but it was hard to talk to them because their starting point was anyone who didn't see the world like them held them in contempt and you can't talk someone out of that. And this was a friend. Not a rando on the internet so granted I tried a lot harder.
I know this will offend everyone but some Reform supporters reading me of my Trans friends social group. Same reasoning patterns.

Alexandra2001
Comparing Schengen countries to the UK is another mis representation, open borders make Dublin ineffective...

Republic of Ireland is not in Schengen;

Ireland applied to send more than 2,750 asylum applicants back to the EU country where they first arrived or sought international protection, but has been able to return only 31, the Department of Justice has said.

The department admitted the system for inter-country transfers was not “fit for purpose” and that what is known as the Dublin Regulation had significant problems and was ineffective.

In 2022 and 2023, Ireland continued to make a substantial number of “take back and take charge” requests, with 698 and 592 respectively. However, the number of actual returns carried out remained remarkably low, with just three in each year.

https://www.sundayworld.com/news/irish-news/ireland-applied-to-return-2758-asylum-seekers-in-the-past-four-years-but-only-31-sent-back/a2035939943.html

2024 stats for Ireland -

A total of 18,651 people applied for asylum in Ireland in 2024, exceeding the previous record by more than 5,000 people.

But if we had Dublin or similar, we would see a dramatic drop in numbers, France would have to accept returns or be in breach of EU law & once a few 100 sent back, the trafficking model would cease.

Why would France have to accept Dublin returns from the UK if the majority of asylum seekers passed through other EU countries first? Plus Italy and Poland both seem to be refusing to take Dublin returns.

@Namitynamename I’m not sure what you mean with this. My primary point is that people misunderstand what the Dublin Agreement did and does.

It’s not even related to Reform, more that the misconception is repeated on threads when the figures show clearly how low an impact it has.

There are other returns policies that could have greater impact but the DA with those figures just are not it. Otherwise Germany etc would not be battling with the migration problem.

I’m asking you to look at the figures below, is that possible?

You can have a returns policy that works if that’s what you want, it’d just have to be a different one.

Look we disagree on the DA. I don't want to keep arguing. It's not that I dispute your figures. It's more that (hypothetical numbers) if 100 people arrive and are exchanged for 200 people then that looks like there are 100 more people but if the number of people deterred is counted them it's a net reduction on what it would have been without the agreement. I agree the actual numbers of people returned under the DA was.in the 100s a year usually and therefore not a huge dent in the.actual numbers of asylum requests made.
The point is not the numbers returned but the numbers potentially put off trying by the possibility they could be returned which is admittedly nebulous except numbers did go up once that deterrent was removed.
As I understood it, it disproportionately affected people arriving by channel tunnel/boat making this the most "risky" method in terms of not being allowed to stay. 400 returns out of 4000 coming that way is a 10% chance compared to 400 returns out of all 30,000 claims in a single year (numbers made up).
But you could well be right and there was no deterrence effect and the reason numbers grew after 2020 was for completely different reasons. It's true other things were happening! We are both seeing the same numbers and interpreting different things.

To be fair also, Germany did open it's borders to Syrians and announce itself as a safe haven. That's the opposite to a deterrence and hard to quickly row back from.

Ok a couple of hundred won’t do that. It’s not doing it now in any country. The EU is aware of this and there are plans to change the process next year to allocation. I haven’t heard much lately but assume it’s still on track.

If you actually do want a deterrent you’ll need to look at other countries that have put hardline stuff in place.

I have no issue with you wanting returns policies / deterrents and they can work. They’re just different to the DA.

Also I'll stop posting now but most people.coming to Ireland.were.coming via the UK at one point. The conservatives were using the fact that they were leaving to UK to go to Ireland as proof that their plans were working. But it complicated returns because it's someone leaving an EU country (under DA) to go to a country not under the DA and being registered there..then leaving and going back to an EU DA country (Ireland). Legally that's messy and not really envisioned as a scenario when the agreement was written.
So it's not really fair to use Ireland as an example. We made things as complicated as possible for them (not for the first time).

I think it probably had an impact at the time. If we were still in the EU now it probably wouldn't be as effective if things had stayed the same and we would have been agitating to change it like countries are now. As it is I guess just hope that countries like France negotiate returns agreements that work for them and that has a knock on effect for people travelling through France? We don't have any more control over EU policy than that because we left.
Or hope that the UK negotiates a better returns policy with the EU on its own and that it doesn't get ripped up in 4 years. But, whatever the Labour government negotiates will include quid pep quo. And people, especially Reform, will spin this as a bad thing regardless the details.

I think it’s a definite possibility.

I also think it will be a definite shitshow if he wins.

i just don’t think he will
but Keir starmer needs to buck up his ideas
and better leave the 20k cash isa alone rather than force people to take financial risk they don’t have the appetite for!!

If not PFI, how would these new hospitals have been funded? bear in mind that future events, such as Covid and Ukraine have meant huge borrowing, which might not have been possible had Blair borrowed the money...

As we know, no one is prepared to pay more tax.

Plenty wrong with the individual contracts but many have been redrawn now and the overall burden on the public purse is relatively low.

The NHS is under funded, capital projects, building mtce, equipment, numbers of staff ALL far lower than our european counter parts plus we don't have a seamless hospital to community care system.

But again, no one wants to fund this, not least on pay, look at the outcry when Reeves fully funded the recent public sector pay rises?

"Labour pay off their union pay masters"

Right wing media yet again distorting reality but people believe it.... leaving the door open for Farage.

How can we return people who destroy.their documents ?

We should have a rule no documents then x happens ( not a hotel in UK)

Nearing the end of labours reign under Blair and brown hospitals were in a dire state .
If you Google the headlines it's all there

Labour massaged figures .

Can point me to the 25 Ambulances queuing outside of AE? the 72 hour delays to attend a stroke victim? the corridor wards? the 4 day waits in AE ?

The almost universal lack of NHS dentistry?

Based on exactly the same methodology, all Labours previous NHS targets were broken by 2015

Every single independent study into UK healthcare, shows steep declines in all aspects of healthcare over the last 10 to 15 years.

Did we have French standards of care in 2010? no we did not but its undeniable that the NHS is in a far worse state now than it was in 2010.

The poll for this thread is interesting. Nearly 500 votes and 59% thinking it's not unreasonable to think that Nigel Farage will be our next PM. Whether you support him or find that horrifying, it is remarkable how fundamentally things have changed in the last few years. The fact that question is now being asked for a start!

500 votes is hardly representative, nation polls indicate 28% support, Labour on 24%.
2 to 3% is considered within the margin of error in any poll.

UKIP was also considered to make a "break thorough" as well.....However....

.....another defection to Reform yesterday, the Tory party appears to be finished, echo's of the collapse of the Liberals in the 1920s.

So you re right, the next GE may well be a Reform vs Labour contest.

The Cons and their friends in the media need to wake up to the danger.

It’s Labour who keeps going on about the Tories in every interview and post.

As Reform goes up. An outside party benefits from that fixation.

It has changed a bit

Well I'm not claiming that 500 votes on mumsnet is a good reprentative national poll. Obvs.

I'm saying how remarkable it is that the question is asked on (slightly lefty) mumsnet in the first place and that the current score is 59% yes. That's obviously not all people voting for Nigel! It's presumably just people that think, like him or loathe him, there is a possibility he could be our next PM. Which is a big change, as a few years ago that question would have been laughed at.

If he is PM I can only imagine the posts on here 😆. Orange Man Bad will have just been practicing.