Voting for Reform.the north/south

[Jollyjupiter]

As a proud Northerner i can say 80 per cent of my peer group will vote for Reform in May. Do you think it will be a North v South split?

I suppose the answer is some feel as negatively as you do about the other options. What you’re saying doesn’t resonate and Labour are proving worse than they expected.

I live in Yorkshire too.
There have been flags up poles everywhere- little villages more so than the cities.
No party has delivered anything for the North-we always get shat on.
People are pissed off and struggling
Labour is traditionally strong up here but but my feeling is they will take a bettering this time.
I will not be voting Reform- can't trust Farage as far as I could spit.
Polanski is absolutely deranged.
For the first time in my life I may not actually vote ... which is massive for me. Women died for my right to vote but none of them are worth the ballot paper.

She doesn’t care about anyone else’s rights except her own and will be astonished to find hers disappearing along with everyone else’s.

It absolutely needs looking at when rapists cannot be deported because they have a 'right to family life' or whatever bollox they come up with.

I can see you feel strongly but many countries with high levels of rights are not part of it, obviously because they are not in Europe. It still works well for the citizens.

Same. I am aware of people in my local area who will vote reform as they are very vocal on the community Facebook pages however I don't know anyone personally who will do (thankfully).

It really does concern me about the risk they pose to women and workers rights.

I think all political parties will lie and screw people over to an extent thats expected but it depends how much your willing to be screwed over. Some of reforms views are extreme and dangerous. If we was under reform right now we would be at war which means we would be waving our children off (16 plus) our partners while we had to move with our younger children alone to a safe country where we don't speak the language to live with strangers. Look what happened to families in Ukraine. I want a simple life where I can stay in my home with my family.

I am a proud South Londoner no one is going to vote for reform.

This would be an excellent post of it weren't for the fact that manifesto promises have been broken left, right and centre by the current Labour government and previous Tory governments too.

Look at Labour's current record:
https://fullfact.org/government-tracker/
Hardly a glowing endorsement of a government that clearly lacked the robust delivery plans that you are demanding of Reform. It's all very well delivering a supervised tooth brushing scheme for infants but what about the small issue of not raising taxes on working people or ending asylum hotels? The really damning thing about this government in particular is the additional controversial and unpopular policies they have implemented such as lifting the two child benefit cap which they failed to mention in their manifesto. Manipulative and undemocratic!

I also disagree that some people won't be individually better off under Reform. Of course they will be, in the same way that some people are better off under Labour now. There will be winners and losers and this can't just be measured financially. It's about tackling issues that matter to people. This would appear to be immigration and the economy at the moment. I can understand why many feel that Reform would tackle immigration more effectively than Labour.

https://yougov.com/en-gb/trackers/the-most-important-issues-facing-the-country

I’m in the far south and 80% of people I know are also voting reform

Here, here.

Even my dad, who was staunchly UKIP (and embarrassingly, BNP back in the day) won't vote for Reform because of their plans for the NHS and Farage's USA/Trump boot-licking.

The closest I felt to that concern was when many Labour mners were backing Starmer’s planes in the air, boots on the ground ‘coalition of the willing’ rhetoric.

@attichoarder

Dismissing those who are persuaded by Reform and calling them racists and stupid stifles debate. That happened with Brexit. Reform have a view how issues can be dealt with and those who are considering them are not stupid, some will reject the party after looking at their ideas and others will not. Demonising a political party will not destroy it. I don't know who would vote for in a GE and have never voted for UKIP or Reform but I would not rule it out.

It doesn't stifle debate at all, this is a complete myth. Reform and its outriders dominate the national discussion and have helped push views like this into the mainstream of politics: you can't move for the kind of "I'm not racist, but," views.

The same people who have been telling us for years that they are "marginalised" and "patronised" etc are now helping to push the agenda way to the right of where its been for nearly a century, influencing policy in mainstream politics and still continue to whine on about how disadvantaged they are. They can't have it both ways.

Zealous.

If there is a N/S split, I think its because the North has been so loyal to Labour and has had its heart broken too many times, which makes it want to 'rebound' with a protest vote. In tbe South there hasn't been that regional party loyalty in the same way, or smaller pockets that are married to a party (Brighton to Greens) but it's been more fluid and driven by lots of competing values. Kent was married to Conservatives, but we've seen the same rebound there to Reform. Ultimately a Refor./Tory split serves to split the right wing vote, and it's to be seen how much the Greens to that to Labour's share od the (nominally) left wing vote.

Key UK Facebook Demographics & Trends:

• Dominant Age Group: The 25-34 age group is the largest, though users span from young adults to a growing base of 65+.

No one?
I'm pretty sure they will....

Its because right wing rhetoric has them believing they'd have more money in their pocket if the government didn't give 'hand outs' to poor people who aren't them.
The disabled woman in my town with England flags and Reform stickers on her mobility scooter thinks she'd have more benefits if money wasn't being spent on immigrants.
My relative thinks he'd pay less taxes and be better off if the government wasn't paying out benefits to people like the disabled woman.
My neighbour thinks her single parent of 3 daughter would have a council house if it wasn't for asylum seekers.
Someone else thinks they pay extortionate private rent because people like my neighbours daughter have kids 'they can't afford' and get 'subsidised' housing.
Deprived right wing people invariably think that when a right wing government implements policies that will make things worse for deprived people, their particular circumstances will make them the exception. It won't be me they're coming for, it'll be those other 'scroungers' over there.

Small boat arrivals will continue to happen until politicians agree to introduce safe routes to the UK. Nobody will do that because any party with a possibility of electoral success is trying to out Reform the real Reform. So Mr Farage bears responsibility for the fact that thousands of people each year are being exploited by gang masters and having to make terrifying, often lethal crossings.

I'm not opposed to immigration but, if you're of that mind, remember that Mr Farage has, in fact, done more to increase it and create a need for it than anyone else I can think of.

We have moved from FPTP in Wales https://electoral-reform.org.uk/there-is-a-new-way-of-voting-at-the-senedd-election-this-may-how-does-it-work/ although the system is not without issue as highlighted here.

Greens are going up in the polls, will they do this? Safe routes instead that is. They don’t need to worry like Labour do about proposing something different.

This sounds like when tankies say communism hasn't failed it's just never been tried.

Northerner here - it's not geography but education and class that dictate who votes for Reform. And no I won't be voting for an incorporated company full of ignorant racists.

In what sense is it a dog whistle?

I think there's a sound basis to say that people of the baby boomer generation who benefitted greatly from the postwar settlement subsequently acted/voted to dismantle that settlement, inevitably increasing inequality and lowering living standards for subsequent generations.

I pointed out that net migration was down and that was a bad sign for the economy, so I don't know why you think I am anti immigration. I have been an immigrant and my daughter is currently an immigrant in another country.