Council Elections

[OneTealShaker]

The first declared seats going to Reform.

Reform +2
Labour -1

Buckle up people.

I voted reform. I’m not an idiot, I’m not stupid and I’m not politically illiterate. I’m a well educated, politically engaged woman and I don’t think much of the quality of comment on this thread. I believe the anyone-but-Reform crowd are over-anxious and ill-informed. They also tend to have an inflated sense of superiority without the experience or deep knowledge to back up their reactionary responses

There are 34 million people employed in the uk, I’d think there was every reason for them to have rights

Voting age will be 16!for the next GE won’t if ? That will benefit the Greens too. These local results are to be expected people are fed up of the state of the country and sadly have fallen for Reform but they have time to realise and I’m sure Reform will continue to mess up wherever they have control.

What is it they are ill informed about?

Not true, wages have been stagnant for 15 years, post global financial crisis, not since the introduction of WTC in 1999.

Anyway, the part of the sky-rocketing welfare budget is pensions. Is this part of welfare you'd cut? The other categories are largely stable.

Do you support the tax cuts for high earners promised by Farage? He said recently to Bloomberg that Reform's fiscal plans are the same as the Liz Truss mini budget, but with added welfare cuts. Should those at the bottom of the pile pay for tax cuts for the wealthy?

Totally agree especially your last sentence 😂

They are all a shitshow but I certainly wouldn't vote for anyone at the extreme ends of the shitshow.

I knew this was going to be the result, that doesn't make it any less depressing.

Yep I agree. It was the same here before Brexit too, although arguably it’s worse now.

What was it about your local candidate that really impressed you? What local issues are they challenging? I'm genuinely curious because here, the most of the leaflets and canvassing were based on national issues and not helpful at all in this election.

Exactly. Well, they’re emboldened by a leader who took £5million just before he decided to run as an MP. Much of the same money and same people behind Brexit, now behind Reform, so makes sense.

Very akin to the damage that the current labour givernment are instilling on this country?

We live in a democracy and the beauty of a democracy is that people can choose who they want to vote for. As it is turning out, the majority are wanting to vote Reform. Some of this is likely to be due to national issues (and this is the only way people can express how fed up they are with the incompetence of the current government).

I didnt vote Reform. But I hold no animousity against those people who have.

That was something Labour wanted but I can see them doing a U turn on that as it would, as you say, very likely benefit the Greens more than them.

I’d like to know this too.

I am not a Reform voter but can understand people’s dissatisfaction with the current major parties. But this was a local government election- highways, potholes, libraries, bin collections, local arrangements for SEND and Social Care etc. I haven’t seen any detailed plans for what Reform would do in my area on those topics. The winners of this election don’t get to do anything about national policy on immigration, benefits etc.

Much as it pains me to say it, Reform is inarguably the true opposition now. The Tories are toast.

I know it's different in Parliament, and the number of MPs is what matters, but it does seem mad that Kemi Badenoch is doing PMQ etc when hers is a minority party across the UK now.

@Personalorigins I really hope you are right

Why did you vote for them out of interest? What did the candidates promise in your local area? In our local area they promised to end net zero and get rid of migrants. Last time I checked councillors couldn’t do either of those things.

Yes sadly you may be right. I still believe there’s time though for Reform to now do a good job discrediting themselves as they’ve been shown to do already when running councils. They are over confident, corrupt and selfish so it won’t take much for people who voted for them to realise what a huge mistake they made when council tax goes up and local services deteriorate etc

Meanwhile, we're in a London borough that might swing to Green from Labour, and that's because the Labour candidates campaigned on national issues but all residents care about is traffic and pollution and bin collections etc. They massively misjudged what matters to us at a local level.

We’ve already seen how badly Reform have managed the power they have it will only escalate. I’m just going to sit back and watch that unfold (whilst working hard in my local community with fellow Greens)

Why did you vote reform? I’m curious.

Do you think they will deliver on their promises?

What do you think of Farage - career politician or does he actually care?

I also agree with the sentiment that we just need to let people realise how badly Reform govern at a local level before the next GE. Which isn't great for the people it will effect.

Shall we also have a sweepstake to see when the first newly elected Reform councillors jack it in? I give it a week before they start quitting.

I stated one funny anecdote about my 6 year old. The pile on of Farage Fans who didn’t like it and then tried multiple times to accuse me of lying were the ones who derailed the thread. In fact I pointed out to them that this was not what the thread was about and slightly creepy behaviour and advised them repeatedly to report my posts to Mumsnet for verification if they wanted them to be checked rather than breaking the Talk Guidelines repeatedly by accusing me of lying, but they continued regardless, so you blaming me for those insane exchanges which they were determined to continue for some time is plainly ridiculous, as all who read them can see.

I woke up pleasantly surprised that my town remained Reform free despite the polls predicting that they would take 5 seats. In fact the wards where Reform was predicted to win, had a turnout 10% higher than the rest of the town. So the message was loud and clear here and Labour has retained the majority.

This is the hilarious part. Those supporting him are mostly the poorer sections of society. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to them what impact his stated economic aims will have on them.

Reform +352
Labour -245