To think that those terrified of Reform/Restore vastly overestimate the power parliament actually has?

[BlueJuniper94]

Just as the title says. The fear mongering is intense at the moment but I think people could surely find peace if they looked closer at what our parliament is actually capable of (not much, ask u-turn Kier) there's the Lords, Human Rights law, and the massive unelected bureaucracy which will thwart every effort made by these parties if they do find themselves with enough of a majority. It just won't happen. Look how watered now Meloni is now that she is, to the disappointment of many who voted for her I am sure.

There also seems to be a contradiction, Farage and Lowe are frequently reffered to as populists, populism defined as empty rhetoric without delivery. If you truly believe this, there is nothing to fear. It's all hot air. Anyone who gets close to power will find themselves absorbed into the uniparty or captured as containment.

Quite, the desire to allow havoc to be reked on the country without accepting any accountability for it is rather... well, terrifying.

I certainly hope that the way things are set up in the UK differently from the US will prevent a far right party (and I'd include the Tories in that, Labour are merely right wing) from Doing A Trump. It is ironically true that the Lords might be a major source of preventing overreach/illegality.

Whether or not they actually act in unlawful ways, Reform will pretty definitely harm the country - like Trump they're wedded to the idea that you can just go back to how certain things were in the past and things will magically be better, despite the fact that the whole context of the world has changed so this sort of thinking never works out well.

@BlueJuniper94 - the massive differences I was talking about are what Reform could do, not things that have happened. For example, they could move us over to a US style healthcare system and get rid of the NHS. They could massively cut benefits. I think these are things that they have already mentioned as policies. They could massively cut benefits, plunging people into abject poverty. Farage does not care about ordinary people - only his rich cronies and himself. They could gut employment law and the rights and protections given to ordinary working people.

Basically I do not trust the racist thugs of Reform not to completely decimate the UK.

As someone who dropped out of uni because I wouldn't believe men could change sex and that women should silently accept their rights being taken away, it's very clearly not the case. Ask Professor Stock if we have freedom of speech.

Give the omnicrises we face, you are saying that governments over the past 15 years have just chosen not to act. But they could if they wanted to?

I was unable to continue my education because the subject of womens rights is too much of a hot potato in sociology departments.

But the courts have ruled that gender critical beliefs are protected beliefs, so in law, which is what the government deals in, you do have freedom of speech on that score. However, as Reform want to dispense with the Equality Act, your belief, along with everyone else’s, would no longer be protected. Still think they don’t pose a threat?

I thoroughly dislike the whole concept of a monarchy even when they are behaving! The whole Prince of Wales title is like nails on a blackboard to me - a symbol of humiliation that undermines our status as a modern nation. When Charlie Three was asked if there were plans for an investiture for his son he said: “Do you think I want to put William through what I went through?” Never mind what Wales has gone through at the expense of conquest though eh?

I wouldn't say I'm terrified. I'd say when looking at councils they've had power in, they're not actually willing to do something when they have the power.

I've had Reform councillors, a Reform council, Reform mayor...even at that low level of power, with the bar of expectations in the crust of the earth, they managed to make things worse. Reform keeps talking nationally, while showing in areas where they have local power that they're neither use nor ornament.

Where I am, UKIP/Brexit Party/Reform actually did far more to help before they were in power. They were doing things like organising bulky waste collections, litter pickings, and community events as part of showing up those in power. That's how they got in - they were visibly helping, their whole voting campaign here was 'don't vote for names you don't recognise'.

Once in, that all stopped. Their plan had worked. The only thing I see them doing now is yell about how terrible the other parties are, push themselves into photo opportunities every change they get without doing anything, and needing to reminded that being councillors doesn't mean they get extra rights to be on private property while they shout about the evil other parties and evil migrants. That's not helping. The idea that they want to help anyone but themselves based on their own track record is a fairy tale they're trying to sell.

I worry we could end up with a dodgy coalition which has no idea what they are doing

Just want to clarify what they will do to harm the country, do you think?
If you think they will damage the country then surely they will get voted out after five years if they are not elected.
I do get that Farage & his team seem a bit slippery on foreign funding such as Nadhim Zahawi in the Tory Government before he joined Reform,.

It's a shame that you felt that was your only option, but presumably that means that you place a high value on the Equality Act, which provides legal protection for your gender critical beliefs (and mine).

My beliefs are not protected in practice. The government is not implementing the supreme courts verdict. The law is only as good as it's enforcement and a government who is not minded to enforce the law is as bad, if not worse in my mind, as there being no law.

But not in practice, is my point. So it's irrelevant what the law is.

I don't agree that it's irrelevant.

How do you think things will be better for you when equality legislation is scrapped?

Absolutely-fucking-lutley!

It'll be less galling when it's ignored. That will be better.

You sound very naive. Are you very young?

If you had studied constitutional law you would understand that a party with a majority of MPs in the House of Commons can do anything, absolutely anything they want. They can abolish human rights law entirely. They could abolish the courts and introduce a dictatorship giving Nigel Farage absolute personal power with a secret police force to back him up. They could do this even if they had only 25% of the votes in the country. That's how the UK's first past the post electoral system works.

You might say that this could never happen here but if you say that it's because you haven't been paying attention.

Nobody has absolute power.

Unless the uni study was as a mature student, the time line would suggest so.

Is that a substantive or useful comment? You're just mudslinging now.

I was a mature student.

Parliament, ie the House of Commons controlled by the majority of MPs, has absolute power. This is basic constitutional law in the UK.

That is not a person.

There will never be a Reform majority big enough to do everything you're worried about.