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?

Northerner here too - the split will be towns/cities rather than north/south. I don’t know how any of my friends vote, nor would I tell anyone how I would vote IRL. I usually vote Labour but am interested in Reform. Companies are collapsing into administration left right and centre, the jobs market is dire, we keep importing more and more people but there are no jobs or houses and we don’t have the infrastructure to keep doing this. In my area rents have pretty much doubled in the last 5 years. I know so many young adults at work who can’t rent or buy and are still living with parents in their late 20s.

I don't think many people really understand the meaning of a political 'dog whistle'. The whole point is that it's something that goes under the radar of the general population.

So for example, someone saying that there is generational inequality or downsides to immigration aren't using a dog whistle. They are literally just mentioning pertinent issues that should be debated in a healthy democracy.

Oh blimey that old chestnut! Brexit was a really good idea but it just wasn't enacted properly. 🤣.

It's like being in the Museum of Thoughts Past. I had no idea anyone was still trotting that argument out!

Spot on? So you agree Brexit was bad?

Agree it'll probably be cities v elsewhere. As with the Brexit vote where it's often missed that the majority of northern English cities went Remain.

Reform will likely do well in these local elections.
Labour will take a battering.

Farage is not the answer.
In Reforms senior party you have a belt of people who know immigration gets the vote in. But they aren’t themselves interested in that. They are money people. Farage always has been. They are interested in the financial opportunities governing Britain could bring. The big contracts. From health care, social care, to deregulation of the banks.

Immigration not their main focus but a Trojan horse.

We don't actually have welfare in this country. We're not the US.

If you're talking about social security benefits, look at the proportion of GDP spent on benefits over time, not headlines from the Express.

No, I don't think that's what they're saying at all.
They're saying spot on to that treating people as imbeciles is what led to Brexit.

@DaisyDooleythe first step to sorting the benefits bill is admitting the pensions system is broken.

The idea the North is poorer than other areas of the country is simply not true.

There are very well off areas of the North. And the South. Have you seen North Yorkshire anyone ? And some of the houses in Leeds, Manchester ?
And very poor ones.
Many poor areas are actually often coastal these days. They have limited job options and poorer educational standards.

But that's just a misrepresentation of the facts.

People didn't vote for Brexit because other people called them imbeciles. (Although if they had done so, then the title would have been truly justified.)

People voted for Brexit because they believed in the promises of sunlit uplands and dismissed all rational concerns as "Project Fear".

You can't rewrite history. Those who warned against Brexit were not responsible for the catastrophic decision made by stupid people voting for things that they didn't even try to understand.

I am ethnically Indian. It would be dangerous to dismiss Farage and Reform. He plays up on fear of foreigners very well. Key to taking him down will be a policy to stop small boat landings that works- Mahmoud is I think making some progress, but there will be no instant fix. Also ensuring that we allow inward migration only when necessary. Again, numbers have fallen sharply in recent times. The irony is after Brexit, there was a surge in numbers as legal migration was allowed at pace- The Boris wave.

Well, the Reformers are showing their true nature on this thread.

Their ignorance of the ECHR and refusal to accept that Brexit has made them poorer is jaw-dropping. Perhaps they hate their kids, too, who knows.

If you want to see what you're in for, take a look at Reform-led Staffordshire, the racism and the resignations - it's an absolute shit show.

I would vote green, but Labour need a majority to keep Reform out. If we had PR it would be fine, but with the first past the post system it is a two horse race where I live, and I don't want Reform in.

Yeah small town in the far south here. Don’t know a single person who isn’t voting reform.

Which realistically Reform aren't going to be able to do, because their support base is so disproportionately pensioner. I know there are pensioners who do think that, including some in my family, but still think Reform would regard it as too risky.

Immigration in numbers is highest for legal migration.
Legal migration is driven by universities. Not all students do not all go back. Many stay and convert to work here.
Then driven by employers. Who sponsor people they know already or companies that pick and choose who they want. Rather than home grown.
Then you have other routes by which people can apply to come here, marriage for example.
The boats are an issue as the country knows nothing about the people. Who they are, what they are running away from and why.

I don't see the Green party ever being in a position of power.

That tells us more about your social circle than it tells us about Reform's prospects of electoral success.

Apologies, I was unclear. I should have said "for those of that mind".

There’s no chance. But until someone has the balks to do it the country will get worse and worse.

I completely agree with you by the way, as in I didn't vote for Brexit and there were far too many people voting for it without a clue what it really was. Dazzled by promises of loads of money, and other stuff. Who didn't listen to genuine concerns and just put their fingers in their ears.
I just don't think it does any good calling names and saying people are stupid, even though half the time a lot of people are. 😁
Not sure what the solution is to that one!

That’s a profound misunderstanding of what was meant by a coalition of the willing. At least our government wasn’t straining at the leash to take part in Trump’s illegal war. Unlike Badenoch and Farage.

Rude. Snide even.

I did not choose my family, my work colleagues, the customers at my work place or the parents at my children’s school.

Who are mostly all nice people btw, but they are voting reform

Are they proposing safe routes?