Anyone want to have a calm non heated discussion about Reform UK? Is Farage deliberately trying to slow down momentum?

[Greyblankie]

This isn’t a post to argue about reform voters - Would love a non confrontational discussion on the topic. (A lot to ask, I know).

I’ve always been a conservative but at the last election even I couldn’t bring myself to vote for them. I’d never vote Labour or Lib Dem and wasn’t comfortable with Reform so I just didn’t vote.

Following the disastrous start of the shambolic Labour government government I started leaning more towards Reform and have basically followed them for around a year.

Just recently however I’m starting to have my doubts. The straw that broke the camels back was them announcing that the money saved on child benefit would go towards reducing the cost of alcohol! It was so laughable that if it had been April fools I would insist it must have been a joke. But no, it wasn’t.

Now, I truly believe that Farage does not want to be PM - he never has wanted it and I’m starting to suspect he’s deliberately trying to sabotage his own party and bring the momentum down. Two Labour members who defected last week - one of them couldn’t even get the name of the party right and kept calling it Respect 😂

Anyone else think that the Reform movement was only ever meant to shake up politics and now Farage is starting to apply the brakes?

Also, any reform voters considering moving back to the Tories? I think Kemi is brilliant but it’s the rest of them I have my doubts about.

I also believe that if Reform look like they might win the next GE - Farage will step down and Tice will take over.

Maybe they’re trying to sabotage their chances because they can’t or don’t want to actually follow through on their claims?

Perhaps they are trying to give more traction to Restore UK who are even more hardline than Reform?

God knows.

Either that or he thinks he they have the GE in the bag so they can say what they want. I would also doubt Farage wants to be PM, I think he's enjoying his little junkets over to his fans in the US more than being a serving MP to Clacton.

He's taking inspiration from his mate Trump who opened his mouth, let any old shit spill out, and still got voted in.

I would think cutting alcohol duty is very on brand for Farage. Every other photo opportunity is him standing in a pub with a pint.

I don't think he wants to lose.
All parties have to tread a fine line between being too boring or too radical. Unusual and eye catching policies generate headlines but can cost credibility. Like any leader he will get some of these calls right and some wrong.

If he became PM he’d have to actually do some work, and it would become even more apparent that his “plans” (using the word loosely) wouldn’t work.

No political party will ever give you 100% of what you want.

The way they work out what to do, is to come up with ideas, float them out there, and see what people like or what they don’t like.

This of course is within the context of a (mostly) right-wing media who will focus on what suits their owners. They focus on click-bait, twisting policies and announcements to generate lots of traffic / outrage, thus increasing advertising revenue.

Igonoring the media, talking to candidates, looking on Party websites, looking up what advocacy groups etc are saying, it’s a much more beneficial way to go.

Basing who you vote for, on one issue, will always leave you disappointed. Voting based on a personality likewise.

Reform would have to have some actual costed policies for the voting public to review. What is their stance on education, welfare, infrastructure, security etc? Why would anyone vote for a party without a manifesto?

I suspect he has his eyes on something else.
A role in the Trump administration maybe?

It's much easier to agitate than it is to govern, I am sure he knows that.

The donors that have given Reform millions and millions would be a bit pissed off if Farage decided to jack it all in.

I don't think he wants to lose the GE which is three years away - whether he really want to become PM is another matter. He barely turns up to Parliament or his constituency - as PM he'd have to put in some hard graft.

For now he has to keep the bunch of defectors i.e. his 'shadow cabinet' members, from coming under too much scrutiny and watch his councillors at work and hope they are not too calamitous. I wish him well 😄

You could say the same about the greens though and they’re also surging in popularity.

That’s why I’m edging back more towards the Tories, they do actually cost their policies.

Reform policies on welfare is reinstating child benefit cap, removing all benefits for foreign nationals and massively reducing the number on pip.

No word on education or the NHS which is another reason I’m backing away slowly

I think the Green surge won't last - Reform on the other hand, although they've stalled a bit recently, will still appeal to a lot of voters.

The media has a lot to answer for - every time Farage opens his mouth or holds a press conference about nothing it's headline news.

He's very clever and savvy the way he influences the media, I'll give him that.

No word on education or the NHS which is another reason I’m backing away slowly

The trouble with backing away from Reform towards the Tories is that we have just lived through 14 years of the devastation they wreaked on the NHS and education. Why would we trust them with the future based on recent prolonged experience and failure?

Farage is a disruptor. When he has the chance to make real change for the people who voted for him either as MEP or MP he does nothing. He wants to poke the bear, not be the bear.

If he becomes PM and performs as he has in other elected positions the country will be in real trouble. He doesn't attend, he doesn't vote, he doesn't make himself available to his constituents, he spends the greater part of his week earning money via other sources and traveling to the US to further his 'other interests'. We would effectively be without a PM.

Yeah one thing I noticed yesterday was Kemi Badenoch was live on YouTube doing a key note speech. There were 150 people watching and no comments. When it’s a Reform live there are thousands of people watching and the comments section is so busy you can’t even keep up with the chat. So Reform are doing something right with the way they coax the public

Simply because Labour are even worse. If it comes down to voting Labour or conservative next time it would have to be conservatives for me.

The difficulty will be if the right vote is split between reform and conservatives it would have to be a choice of which is most likely to get a majority.

I don't think he said what he said about child benefit because he wants to lose momentum.

The problem is for you, saying they will reinstate the 2 child benefit cap and spend the extra money on lowering alcohol duty is an obvious turn of. For other people it's exactly what they want to hear. You only have to look at threads on here to see there's support for slashing benefits. In fact it's probably less popular on a parenting forum than elsewhere. Just as removing the equality act and therefore protection for pregnant women etc might seem bad to many people on here but there are people out there who do resent the fact they cant legally fire women for being pregnant.

What's happening is that Farage needs to appeal to a wide range of people who all want different sometimes contradictory things. Trump was able to do this very successfully because of the "his supporters take him seriously but not literally" effect. People voted for him because of the policies they liked while hoping/insisting he didn't mean the policies that would harm them. Whether that works for Farage or not remains to be seen but I don't think he's self sabotaging. I think he hopes that voters like you will believe he doesn't mean it about the 2 child benefit cap and other voters will believe he does.

In reality politics is always about compromise/choosing the party which most aligns to your values without crossing any red lines. So I don't think people need to agree with everything Reform says to vot for them. I do think it's dangerous when people vote because they don't believe they mean X,Y or Z. Politicians lie but when they are promising something you dont want they are probably telling the truth.

@Greyblankie “Simply because Labour are even worse. If it comes down to voting Labour or conservative next time it would have to be conservatives for me.”

I’m glad reform are there, to keep the other parties on their toes.
From what I’ve seen, Labour seem serious on immigration, much more so than the Tories were after Brexit. Tories are finished for a generation.

I’ll vote for whoever brings in Proportional Representation.

How many of those accounts are based in the UK though?

We have a couple more years yet to see what Labour achieve. It'll be interesting to evaluate that that the performance of the Conservatives over the previous 14 years.

The right vote might also be shared with Restore.

Reform and Restore combined is still about the same polling isn’t it? It’s just some have shifted to the latter.

True, and if people think Reform are “far right” I’d love to hear what they think of Restore 😬

No I agree with the child benefit cap, it’s the spending the savings on beer that I don’t agree with. That money could go into education, early years … anything more relevant but beer?! You couldn’t make it up 😂

Until you said you thought Kemi is brilliant I was agreeing with your post. She is the next Truss. Clueless.