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?

Fuck me. I know people living in chronic pain, unable to work or earn for well over a year and more because of long waiting lists, with no idea when they will be we be treated. Not that important?

I know people who have used their entire life savings for private treatment due to long waiting lists on the NHS. But their treatment was not that important?

You do realise that long waiting lists cause real suffering, and poverty for people unable to work. People can lose their houses due to it. You do realise that their conditions can progress to a stage they never really recover from the ill effects. If their conditions means they are immobile for a long period when waiting for treatment, you do realise their fitness may deteriorate and not recover ( especially for people 50 plus) with all the life long and life shortening repercussions of that.

But all this is ‘not that important’ to you?!

Fuck me, with attitudes like this no wonder there has not been the effort needed into sorting the NHS.

Utter detachment from the suffering the waiting lists are causing.

@burrmcfurr and you think Reform will fix that?!

And here we have the exact issue…the superior attitude and treating anyone who wants to vote for reform as imbeciles who don’t understand what they are voting for. This is EXACTLY what happened with Brexit and look where that got the country!!!

This is such a lame and illogical argument and I'm sick of it being wheeled out in all these debates. The bare truth of the matter is that Brexit was a disaster: there's no serious argument about this any more. Why are people who pointed out that it was going to be a disaster constantly being told it was their fault it was a disaster?

The analogy would be someone warning a drunken teenager not to go out waving a knife and shouting being blamed for said drunken teenager getting into a dangerous knife fight. And then doubling down for years afterwards and saying it was the fault of the "patronising" people who said it was a bad idea.

Why have the Brexiteers been able to continually spin the narrative that it was the fault of those of us who warned it was a bad idea? It's the worst kind of gaslighting.

It was a terrible idea, you were warned and you decided you knew better than "experts". You were wrong. Stop trying to deflect and let's try to sort it out.

But we were right that the people voting for Brexit didn't understand what they were voting for. Brexit has been a disaster and didn't deliver the benefits that most Leave voters were voting for. And a clear majority of the population now believe that Brexit was a bad decision.

The same thing will happen if they elect a Reform government. They will regret it, because the country will be an absolute shit show.

Luckily, some of us will have options that will enable us to get out but it's very sad to see the country on such a path of self destruction.

Any need to swear at me?

The fact of it is is that emergency care will always come first. I’d suggest that the people who are in pain and waiting years go private, but I’m guessing your next response will be “well they can’t afford it”, which is ironic when you’re arguing against the NHS.

I can't believe anyone is falling for this one.

Where have they said they’ll dismantle the NHS or is that another scare mongering myth designed to worry people .

Would you? I think that's one of the more unlikely scenarios. Bear in mind that there are few things Mr Farage would like less than being prime minister. Add to that the huge numbers of candidates - almost 700 - that Reform would have to find and the problems they're having with vetting candidates on a local and national level. Throw into the mix the fact that the Conservatives are a totally spent force, and have said they don't want to co-operate with Reform anyway (sensible if they don't want a decade in the wilderness, Lib Dem style). It's really hard to know who would "win" in a fragmented field under a traditional FPTP system which Mr Starmer seems reluctant to change. My money would be on a mix of more progressive parties working together to squeeze out the far right. It happened in Caerphilly - a big push from Plaid and an informal stepping back by the Labour Senedd candidate ensured that Reform didn't win. I think there'll be some kind of minority government or coalition next GE.

They know it won’t. But when reform come in and they privatise the NHS, they’ll be making sure that people in receipt of the state pension get their insurance subsidised. Because they’ll find out just how expensive it is to be poorly in a privatised system.

Agree that tactical voting to keep candidates out may be significant. We saw a lot of that in the last GE. Reform are even more polarising, so I'd expect that to happen again.

Can you respond to my point about 27% of pensioners being millionaires?

Farage has said that the NHS will remain “free at the point of use, but funding will be re-examined”

https://fullfact.org/health/reform-nigel-farage-pay-for-nhs-labour/

He has mentioned many times that he would like to move to an insurance based system and he wouldn’t “rule anything out”

AKA, turn up to a&e and get a huge bill after.

Privatising the nhs, dragging us into war, hating women and calling us gutter sluts (whatever the hell that means thick tarts and old hags. Anti abortion views. Viewing same sex marriage as wrong. Wanting to change the equality act. They sound great who wouldn't want to vote reform 🙄

And here we have the exact issue…the superior attitude and treating anyone who wants to vote for reform as imbeciles who don’t understand what they are voting for. This is EXACTLY what happened with Brexit and look where that got the country!!!

As PPs have said the above argument is redundant now. We know Brexit was bad, we know how Reform are doing with their councils & we can all see what Trump is.

What they are saying is if you sneer at someone and call them ignorant because you don’t don’t like what they see as the solution (in this case voting reform) you don’t make them less likely to vote for the option you disagree with, you just stop them engaging with you in discussion.

You live in a bubble. Farage has a ceiling which Reform will never get above as too many people in the country absolutely loathe the man and can see him for the liar, charlatan and grifter that he is. He's a big part of the reason why we're in this mess, and it's a pity that you can't see it.

Farage has said that the NHS will remain “free at the point of use, but funding will be re-examined”

And will pensioners have to fund it or just younger generations?

He’s already said that he wants a system that “carries those who can’t afford it” - so you’ve guessed it. The younger generations will be paying for insurance AND probably some revamped national insurance for the pensioners to pay for it.

The upcoming local elections will show which way the GE is likely to go. I think a lot of Reform voters are going to be reluctant ones, because successive Tory and Labour governments have shown themselves to be weak on immigration and crime, there is no other place for their vote to go.

@Dinosnorous are you saying polite debate will change their minds?

The same is true of those who voted Labour and I strongly suspect will be the case for those who now choose to vote Green.

The lack of viable options is a huge issue. Too many people feel forced to vote against what they don’t want rather than in favour of anything that genuinely represents their views as that option invariably doesn’t exist.

I’m in my 50s and myself and all of my friends and colleagues, who were early adopters of Facebook (back when you needed either a university email or an email at one of a select group of tech companies) gave up on it years ago. Literally only use it occasionally for marketplace. It’s a dead platform populated by bots.

Aren’t a lot of Reform ex Tory?

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.

I'd expect so. He's obviously calculated that pensioner support is his best path to power, given that the numbers we have suggest Reform are most popular in that demographic.

It's not about superior attitude it's about the consequences of protest votes, uninformed voting, feelings over facts
It did happen over Brexit, we are all poorer for it yet people are ready to hold their noses again - madness