To be starting to worry that Reform will win next GE?

[TortoiseMantle]

The polls have shown a consistent lead. Is there any realistic chance of Reform actually winning the next election?

I vote Labour, but it’s hard to see how they’ve managed to throw away such a lead in just a year, and it’s hard to see how their polling improves. The Tories maybe have more opportunity for improving, but we’re going to see a Reform government, aren’t we? Nigel Farage is going to be our next PM.

Why do you think this?

The majority of the country don’t think like you. It’s just Gob on Legs Farage is given more media and air time than any other politician for some reason.

I agree with this. But it’s all talk isn’t it. And Keir Starmer apologised after his “Island of strangers comment” so obviously shows he didn’t mean what he was saying, just trying to appeal to the right… and failed massively!

I do worry about it, and at the moment it's a distinct possibility.

What really frightens me though is the public reaction to a Reform government. Although everyone always says 'Oh I only voted Brexit because of sovereignty', the truth is where I live the people who voted Brexit did so by and large because they felt immigration was too high and that demographic change was too quick.

We had Brexit and immigration went even higher. Prominent Brexiteers told us that it was never about immigration, wherever did we get that idea from? How do you think people who were upset when a white, Christian, Polish family moved next door; feel about the Brazilian Deliveroo drivers who now live in that house?

I think Reform will do more than Labour/Conservatives to deport illegal immigrants- partly because they're willing to rip up all our rights and liberties to allow that to happen. But they are very influenced by business people/ hedge funds, and I doubt they'll do much about the 700K legal migrants that come every year. They'll possibly cut foreign student numbers because I don't think they like HE anyway, but other than that zilch.

How will people react when the third right-wing government turns out to be lying to them? First Cameron with his 100K net migration, then Johnson and Brexit, now Reform.

That's what really scares me. I feel like we've opened Pandora's box.

My point really is that Reform are an organisation with Farage in charge. There is no way to remove him. Members of the party don't have a say in who leads it. That's not how the other parties work.

That is Farage's line.

Eta: it was the Court's decision, not Labour's. Don't believe everything Frog Face (apols to 🐸 everywhere) spouts on X.

I think Reform will get nefarious support from outside the UK. Lots of sentiment manipulation via social media.

At the start of their mandate labour did a press conference where they basically came out and said “it’s all really shit”. I don’t know who advised them to do this but I think it set the tone of their time in office very poorly at the start and I think they really fail to recover from that, alongside what is obviously a lot of internal party machinations that are not helping Starmer push forward his agenda. He’s also hugely distracted by foreign policy.

I’m not sure all of the people saying that they’re getting their Irish passport ready have any idea what it’s like living in Ireland either. I think you’re very naive if you think you’re going to be able to transport your whole life and livelihood over to another country that easily.

But what’s that got to do with reform lacking experience! That have experienced party members 🤷‍♀️ You think the clowns who elected Starmer as leader of the Labour Party were any better for electing him despite them having ‘a say’?

The silent majority might just vote in Farage. And the other parties have only themselves to blame.

I'm far more worried about the absolute shit-show that is the current Government and all the awful things they are doing, rather than any convenient Emmanuel Goldstein style hate figure. Things are terrible right now and I'm worried things are going to get much worse. Are we even going to be allowed to vote and have future elections, the way things are going, I am starting to wonder...

Look at Starmers’ own speeches in which he actually says that owning your own property and having savings takes you out of the realms of the ‘ordinary working man’.

Sometimes it can though because young ordinary working people are struggling to buy houses & accumulate savings.

And the disability benefits of which you speak are as much under attack - if not more - from Labour than the Tories.

I don't see why some disability benefits shouldn't be means tested. Or why means testing winter fuel was controversial.

Or have you been living under a rock for the last year ?

Have you? Look at the state of the economy and the finances. We tax income pretty heavily now so money needs to come from somewhere to fuel the benefits and the NHS. Wages have stagnated for years, fiscal drag from frozen tax bands, it's a mess.

Where do people think the money will come from to have this safety net & NHS?

I don't think we will get to the stage of the IMF bailing us out but if we do labours proposals will be a walk in the park!

At their last party conference the chairman (can’t remember his name, basically because I don’t care) actually voiced the opinion that disability benefits are costing the country far too much and that we were better off as a country when disabled people were confined to institutions. After fifty years of fighting for the rights disabled people have now this alone is enough to hope they are wiped off the face of politics at the next election and to have nothing but contempt for their supporters who call other people ignorant and yet have no idea what’s actually happening at the sharp end.

The silent majority might just vote in Farage. And the other parties have only themselves to blame.

At least accept responsibility for voting Reform.

But the majority of the country don’t support him.

Is this like a ‘silent’ Tory?

@Rosscameasdoody there has to be a sensible discussion around disability. My parent is 100% disabled but as millionaires do they need AA? Should a child in a wheelchair get the same DLA as a child with autism?

I really hope they do

labour are clueless, out of depth, and against this country

These council seats re not fickle. Many have been Labour or Tory since the creation of the councils.

IF, and it's a big "if", Reform do get into power it won't last long. Once Farage realises that he'll have to do some actual work and everything he and his party do will be put under a microscope, he'll throw a hissy fit and resign, so will the leader after him, and them and so on....it will make the Tories revolving door of PM's look tame.

Like what we have now then?

Haven’t the disability benefit cuts been pretty much abandoned?

Agree with you 😞

So everyone who owns a property and has worked hard for it all their lives is no longer deemed a working person ?

Disability benefits are not means tested because they are meant to contribute to the cost of living with substantial and expensive disability. It’s fine to say you think they should be means tested but where and how do you set the threshold ? I have no objection to the means testing of the winter fuel payment - my objection is the method of means testing. Tying to a benefit (pension credit) which is designed only to support those on the absolute bones of their arse is lazy and unfair.

I agree that the money needs to come from somewhere but the sick and the disabled - and to a certain extent the elderly and vulnerable - are at the front of the queue every single time it comes to cuts. If the proposed cuts centred around cutting benefits for parents this would be a very different conversation and everyone here knows it.

Some cuts went through on the bill. Changes to PIP are very much still possible. We'll have to see.

Eta: this explains where things stand at the moment:

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/personal-independence-payment-pip/pip-uc-changes/whats-changing-when

I am talking about the net migration figures (legal immigration less emigration) of 431,000 in 2024, 860,000 in 2023, 872,000 in 2022 and 484,000 in 2021. Then you add in illegal immigration, who knows what the number is for those, and is it any wonder we have a housing problem?

For many people it’s not just about the huge and unsustainable numbers, and the strain on our infrastructure, but also the rapidly changing demographics
which no one was consulted about.

People don't want immigration but they always don't want cuts to benefits or increased taxes for them. How does this all work in a capitalist model?

Reform have 6 MPs, Labour have over 400. In my view that's lacking in experience, you clearly have a different view.

The "clowns" who elected Labour are the party members, hundreds of thousands of people. Only one person elected Farage.

So if Farage was in charge illegal immigration would be far lower you think? Genuine question but the way.