To think the main Mumsnet demographic are out of touch politically

[Veiledveritas]

Reform.are smashing the polls yet any Reform voter is despised and ridiculed on here.

Yet other European countries are tackling this issue quite successfully, including several with social democratic governments.

Not by all, I've seen quite a few Reform supporters on here.
However the fact is, despite Reform's gains, they are a minority party. Let's just hope they stay that way :-).

They don’t. But they are the hammer from the toolbox as far as immigration is concerned. We can’t HAVE those things without lowering the population.

Just because people are voting Reform doesn't make them right. There has been a failure of the main parties to offer a real alternative vision and its easy for a new, never in power party to pretend to be all things to all people. I just hope Reform have been given enough rope to hang themselves with and that the results in this election do not translate to the next general election. I believe ukip once won big in the EU elections and we had a lot of crowing that they were set to win a lot of seats at the next general election and then they crashed out in the next election. Council results don't automatically translate to GE results.

Of the 16% born outside the UK/EU, how many are now naturalised and/or were born to British parents living abroad?

I would imagine that men are more likely to vote reform, but I could be wrong.

So you don’t really want better quality of life, you want to bet the farm that immigration is the reason you’re unhappy, vote in a shower of clowns (including party members who live abroad) to ‘fix’ it, and then what, hope they start to care about the quality of life for the rest of us? That doesn’t sound like a very good strategy to me.

Net migration has fallen by more than 60% since 2024, the birth rate is falling as is life expectancy. It hasn’t actually made a difference yet, because reducing the population is not, on its own, a solution.

So if it is purely about raw numbers, how do you propose that we should manage an ageing population, a falling birth rate and massive skills gaps in our labour market?

It could have been worse, on the other thread they said they want to get rid of ‘third world immigration’. Lovely.

There’s plenty of useful idiots in the ‘Green’ party 🤡🤡🤡

Not out of touch. But a different demographic. You can understand polls and what is going to happen - without agreeing with it.

Also, a lot of posters on mumsnet are focused on some specific issues. Those are not necessarily vote winners/ losers for other groups.

MN is mostly women and generally the more educated end of the spectrum. That’s…not the core demographic of Reform voters.

Really? Then why are so many nurseries and primary schools having to close? 🤔 Ahh could it be that the rise in population isn’t from births? If so then how?

I’m bored.

i should like to make clear I don’t vote reform and I think their policies are simplistic.

however.

a pp said given that we need immigration what sort of model do we want?

they have various examples including Switzerland, which has about 25% of it’s population foreign born.

now Swiss immigration is a lot easier from EU countries (Switzerland is not in the EU but has various agreements with it). If you want to become a citizen your name goes on a referendum and your local area votes whether to let you become a citizen. People are regularly rejected.

my friends who are now Swiss had to write a whole thing that went to their local area about how they were catholic and spoke German and their kids went to the local state school and they all did lots of stuff with the church and supported the local music festival etc.

Switzerland is also regularly told off by international bodies for racism (most of their immigration is white European and highly educated and or rich).

it has a referendum system for many decisions and in 2025 banned the niqab and the burka.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56314173

various Swiss cantons have also put measures in place to stop mosques being built.

Switzerland has immigration, yes. They go to a lot of effort to make sure it’s people who culturally fit with the Swiss people who are already there and they are very clear that their religion (Christianity) is the religion of the country (in various flavours depending on where you are) and they don’t put other religions on parallel with christianity.

so moving across to Britain, I think quite a lot of people who vote reform would probably like an approach more like the Swiss. Allow immigration for people who are culturally similar to the British who are already here. And make them pass a bloody hard English test just like my friemds had to do for German to become Swiss citizens.

Because where the people are is changing.

i live in a small market town where they are just building and building. We had a new secondary five years ago and they’re just starting another primary for the next big new housing estate.

Which ones, out of interest?
I do agree there are some quite straightforward things a government of ours could do to help the problem.

Because the need for more housing isn’t predicated on a rise in population. It’s because there’s an increase in the number of households. There’s been a 30% rise in single households in the last decade.

It's SNP and I voted for them for the 1st time.
Sturgeon is a nutcase ,her daily broadcast during COVID was painful ..Auntie Sturgeon knows what's best for you all and a whole lot of other shit she got up to.

Nah. I've got Jewish neighbours. Not a single issue with them. DC play together. But murdering Palestinian DC isn't good really, is it? Not when it's their own land they're living on.

@Octavia64 so moving across to Britain, I think quite a lot of people who vote reform would probably like an approach more like the Swiss. Allow immigration for people who are culturally similar to the British who are already here.

So that is what they had here before Farage campaigned for Brexit. Assisted by Boris who then created the "Boriswave". It is all very circular!

So if it's just about raw numbers, how do you propose we address the issues around an ageing population and a falling birth rate?

You can’t have a never ending Ponzi scheme where numbers always go up. The way out of that will be AI and tech as the opposite is incoming, loss of jobs.

I suspect most people who vote reform (and indeed quite a few others) are not happy that the result of Brexit seems to have been a big increase in immigration from countries not culturally aligned with the U.K. and the return home of an awful lot of eu immigrants.

it was a big loss to the uk.

All things that remainers were trying to say at the time.

But happy enough to continue to place their faith in the main orchestrator of this situation? Is it just me ....😱