To reckon that Reform will win the next election, and to be utterly terrified about it? 😪

[mumofoneAloneandwell]

i am a leftie

I think they’ll win

If don’t, they’ll have the majority in a hung parliament and govern as a minority party before joining with the Tories.

i’m going to tighten my belt re running my home and prepare for onslaught as the country becomes unrecognisable

A great post, very well said. I am a just (an inch or so!) right of centre Tory and signs are that this is exactly what is happening to us. Not one person who has defected has left me anything but pleased.

Sadly, I agree with your analysis but I'm wondering if the British disposition can stomach the reality of an extreme right wing government. Equally, it didn't happen in Canada, Carney's victory over Pierre Poilievre, he lost his seat as well as his chance of PM. You could say thw sea change was down to the threats from the U.S. And this isn't relevant here but much worse has played out before our eyes and populism may turn out to be a temporary surge rather than a permanent realignment.

I don't think their voters give a toss about the manifesto. I feel that most Reform voters are following their gut rather than their head.

Their policies will be to do stuff that makes Farage and his friends rich, kick brown or black-skinned foreigners out, slash benefits and send disabled people to work, trash any environmental targets and make the car king.

The idea of a Farage government is utterly frightening.

I think Trump is currently doing a fantastic job at showing what the future has in store for us if we vote in Reform. For that reason I’m less confident than ever that Reform will win.

There are lots of uneducated hooligans and lots of educated idiots. But there are more kind, considerate, balanced people out there (I hope).

I live in a working class area (ex mining village) . They elected two Reform councillors!!
But I will say the labour and Lib Dem rang a very poor campaign.
So I’m torn between hoping Reform council do rubbish and not wanting my local area to be a shit storm!
But at least the city MP seems to have woken up.

And repainting the "School" markings on the road outside a school that had closed six years before
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7v8p42rm25o

Reform are done, they just don't know it yet.

They might've stood an outside chance if they'd stuck to their anti-immigration / anti-establishment "roots" but they're now just a dumping for dregs of the worst government this country has ever seen and would be better off rebranding as Conform at this point.

My long shot prediction I've been making since the last GE, is that both Labour and Reform fail to form the predicted left / right coalitions and we end up with a centrist lab/con one instead.

I thought that the US checks and balances were around 70% resilient.
They turned out to be 10%

I rate the UK governance at around 85%
so we have a high risk of damage if bad actors got into the top jobs.

I think you will find that as we get closer to the next GE, there will be a huge Conservative resurgence under Kemi. I am a lifelong Conservative voter, but had been wavering towards Reform; however, Kemi's recent performance at PMQ and outside Westminster have me thinking she would be a good PM and at the moment, if there were to be a GE, I would certainly be voting Conservative again.

I don't think it's a cop out. Labour and the Tories are a bunch of lying clowns so it's perfectly reasonable to have a punt on someone else. Certainly more reasonable than dragging George Bush into it!

I agree she has been more impressive but she is not the right candidate to win back the masses.

Why do you think that? Not enough charisma or not statesmanlike? Seriously interested as I so want another Conservative Government next!

Me too! I really like Kemi, I think a lot of people do maybe they are scared to say so?

You didn't ask me but I am going to answer anyway. Charisma is very overrated and when did we last have a statesman like PM? What she does have is work experience outside the political bubble, a good brain, the support of the better side of the party and a wonderful voice. That'll do for starters!

If any grown adult is scared to say who they like politically or who they are voting for, the bullies win.

Yes agree, there are a lot of bullies on here though 😫

💯

I reckon she could but not because she fits a preconceived idea of statesman, ie male and stale, but because she doesn’t.

I i agree with you .
Although i think the country is already unrecognisable and thats why Reform could win.

She's putting the cat among the pigeons. A confident black female Tory leader. Yet another woman given way for unlike other misogynistic parties.

Reform is another wake-up call, the wake-up call that Brexit should have been - a protest-vote mechanism in which sinister, conniving elites such as Rees-Mogg and Farage prey on the most left-behind and disadvantaged communities in the country. Since the Brexit vote inequality and regional deprivation have only deepened, and nothing has been done about it. I really think that the major parties have dug their own graves by shitting on benefits claimants, treating them as low-hanging fruit because it is too politically risky to point out that the welfare burden has swelled because of pensions. Millions of people live in rural or semi-rural poverty with no serviceable public transport, shit schools the likes of which cannot be imagined by those within the M25 bubble, and no access to decent employment opportunities - no wonder they're on benefits, who could blame them?

I will always vote, but feel as if there's no-one left to vote for. I always used to vote Labour until Tony Blair turned up. Then, in despair, I voted Socialist once only. About the time of the Scottish Referendum, I voted SNP and have done so since. But I can't seem to get excited about them anymore either. The Greens and Lib Dems are non-starters (my personal view). What's left? If there was a way of voting to 'negate' Reform, I'd go for it.

I’m not panicking. The awful events this week in the US - is that what British voters really want? People being rounded up off the streets, children abducted after school pickup, all because they have a foreign sounding name or ancestry from another country? There are racists in the UK, sure, but not so many I don’t think. Perhaps I am naive but I feel like many of us reject this ideology.

Has the stuff about Farage being a little Nazi shit at school cut through yet? So many witnesses. I feel like even the sort of thick racists who support Reform might draw the line at “gas the Jews.” Not that that’s been reported by any of the rightwing papers, not even the Times.

I'm not a Tory voter but I am impressed by Kemi, so much so, I may change my usual allegiance. Having said that, if Zia Yusuf became leader of Reform I would listen more closely to their policies.
We need someone who takes seriously the worries of those of us who (are striving to) live an average life.