Reform aren't a proper political party - why are we pretending they are?

[Slightyamusedandsilly]

Farage isn't a real political leader. He's a hype 'em up, sound bite merchant. When he was an MEP he rarely bothered to attend. He just wants the kudos without any desire or ability to do the actual work.

The councils run by them are chaos, having increased council tax massively despite promises to the contrary.

Reform is just the next iteration of the National Front, BNP, English Defence League. Farage is no better than Nick Griffin.

What's the saying? Fake it till you make it!

Yes, he was an embarrassment as an MEP. Never turning up for voting, slagging off Europe, while pocketing a nice salary plus expenses.

He is good at what he does ( saying the 'right' things). Some people are looking for a quick fix, and he is promising.

They're enough of a political party for people to vote for them. Lots of people.

Not really much different from the Greens, who lots of people will also vote for.

Mainly because people mostly don't care about sensible administration, they just care about having somebody in authority who panders to their biases while providing an entertaining reality TV show.

Yes, and can someone find out, isn't Farage CEO of Reform, and owns the majority of shares in it and voting rights... Meanwhile he's got some dumb heads running around causing shit, thinking they're the next nazi party 😂 😂 😂 😂

To be fair, no political parties actually bother to follow through with their manifesto promises so Reform can't be any worse. Labour have been disgraceful in that respect

Reform are the "fuck the lot of you" party. Like Brexit. And I'm up for it. Worth a punt for 4 years.

Do you really think Nick Griffin is no worse than Farage?

Saying NF is no different from Reform is some whitewashing.

Left equivalent would be: Baader Meinhof is no different than Corbyn.

Well, I wouldn’t vote for Reform, but the “proper political parties” haven’t and aren’t covering themselves in successful glory are they?

Trump wasn’t a proper politician either and we can all see what happened.

If our “proper” parties actually improved anything, then chancers like Farage wouldn’t stand a chance.

But they never do.

They have policies

Sell off the nhs
Remove workers rights
Cut taxes for the wealthy
Cut environmental protections
Slash public spending by 150 billion

Essentially they are the public face of the Tufton St so called think tanks.

If they get in they'll sell off anything of value to their backers at a knock down price and the whole of the UK will be worse off for it

Fucking charlatans. They are not the patriotic party they claim to be. They are arseholes beholden to even bigger wankers

Well, you've got a nice preview over in the US. If you get your way, you'll get to see social division the likes of which we've never seen before, constant flip-flopping on strongman policies, economic collapse and the loss of what little international respect we have left.

Not so much "fuck the lot of you" as "please, make austerity feel like a time of plenty and Brexit feel like a time of pure harmony".

But hey, you do you. It'll be entertaining, right?

Ah, lovely civilised debate.

Your crystal ball may be correct, or it might not. I say its worth a try for 4 years.

Do you think companies should be allowed to sack workers in order to re hire them at lower wages? NF does

Do you think it's ok to sack people because they are women? Getting rid of the equality act will allow this. Huge loss of protection for pregnant women.

Really? Bye bye nhs, women's rights, worker's rights, environmental protection.

These were hard won and you're just happy to give them away?

Anyone with any sense knows that but there seems to be a lot of people without any sense.

Well, you are just making stuff up for dramatic effect but in principle, yes, why not? Everything is reversible if we don't like it. It's only a few years.

Some of those rights took a very long time to build. So its not really a case of trying something for 4 years and then if its not good, just voting back a different party.

If things are sold, taxes are cut, rights removed it can take a long time to get them back. It concentrates power in one group, they arent going to rush at giving it back. Why would employers want to give maternity leave back, or help disabled people work.

I dont think the nhs works well and would love it to be more european in style, but once its sold, its sold. We dont get it back.

I'm guessing your definition of a "proper political party" is one that you like.

Fortunately in our democracy that isn't the test of whether a party can be in power or not.

I'm not making things up.

Not all changes are reversible. Look at how difficult it is to bring the railways back into public ownership. The water industry etc.

Reform will destroy this country

We dont actually have a "proper party" in government at the moment so where do we stand?

Greens and Reform. Two cheeks of the same arse. Both leaders make up shite in the hope that it makes voters vote for them. Both of them willing to chuck women’s rights under a bus. Both proven to be terrible at local democracy.

Even if the only criteria was being able to replace the leader, Reform fail. And that's without looking at any of their policies.

OK then, for example, please.explain your point about women's rights?

They want to get rid of the equality act.

Are we being offered sensible administration? Was the bizarre carousel of Tory leaders sensible administration? Is the discovery that a senior member if a previous Labour government potentially state secrets sensible administration? The expenses scandal? Covid contracts for mates? Austerity that removed our pandemic prep? Politicians accepting freebies that none of us in the public sector would be allowed to keep? Politicians on all sides seemingly unable to check tax rules?

Some of this is optics, some poor governance and some deliberate bad behaviour but none of it gives any confidence in sensible administration. I would have said Sir Keirs background is exactly what I'd want in a prime minister and yet it isn't working. A KC should have done more due diligence than "we asked questions, he lied"

I will probably vote green with the expectation that if I'm lucky they'd have a minority role in a coalition and potentially have the environmental brief. I'd think twice if I thought they had a chance at a majority but I'm not sure who would inspire me with administrative confidence.

And? Replace it with something, or not?

To my mind Keir Starmer is missing a trick here. People say he’s weak on immigration. He claims he can’t do anything about it due to the ECHR. He needs to withdraw from the ECHR, then replace it with a UK bill of rights mirroring the ECHR but changing the immigration bits he doesn’t like. This is beneficial in that 1) it shows he’s serious about tacking immigration and takes the wind out of Reforms sails, and 2) means Reform has less excuse to mess with our human rights.