What's going to happen to the north of England and Welsh voters who got royally fucked by Brexit and have now voted Reform?

[JacknDiane]

Will they never fucking learn?

people here ‘could’ work 2/3 jobs and like in a house share and get on, but it’s not the standards of living that we used to have even 20 years ago. You got a job, you did it, you came home (nice council house or place you could afford to buy) and you had an ok life. The life you describe of sharing accommodation and working more than 40 hours a week is a worse standard of living that we used to have. Many immigrants are driving that worse standard of living by undercutting the Brits by being prepared to accept worse standards of living. If Deliveroo relied on Brits doing the delivery all of a sudden they’d be paying a lot more because they’d have to (and there’d be fewer illegal e-bikes around!).

Its not skilled workers doing their bit that people object to at all. I’m not a Reform voter and don’t support most of their policies. I’m just trying to explain the logic.

Indeed. People are desperate for someone, anyone to give them hope when all feels hopeless. Reform, Trump, far right whatever it is, they give simple headline messages that translate into hope.
Of course in reality things are not that simple and none of it works. Brexit to stop immigrants and fix the NHS? Hasn't worked even a jot. But that was the hope people voted for.
Mainstream parties are doing a terrible job of giving clear hopeful messages and have not delivered in power. I haven't voted Reform and never would but I am honestly at a loss as how we get out of this situation

No, Brexit has had a huge impact. It isn't so much the returns under the agreement, but the obligation to prevent crossings. As soon as Brexit came in France shrugged their shoulders and removed their resources from it because it was no longer their problem. Hence the number of crossings soared.

They will get what they deserve. Shame it’s inflicted on others too.

Look at the immigration numbers.
Look at the pro-Palestine marches every weekend for 2 years.
That’s what people see.

That's because they operate on a different cycle, probably whole council elections, where other councils tend to operate on a proportion cycle basis (usually thirds) so rather than having a fully new council every 3 years, the seats are staggered over the term.

What that actually means is that we haven't yet seen the full impact of the Reform surge. Majority of the swing went to no overall control, but only because there weren't enough seats in each council up for election for Reform to take a majority. The next round will result in a lot more Reform councils.

Worcestershire is reform led council. We have had a 9% council tax increase

Getting a bit fed up of reading threads of people calling other people stupid because their thoughts/values dont aligned. People are entitled to their opinions. Do you think the smartest people in the world agree on everything. In a world where's theres so much false information out there its not even particularly easy to find the facts.

I have a close friend who I have differing political opinions with, not once have we called each other stupid. We just respect that.

Also from the north.... I had no election. Will not vote reform. But also will never vote Labour.... not because I think people are stupid doing so but because my life and their policies dont match. Maybe i'll never learn ey

Yes but OP is clearly directing this at those in the north who did vote Brexit/ Reform.

Had this chat with some of my students the other day. One of them is from an area in South Yorkshire that massively benefited from the EU, they took millions of pounds of EU money to regenerate the area then voted leave… Beggars belief really.

I don’t know what to say other than the electorate are clearly embittered and taking a stance. In ways it’s kind of nice to get away from the two party state we’ve lived in for donkeys years but in other ways, sad. I can only hope Reform councillors fuck up really and put people off voting for them in the GE.

What an ignorant post.

We did not all vote for Brexit nor Reform.
Across the Manchester suburbs (not GM) it was mainly Greens that got in.
There are just as many idiots down South.

No. Crossing also soared across the Med at the same time to Italy and Greece, so it was migration by boat in general that soared, not just ones to UK.

I'm still waiting to hear what OP actually meant by this.

I'm in the south, in a Lib Dem/ Conservative seat (never much between them) this time Lib Dem won BUT with Reform a close run 2nd.

voter turn out 48%

im hoping its a kick up the arse people needed to vote in the GE & the mess Reform will make of many councils is enough to stop people voting for them in a GE.

I don't know what the answer is, but I know it's NOT Reform.

A good number of the councils are hung councils so any actions by Reform will be mitigated by the other parties. By that I mean, it won't turn into as complete disaster for many councils. I'd watch, with interest, the councils where they've got a majority though.

Well didn't one Reform candidate suggest 'melting down all the Nigerians to fill them'?

And Reform voters wonder why they're thought of as racist.

Crossings into Italy and Greece were already high before Brexit because they're the primary routes in. I think they peaked around 2015. Our numbers are absolutely due to Brexit. Our government and the French government have both acknowledged it.

Edit - Apologies. Didn’t read properly before typing. Deleted now.

Until next year when the next round of council elections will see a lot of those councils swing to Reform.

I'm from the NE and I'm so confused. We have people who are desperate for change in extremely deprived areas who have admitted that Reform have let them down. But still voted for Reform yesterday.

Also why did they think it was GE? I'm confused

(I edited my post because I felt awkward)

At some point I hope the Reform bashers will start asking the question why vast numbers of people are voting for Reform? The answer isn’t they are all racist but if you continue to frame that as the answer you will see more and more people headed to Reform in the polls because they’re sick of people looking down on them and not listening to their problems and concerns.

I'm in Suffolk, is nowhere near the north. and they've now won the council here. Luckily our local councillor is LibDem and bloody brilliant but she's surrounded by Reform councillors.

I don't understand it. It's like turkeys voting for Christmas. Same as Trump in America.

The discussions about immigration have become really unbalanced with people only talking about the downsides. Yes there would be less pressure on housing. However this could have been addressed by subsequent governments building more housing stock, changing housing policies (right to buy) etc. There may be less social issues in some high immigration areas. But there would also be a massive shortage of labour in low paid jobs - care, hospitality, some NHS roles. This might push wages up in these areas slightly, but with cost of living so high because of external reasons (eg war) there is a limit to what people will pay. Care is already extortionate. No one is going to pay 50pc more when they eat out so that workers can have above minimum wage. So a lot of these businesses will collapse. People are unlikely to be better off overall, particularly the elderly who will have less people to care for them and less people working to pay for their pensions. Yes the amount of immigration and how its handled is really important. But its not purely negative, and it's not the only important political issue. Plenty of areas without immigration are struggling.

Apart from immigration, the only policy Reform seem to have on a national level is some ill-thought-out bollocks about crypto-currency.

People don't seem to grasp that it's no use voting for single-issue parties. We need parties with a comprehensive plan to get the UK back on track. Admittedly, we don't have any such party at the moment, but Reform are pretending that their version of 'sorting out' immigration will make everything right.

They've got our council now, which is no surprise.

No idea why my comment has been hidden, I was criticising Reform's overall lack of policies.

Ah, it's back now, thanks MNHQ