AIBU to think that Reform pose a real threat to UK democracy?

[Sherbs12]

Reform’s unelected chairman, Zia Yusuf, has announced that Reform will build detention centres housing immigrants waiting for deportation in areas which vote Green (or rather those which don’t Reform). They call this ‘an exercise in democratic consent’ and it’s been - rightfully - condemned by all other parties.

Last week he was threatening to ‘carpet bomb’ areas in which their MP had voted a certain way in parliament.

Obviously, this is detracting from the discovery that Farage received a £5million donation in 2024 when he seemingly changed his mind and decided to run as an MP.

So, while politics can be heated, all parties are open to criticism, we can debate the reasons behind the rise of Reform, AIBU to say that this approach from Reform is unacceptable in a democracy and an alarming indicator of how they would be in government?

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entry/zia-yusuf-reform-uk-migration_uk_69f8483de4b06e9242f51ba4/

To be fair isn’t everyone only interested in their own benefit? Surely you don’t feel similarly about illegals migrants (who are prioritising themselves despite the strength of feeling here) and so on?

Ok so how do the Greens manage how many arrive in this way.

I would never vote Reform but it isn’t a threat, it’s a logical extension of the wishes of both voting groups.

If you vote Green, you’re voting for increased immigration and in theory are therefore happy to have migrants close to you.

If you vote Reform, you’re voting for no immigration, or no net immigration, and are less likely to want migrants of this type living close to you.

I don’t see the problem with it logistically although I think the tactic is a bit low.

Obviously I'm not. At the moment, the evidence points to it being a failure of vetting (I think the same about the more extreme reform candidates) rather than endemic. I've looked for and seen nothing that convinces me that the Greens, more than any other party, are endemically antisemitic. I wouldn't vote for an antisemitic candidate and if the situation remains unresolved in 2029 I won't vote for the Green party in a general election.

If I thought there was a risk of a green government I would vote differently. I don't think any party should go from single digit mps to government in a cycle. They don't have the governance. I'm voting for them because I think a Labour or Lib Dem government with Green influence is better than the current pandering to Reform.

And specifically I do not want to see thousands of refugees, which will include children, rounded up and kept in detention centres. I am actively and directly voting against that.

Far less a threat than Labour and the greens

Someone from the Green party was on Questiontime only a few months ago and confirmed they believed in open borders so it's definitely not long been changed.

The Greens and Labour are poles apart. Labour has been a bit too soft on the benefit system but they’re getting the immigration numbers down. The Greens have a hippy open door policy because they’re all childless overgrown sixth formers who want to make the country a kind of hypothetical peace project.

No doubt that's because he didn't think of it first.
He wants even more draconian removals

I think he would’ve done it had he thought of it first but now needs an angle that puts Reform down and benefits his own party.

Tbh I think Restore make Reform look like a barn dance - they would reinforce the death penalty and widespread willy nilly gun ownership which I can’t stress ENOUGH would be AWFUL

I actually agree with the removals.

There is nothing logical about it: there will be voters who haven’t voted Green who live in the areas he is threatening, for a start. Whatever policies the Greens have on immigration, and I’m not a Green voter, but I’m certain they do not include ICE style agents and mass deportations like Reform are promising. And while this deranged policy is on immigration, but my point isn’t about immigration, it could be any issue - it’s that Yusuf is saying he will target communities who don’t vote for his party; there is no place for that approach in our democracy.

They have to go somewhere, usually it’s areas which is cheapest so they go to deprived areas. I think it’s reasonable really, it’ll be a more welcoming environment for them to go to a place that voted green.

Me too, but I think they need to be approached calmly and in a fair manner.

We are a hideously overcrowded country and the overcrowding is turning people into angry demented rats in cages. We simply cannot afford for our population to rise by another 10 million by 2040 or whatever. We have no self sufficiency in food production, our air quality is terrible, housing plots are becoming tinier and more unliveable for families as we try to cram them in, our infrastructure and roads are creaking. We need far far far far more space than ‘seeing green fields as you fly into Heathrow’.

Nobody is entitled to the UK bar its citizens. But they seem to honestly believe they are, that we owe them citizenship.

Yeah I mean it’s very direct democratic representation isn’t it really. How a place voted indicates which policies ghey would approve of. I’m actually surprised by how many greens seem to find this objectionable. I thought they would welcome it, if they object to the concept of detention they could always ask reform to just not detail the migrants they house in their area and let them roam free…

Is that really what you think?

Is that based on his skin colour or something else?

This is another stupid bigoted pile of nonsense designed to whip up support for Reform from ignorant racist voters. Will they actually do this? No. Are reform a threat to democracy? Yes.

I thought Reform had said they won't be allowed to set foot outside of these so called detention centres? So no one in these communities is going to be 'welcoming' them.

When Yusuf briefly resigned from Reform, the comments on his social media where a cesspit of Islamaphobia, racism and violent threats - from Reform supporters.

The Greens are not objecting to asylum seekers in their area; people from all parties - I’m not Green - are objecting to Reform forming policy to threaten people for voting a certain way.

It would not be the first time in history that something of that nature has happened. Just not in the UK so far, thank God. Hopefully it stays that way.

But as a warning look at what some of Reform's own supporters say about ZY, SB and NZ and how many of them defected to Restore when the latter two defected from the Tories.

@TemperanceWest interesting I didn't see any of that but I wasn't looking at the time that ZY left

Given the number of ethnic minority candidates standing for Reform in Essex and East London, I'm not sure they would've gone with them if the plan is to ultimately chase them out

But I obviously don't know for sure, and I'm not voting for them so it doesn't matter to me in a way.

I know what you are saying, but I don't trust Farage one iota. Look at all the awful things he has said over the years. I think we should all be concerned about what might transpire if he got his hands on power. It matters to us all.

Agree, he’s a snake and I wouldn’t vote for him in a million years. But I wouldn’t vote for Polanski in a billion.

No, not everyone prioritises themselves; some people believe in society and the general interest and will take this into account or even prioritise it when making voting decisions. You'll find it's one of the basic differences between the right and the left.
And no, I don't think 'illegal migrants' - a category typically misused by Reform and the like to include refugees - are being selfish by trying to save desperate conditions often at the risk of their own lives or to provide a better future for their own.

Not fighting for a better future in their homeland?