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’ve yet to see a convincing argument. In fact, I’ve tried to debate and have provided facts, and the posters who were attempting to engage in debate have disappeared.

If we had a Reform govt right now, we'd be fully in cahoots with the US and Israel and engaged in this highly dubious war in Iran and Lebanon with all the associated insanely dangerous rhetoric. How would that help your working class northerners OP?

I have a rare condition (congenital) and I'm on a Facebook group that has a lot of Americans in and its honestly unbelievable not only the bills they receive but also certain hospitals they can't go to as that specific one doesn't take their insurance. Having a serious condition/ illness is hard enough without the added pressure of having to sell your home to pay bills or not being able to go to the closest or best specialist hospital because they don't take your type of insurance. Its heartbreaking some of the things I have read

Rather like the people who voted for Labour have found… which is why we are facing the appalling possibility that Reform will get in.

Exactly, I don't want to be dragged into a war i don't want my children sent to war i don't want to have to be moved to a safe country to live with a random family where I don't speak the language. Labour stopped this happening, reform wanted it to happen. No matter what you think of labour being safe, alive and able to stay in my own home with my family is my top priority

We tried reasoning and debate prior to Brexit. We highlighted the risks of leaving the EU, many of which have now become reality. The arguments were dismissed as Project Fear, and we were told that the country had had enough of experts.

Sometimes people make terrible choices. For those who are intelligent enough to see that others are making terrible choices, I believe there is a moral obligation to point it out, even when you know that the idiots won't listen. But I've understood now that there is no point in trying to reason with stupid.

Yes, of course, they will try to twist it around to make it someone else's fault when they realise what a monumental fuck-up they have made. In some cases, they may not even have the wits to connect the ghastly outcomes with their own horrendous decisions. But none of that will actuallymake it the fault of those who tried to warn them.

Maybe. I'd like to hear from them though because no one in RL or online has been able to provide me with an articulate and evidence backed rationale for considering Reform the party most fit to govern with the policies most likely to benefit the country, or even them as individuals.
I hear a lot about what's wrong with the country. I hear a lot about what's wrong with the other parties. I hear people parroting Reforms wish list for the country.
But no seems able to explain exactly how Reform intends to improve on these areas of concern, how its feasible, how they will overcome the barriers, how its going to be done without great cost, or why they have confidence Reform are capable of it given the scarcity and quality of their candidates, and their track record where they do have some power.
I understand that people will vote from self interest, but I'd expect someone with intelligence to drill down below their agreement with the party's 'values' and want to be confident they were underpinning robust policies and an achievable plan of action, and that they understood it sufficiently to be able to explain it.
I ask this on most pro Reform threads. I'm still waiting.

Why what has labour actually done that has screwed everyone over who voted for them?

The word "elective" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your narratives. In most advanced countries having to wait a year for an operation that allows you to leave the house or continue in your job would not be considered "good enough", no. And in many Trusts its a lot longer than that, still. I'd like to say that its shocking that someone working in the NHS can have such dismissive attitudes, but unfortunately it's par for the course in my experience.

Can you explain to us "betters" then? ( I assume that means people who don't support Reform.) What policies do Reform have that you support and feel would benefit the country as a whole? Do they have costed policies? Where will they select their parliamentary candidates? Do you feel Mr Farage genuinely wants to become prime minister - how does that tally with his record of low Parliamentary appearance and lack of constituency activity? (In other words, if he's rarely in Parliament, doesn't engage with his constituents and spends considerably more time in the US/pursuing his other jobs and interests what would have to change for him to fulfil the highly demanding role of PM?)

If you have time to answer these questions, I'd be delighted because I have loads more!

The people on here saying you would be daft to vote reform do know your concerns. They also know Reform won’t mar things better in those areas - probably considerably worse. It’s not that anyone isn’t listening. It’s that Reforms answers are either missing or wrong. It’s not looking down noses, it’s trying to engage over policy choices. Explain why you think Reform will be better. Everyone is listening.

Waves from Bromley!

Basically if you think Trump is awful don't vote reform. If you love Trump and think the US is doing great then vote reform

I'm also a proud Northerner and I would NEVER EVER vote for reform. See reasons above from @JustGiveMeReason

Not really. Labour voters are disillusioned because they didn't get what they thought they were voting for - an end to the demonisation of certain groups, some progressive environmental policies, an end to greed and corruption and so on. Reform voters would surely be appalled to receive exactly what they're voting for.

I don't think it will be a North/ south divide but it will be a London vs rest of England divide (see Brexit for example)

Are you one of the 80%?
If so, what are your reasons for voting Reform? What is it in their manifesto that you like / agree with?

The London yougov map is interesting, you can see how colours spread across the areas.

Re N v S in op, maybe. Perhaps the local elections will show more, whoever is having them.

If one of the other major parties said very clearly, the NHS concept doesnt work anymore, we are going to move to an insurance based system, but it will be like the system in Germany or Netherlands and not the USA. We guarantee this and are in talks with the Netherlands

Would this counter the reform threat?

I also dont get the immigration thing, in that all the parties say reduce immigration. Labour has seemed to, so what will reform do different thats workable.

I’m a northerner and most of the people that I know have said they’re voting Green, I’m voting Labour even though I usually vote Green in the local elections.

I do think there will be a bit of a north/ south divide yes. My husband is Northern and my family is Southern, but his family is all well educated so the idea of voting Reform is quite shocking to them. However I do sit in the working mens clubs and pubs and hear the chat going on and Reform has been very successful at scaring and scapegoating people of other religions and colour up there. It's sad.

Their communities aren't very diverse and they seem to believe the South is a warzone. They seem genuinely surprised when we explain how lovely our lives in London are and that we aren't being mugged at knife point by a black person each day. Whereas in London we know that these people are our friends and our teachers and neighbours and that its all rubbish. Islam is overwhelmingly a peaceful and kind religion and nothing to fear or get worked up about. Northern family members who have been visiting for years suddenly feel scared to get the train down here- nothing has changed- but its like they are brainwashed by bad media. They show me statistics published by GB news and Reform and they are manipulated in every way they teach you not to do. The parties know what they are doing and think people will be too uneducated to notice it, and the sad part is, lots of people aren't good enough with numbers to see the problems with say using % increases and not real numbers.

There is a lot of anger in many areas of the North about the closed industries and the lack of opportunities and money, and Reform has done well to harness that anger and direct it at a group of people. It's right out of America's playbook for the Mexicans and Hitler's playbook for the Jews. They'd hate you to wake up and realise its the rich people screwing us everytime, not the man scraping by with the gig economy and a pushbike.

I am scared what will become of our country if people aren't electing based on financial sense, community spirit and positive growth as our direction but whipped up racist sentiments and xenophobia. You can see what damage Trump has been able to cause the US and how he has set back free speech, education, scientific research everything by decades or more and set the world into a more dangerous and food insecure place. Reform will kill our NHS and empty our hospital workforces. The communities that Reform will most harm are voting for them... the chickens are truly voting for the henhouse.

I'm in London too, daughter in a private school and says quite a good number of the boys in her year and apparently their parents support Reform.

I live in a Conservative area and I've had at least 4 Reform pamphlets addressed directly to me as well😳.
They are working really hard and have garnered much support.

As a lifelong Conservative voter, I shall be voting Reform at the forthcoming local elections for one simple reason: without Reform, we wouldn’t be having an election where I live at all. We were denied a vote last year, and they tried to deny us a vote again this year. I didn’t hear any other parties shouting about this curtailment of democracy, and had Reform not taken the government to court, I wouldn’t be able to vote at all this May.

You mean reform have forced elections for a council that will be abolished soon to be brought into a larger council? At a huge cost to the taxpayer? Amazing.

Voting is a good thing, whoever people decide to vote for it’s good that millions weren’t denied that.