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.

And their backers are pouring millions in to pushing them

Gbeebies
Astroturfing campaigns on social media

They are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. It's an investment and they will want their money back.

The problem they face is that it’s easy to be a minority party, criticising whoever is in power and promising the earth knowing that you’ll never have to put any of it into practice. It’s much more difficult to be a potential party of government, when your ideas and personnel are going to be subject to far more scrutiny and you have to “walk the walk”.

To date, their automatic response to any kind of criticism or scrutiny has been to throw their toys out of the pram.

Going to be interesting to see how they respond when their simplistic solutions don’t actually solve anything.

Quite. Hence the chaos in local government.

And of course, Farage never turning up when he was an MEP is also key evidence. Not a real politician. He's just the hype man.

All a bit like our current government then.

Bit like the ones saying GB News isn't a news channel. Fingers in their ears time like petulant kids. Anything they don't like is ridiculed because it's their go to response. Quite pathetic really, bit like the unfriending right wing friends thread. These are meant to be adults.

oh, the bitingness of the satire!

I had to triple check that poster wasn't actually referring to the government!

A hype man who scares you witless. He's got a lot of MNers responding to him like that.

Yep. Daily mail / gb news playbook

I watch gb news on occasion for balance
Its just the same old repeat about immigration, nigel, nhs.
So narrow minded

So find your balance in the Guardian. Oh wait ...

I am actually quite scared, yes. Every woman and worker should be. Fire and rehire at lower wages? Great. You're pregnant? You're fired. You're black? No job for you. But at least I can sell up and leave. British workers won't have that option.

I'm not scared. I'm chatting while chilling.

Not the gotcha moment you think it is
Try harder

Well its a fact that Reform are a political party? Not opinion.

They are a company recently registered asa political party. There is no internal democracy or mechanism to change the leader. This being the case I’d agree with the OP that they aren’t a proper political party.

It’s registered as an entertainment channel which means it can get away with some of the things it does - the standards for news channels are higher regarding bias and the use of serving politicians.

Ok. Well as I suggested earlier. Dont vote for them if that concerns you. But its really not your business if you aren't voting for them. People can judge for themselves.

They seem pretty good so far. And who dictates how a political party needs to operate internally? There's no set system. Each party is different.

I don’t intend to vote for them, but of course anyone else is at liberty to place their vote with whichever party they feel represents them best. I’m wondering by what metric you judge them to be doing well though - just polls? Because the councils they run are not doing well at all.

By what metric do you judge them to be doing any worse or better than any Labour run council in the country.

At least the party focuses on the people of this country rather than one in the Middle East which I think is a start.

Not the people. The millionaires and billionaires.
The metric is that they have said they’ll save money then found they can’t and raised council tax by close to the max while abandoning the things they said would save money and cutting vital services. It just shows they weren’t ready, they didn’t know how local government worked.

But we've seen how Labour have been focusing on billionaires. Peter Mandelson for example selling state secrets to Epstein. Or how Keir Starmer with Lord Ali.

What billionaires have Reform sold state secrets to?

There’s one I prison for colluding with Russia, for example.
Labour have also increased workers and renters rights, provided more free breakfast clubs, lifted children out of poverty…have they done everything g right? No, of course not. I’m quite disappointed they haven’t been more radical. However Reform want to remove all our rights - rip up the Equalities Act and leave the ECHR so we have no recourse. Why do you think that is (hint - it’s not about ordinary people, or immigrants)?

I suspect Peter Mandelson has been in a far better position to have done a lot more damage to tbis country's interests than most people, him being in the actual government for many years. Don't you agree?

The breakfast club is the only thing that they can cite as a success. Its raised every single time. You don't lift children out of poverty by bunging the parents cash. And the workers rights issue has increased unemployment particularly in young people (as predicted).

Reform do not want to "remove all our rights". They want to change the source of those rights which is what generally happens over the centuries in this country. Look at trial by jury. Thats been a right for nearly a thousand years and Labour are actually removing it. In real life!

There are lots of successes (and breakfast clubs arent the only thing in my post even, never mid overall). That you don’t know them is on you. The Reform guy was an actual MEP at the time, so pretty influential I’d say. And I’m not convinced Farage wasn’t also involved as he made similar speeches around the same time.
But you are entitled to your own opinion and to vote how you want. No point in discussing it further I don’t think