To feel like I'm not sure where I sit politically anymore, and to worry about it.

[Lookuptotheskies]

I've always been a staunch Labour voter. Always been pro refugees. Always given people the benefit of the doubt. Always felt okay that I've brought innocent kids into the world.

Labour are making cuts to disability benefits (and in turn, carer benefits). They are looking to slash sen support in schools.

My town is being overtaken with overt criminal activity. Illegal cigarettes, money laundering business, violent crime on the increase, known drug dealers, fly tipping, etc. Nothing is done. It's just a never ending thing, they bust one and another pops up.

I've always fought against the tide of racist idiots, using politics as an excuse for violent riots. I live in a multi-cutural town, chose a very multicultural school for my kids. But I can't continue to argue with the people pointing out the rise in crimes, drugs, exploitation etc which is very visibily linked to immigration. I feel so uneasy about acknowledging how I feel about this! Guilty and a bit embarrassed. I've always been live and let live, whereas now I feel more protective, more cynical, less tolerant.

I am also gender critical and very much in favour of single sex spaces, based on biological sex. This has been a slow thing too. I've witnessed the language around women changing (cervix owner, pregnant person, chest feeding etc). I've witnessed our spaces and groups being invaded by biological men (I don't want a man on the other side of the curtain to me in a women's hospital ward, or a bra changing cubicle, or a swimming changing room.

Does anyone else feel like they are completely re-evaluating what they accept/don't accept, and what they stand for politically?

I don't currently feel there is any one political party that aligns with my ideals.

I may or may not get completely flamed, but I'm curious on other's thoughts. I will check back intermittently but I don't live on my phone/mumsnet.

This is not a troll post. I've been a mn user for over 18 years.

I feel the same OP, the gaps are widening between the better off and the most vulnerable.

I feel in many ways we’re becoming lawless - there’s always been some groups that the police weren’t as motivated to bring to account but where they were on the fringes (I’m thinking travellers if Im honest), now with more immigration and poverty they are scattered everywhere changing the dynamic of where we live and work.

With two primary aged children I am shocked by the lack of budget in schools and the decline in provision for all. The amount of SEN and range of needs in one class. Infuriating.

I think most people feel the same. There was a belief in the past that if we all paid a reasonable amount of tax then there should be enough money to pay for reasonably good public services for everyone and to support the most vulnerable in society. The old, disabled and those seeking asylum.

The economy hasn't really grown in the past few decades and the welfare burden has exploded. There is a huge gap between the amount of money the country needs to meet everyone's expectations and how much tax we can reasonably raise without hugely detrimenting our economy. It's time we got real and has reasoned conversations about the level of support we can offer through the welfare state to different groups. It will be distressing and have unpleasant consequences but so does the alternative... Sleepwalking into a society where work no longer pays and our towns and cities are decimated.

Then you need to accept we need massive social care and SEN education reform. Because that's the biggest drain on council tax. And I'm fed up with everything else being cut to the bone (leisure centres, bin collection etc) to pay for what seems like millions of pounds of taxis to schools.

I have felt politically homeless for many years. My vote is used either tactically (to keep the worst out) or who I disagree with least.

I think lots of people feel the same OP.

A sane, centrist party is so badly needed.

During her tenure, Theresa May slashed the police force by about 20%. Even if Sunak hired more police to make up for that, the numbers remain lower per capita than they were before the Tories came to power in 2010.

I’ve never understood why Theresa May did that. However crime has been increasing so why hasn’t Labour increased the police force to deal with it?

I think the issue is there seems to be bottomless pits in some areas, a mismanagement of money and then others who get FA or like you say, have services cut. Some kids with SEN are getting taxis to school with chaperones, 2:1 or even 3:1 in specialist schools, respite over weekends and school holidays, Mums driving a mobility car, living comfortably off the benefits. All whilst another non verbal child is fighting for a PT TA and is in a mainstream class. It’s so unevenly spread. That’s where the frustration builds in.

Not to mention £100k per year for individual children to be educated at some specialist schools. Almost all of these children are children that will never feasibly be able to work or be economically active. Surely there is another, less expensive way to deal with this? For reference, the state pays the same amount to educate 13 students in a regular state school.

There's never been one party that all my ideals align with, and realistically for most people that is pretty rare. I think you are now in the same boat as most people and you need to find the party that you can find compromises with.

I always find it baffling when I talk politics with people and say I support xxxxx and people respond with "but how, what about their position on...." As if we can all find a party where every single policy is in alignment with all of our personal beliefs

The specific reason for tax increases at present seems to be to… give more benefits to a growing group of workless people. Which… I don’t think will land very well…

I think this has been a huge contributor to the problems that the UK is facing now though. This generation of young people are the ones who grew up with austerity, they watched their mums struggling to pay for everything, lived in too small mouldy homes with no heat, relied on food banks, went to school hungry and now people are asking why more young people than ever are claiming they have disabilities. Why aren't they engaged and happy to give back to a society that didn't care about them when they needed help?

A third of children are growing up in poverty. There is significant under investment in schools. England has the highest university costs in Europe. Children growing up in poverty with no investment in their future education and people see a bright and happy future ahead for the UK?

Then you have the disabled, why so many, why don't they work, why aren't they engaged happy productive members of society? The same thing. Cutting supports. NHS unable to cope so people aren't getting the right treatment on time. High levels of poverty means stress, inadequate housing conditions, inadequate nutrition.

In short austerity doesn't work. People can look now and blame immigrants, blame Labour but this has been bubbling away for years. You reap what you sow and for many years the government didn't sow anything.

@Bumpitybumper yup my point exactly, a child in my family is 15, can’t read, write or take themselves to the toilet. In a specialist school with all the help I mentioned in my post. For what? They’d be just as happy in a day centre or even at home and the academic outcome would be the same.

This is an interesting moral / ethical discussion which needs to be had.

It is incredibly difficult though - as for many families, these schools make a huge difference.

This country is one of the richest in the world. The problem is not lack of money but the unfair way it is distributed. It is short-sighted to extort money from the poor by paying poverty wages because if they were paid more they could kickstart the economy by buying more. The greed of the company owners is also the seed of their own demise, a slump and the inability of people to buy their products.

The people who work in jobs paying poverty wages are subsidising the very rich*.The last Conservative Government enabled the super rich to steal our Nationalised Industries from us - Railways, Water, Electricity, Gas, Railways etc and enabled the corrupt owners to pay out millions in dividends while polluting our rivers, over charging us, running down our National Health Service etc etc while squirrelling their ill gotten profits away off shore in tax havens.

In contrast to the media narrative, 81% of UK millionaires agree with the statement that it is patriotic to pay a fair share of tax, according to a poll published on 5 June 2025 by Patriotic Millionaires UK. 80% of UK millionaires said they would support a wealth tax of 2% on wealth over £10 million.

*The 'Christians' amongst them don't seem to be worried about Christ's declaration that 'it is easier of a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.'

Is Charles, Head of the Church of England lying awake at night worrying about going to Hell because of his enormous wealth? He might start by waiving the rents he gets from schools and hospitals and waiving the tax exemptions he enjoys.

We need to use the skills of immigrants/asylum seekers to boost the wealth of this country instead paying them a pittance to not work. We have a desperately low birth rate and a shortage of skilled workers. We need to train up both our young and the largely ambitious ( by definition) immigrants to boost our economy. Many countries allow immigrants or asylum seekers to work while they await a decision instead of leaving them languishing in desperate poverty for years. So should we.

The workers (the wealth makers of this country) should be welcoming immigrants (and often well qualified) asylum seekers as they will fill jobs we can't fill ourselves. They will boost our economy which can't manage with an ever ageing population and one which is suffering from long term effects of Covid and a poorly functioning Health Service.

I’d agree, it does seem unfair. It’s such an adversarial system too. The council budget is screwed as paying for expensive placements so can’t afford to support others. So they then go through tribunal process and get an expensive placement.

The thing is no one wants there child / relative to be the one to go without so they fight for all they are entitled to.

This is exactly how I feel! I have never resented paying my taxes in the past, but now I begrudge it because I feel that it’s being spent unwisely.

@HarkerandBarkerthank you for your well written post - very interesting

Can I recommend you all google the SDP and look at their policies. Also look for some podcasts and YT videos with their leader William Clouston. I was politically homeless but was relieved to find them. Really common sense policies. They don’t believe TWAW and have a sensible strategy to control immigration.

I could have written your post - where I live in the Midlands there is a rising tide of pissed off people and the anger is increasingly about uncontrolled immigration and the massive changes that are happening within our society around us. As soon as dd finishes school we are out of here - it doesn’t feel safe, it’s not clean and the demographic is changing so rapidly I’m starting to feel like a stranger in the place I’ve lived all my life. And I feel SO guilty for feeling this way.

Yes, I agree that it is hugely controversial and those that benefit from these placements are no doubt desperate to keep them but are we as a society willing to fund the placements through tax rises or cutting services elsewhere? It's an awful lot of tax to raise. Again for context, you would need all the income tax paid by two individuals in the top tax decile to fund a single placement or the entirety of the income tax paid by fifty workers in the lowest decile to fund a single placement.

@ElizaMulvil
In contrast to the media narrative, 81% of UK millionaires agree with the statement that it is patriotic to pay a fair share of tax, according to a poll published on 5 June 2025 by Patriotic Millionaires UK. 80% of UK millionaires said they would support a wealth tax of 2% on wealth over £10 million
Yet record numbers of millionaires are already leaving the country and going to tax friendly countries like Dubai. The clue is the in the suggestion that the tax rate should be 'fair'. This is hugely subjective and quite frankly many feel that tax rates on high earners are already too high. You may disagree but ultimately they are voting with their feet and leaving the UK poorer.

Also the majority of the 80% of millionaires that support the wealth tax probably don't have £10 million. This of course is always the irony. Everyone agrees with tax rises for those wealthier than they are. The same goes with the narrative of your whole post. There is no moral or ethical divide in rich and poor people, everyone is usually out to optimise the situation for themselves. The poor may feel more justified or virtuous in behaving this way but ultimately everyone is self orientated. This is why it's been proven that as people become wealthier they become more right wing. It's easy to be all about sharing and equality when you stand to gain from redistribution but when you have worked hard and dug yourself out from the bottom then you are less keen to share the spoils with strangers.

The fact that the homeless people you saw were British isn't the whole story though.

Whenever there is not enough housing infrastructure for the number of people, it is the most vulnerable who end up being pushed out. Often these days that means addicted people or those with mental health issues. People who aren't easy to house at the best of times.

But who is pushing them out? To some extent it is newly arrived immigrants. Even when they are coming for very legitimate reasons to fulfil a need, they are taking up housing places, and that has an effect. When you are talking about migrants being housed in hotels, those are spaces, and money, that is no longer available to house the local homeless population, (I remember reading recently that in NYC, something like 70% of shelter spaces were being taken by people who had entered the country irregularly. So where you you find the people who would otherwise be in those spaces?)

I think it’s not just the police force, the justice system seems overwhelmed, prisons overcrowded. So if the police did come and arrest every shoplifter. They’d get at max a 12 hour community payback order and use up lots of resources.

I suspect it’s really disheartening for everyone concerned.

Oh blimey, I was gutted with Smith died. He was such a great man.
No-one has come close to him, in any party 😕

I don’t think uncontrolled immigration has ever been a left wing ( or at least not a working class) position?
Its a highly capitalist position- the more cheap labour there is the less they have to pay.
I think there is a difference between liberal and left wing. Traditionally the middle/ upper class left are socially liberal ( pro immigration for humanitarian reasons and pro diversity) and the right wing middle class and upper are fiscally liberal ( pro immigration as grist to the mill).
Thats why the Tories haven’t controlled it. The excessive levels of recent immigrants are the result of the last 14 years not the current labour government.
The increase in destitution and crime is driven by by many factors though.

Yes, movement of labour has always bee a concern of the left, until 5 minutes ago.