I couldn’t sleep last night, worrying about a Reform government

[Cluborange666]

I am really worried. I think they’ll wreck the economy. I’ve got a few years left to pay off my mortgage from my job that deals with immigrants. I don’t want our pensions to tank. I don’t want my sons’ lives to be messed around. I worry about more racism, the more ‘voice’ that Reform get. I live in a very multicultural city and non-white people tell me that they are experiencing more overt racism. It makes me feel very insecure about the future.

wish Labour would do more to show that they are on the side of ordinary people as I think that’s what is driving this (I’m a Labour voter). I don’t think the creation of Your Party will help, just give Reform more advantages.

Sigh. Happy to be told I’m unreasonable as I think the future looks bleak.

I’ll come back to you and you can come back to me.

All the things you list that you dread Reform doing, Labour are doing now though? That's a bit of a conundrum....

I don't know why they don't understand that they need businesses to be successful and grow in order to have a larger tax base. Instead they seem to think they should squash businesses. It almost seems like they are trying to cause some kind of depression.

The vast majority of Immigration into the country is not caused by people coming over on boats. The vast majority of immigration is via legal routes.

The vast majority of illegal immigration is people who came here legally and then overstay.

By focussing only on small boats (which is really easy to do, which is why they do it) you barely touch the issue. The Rwanda scheme would have cost more to implant and maintain than it saved.

What a lot of people mean when there say “immigrants” are non-white people, be they second, third or forth generation.

Even Reform can’t tell us what the number of new immigrants are that they would allow into the county, the criteria or anything else.

It’s an easy soundbite.

Hard agree, well said.

If Labour really don’t have anything more than now, not sure what happened to the last ground breaking announcement, then it’ll be a problem for them at the next GE.

Squash business how ? By trying to get them to pay proper wages, so public money doesn’t need to be used to prop up staff salaries? Why should my tax money go to propping up your wages oh Tesco (and many others) staff, so thier Shareholders get a bigger pay off?

We are so used to being a low wage economy, with zero opportunities for social mobility.. that any attempt to change that is seen as an “attack on business” - how has this “business supportive” economy helped regular people over the last 20 years? Where the trickle down if profits & wealth ?

Did you miss the part where she said it would directly affect her livelihood and pension? And its not just a hypothetical worry, like "I might get run over tomorrow", it's a bit more tangible than that.

Reform aren't in power. Honestly we've got 4 more years of incompetent Labour. To worry about something that may or may not happen isn't good for one's health.

I'm more concerned about Rachel Reeves' autumn budget.

I would love the economy to be rebalanced so that real wages were paid by employers rather than propping them up by the state giving working people benefits.

But right now they are creating a situation where businesses are going to fail or will have to lay people off, and that is surely not going to help anyone.

The best answer here might be for the OP to start thinking about protecting her employment or moving to another sector.

Are you aware majority of businesses in UK are SMEs, so completely NOT Amazon etc?
The rise in employers NI has created= job losses, recruitment freezes and companies closing. My ex-employer (a charity) had unbudgeted NI increase of £1m in April due to Reeves. Guess what the result was? Recruitment freeze + redundancies.
Labour are economically and fiscally illiterate.

They are certainly causing not just an economic depression but serious mental health problems amongst young people. Young people can't find jobs, they can't even get a bloody driving test, massive student loan debts. My kids have tried to do everything right/ work hard and where do they end up? It's just sickening..

Surely people can see that losing jobs doesn’t actually help us.

Yes the future is looking bleak for many young people

The charity I work for has had to find an extra £400k since the NI increases. I will be out of a job next year. Our local hospice( also a charity ) has just halved beds and made staff including nurses redundant.

This for example, why would Labour and supporters want it

Seemingly not everyone!

I worry too.

But I accept it will happen and just ready myself for the even bigger waves of anti non-white hostility to come. I at least have a second passport if the shit really hits the fan.

😕 so sorry to hear that. Labour are decimating business ergo employment 😡😡

Meanwhile I (and countless others) are extremely concerned by the current shit show that is Labour, lead by the ever gormless and devoid of any personality, Starmer.

Never mind Reform, how can THAT not keep you awake at night?!

Labour are destroying the economy- no need to worry about a hypothetical reform government doing that!! Honestly don't see how anyone could do worse than this shower of absolute incompetent idiots who are running this country at the moment (should use the term running very loosely).

Stagnant wages are one of the big problems in this country as well as frozen tax bands. No one seems to want to deal with that (maybe reform do)

I'm sad to say that I don't disagree with this. The NI increase for employers was really stupid.

Backtracking on the winter fuel payment was really stupid.

And the new policy to stop people who aren't from "poor" backgrounds (whatever "poor" means) getting civil service jobs won't help either.

I had high hopes for this government but they seem to be totally oblivious to the threat Reform poses. The only good thing is that women's single sex spaces are going to be protected now, but that's down the courts, not the government (which would have happily thrown women under a bus to suit the TIMs).

They are doing a good job externally - improving relations with the EU etc

But people with a propensity to vote for Reform don't care about that.

I am not sure how Reform can stop the boats unless they simply shoot the people in them and even they won't do that. They certainly won't invest money in the areas the people come from in the hope of stopping them wanting to leave. There aren't any easy answers but Farage thinks there are.

If Keir Starmer actually cuts taxes and curbs immigration, plus removes the incentives for those ferried over by the RNLI, it will make it difficult for Reform.

I have a feeling the Conservatives will be contenders again at the next election.

Labour is absolutely decimating the economy so I’d be more worried about that!