AIBU to think Reform councillors don’t know what they’re doing?

[Wouldcou]

Reform councillor saying that she doesn’t understand the process. This is the reality of what people voted for.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNRnRo3eg/

Also see the amount of Reform Councillors who have quit or defected.

Reform UK has shed 22 councillors and counting in the two weeks since the local council elections on 7 May, triggering a series of costly by-elections.

While Reform won over 1,400 seats in the recent local council elections, Nigel Farage’s party is also shelling councillors to defections, suspensions and lost seats.

Stuart Prior, who was elected as a Reform UK councillor for Essex County Council and for Rochford District Council resigned on Monday 11 May, just days after winning these council seats.

Before the elections, it was revealed that Prior had shared racist posts on social media referring to white people as “the master race” and suggesting white people have “larger brains”.

Less than a week after being elected, Glenn Gibbins, a Reform councillor on Sunderland City Council was also suspended for posting racist comments Gibbons said that the Nigerian population in Sunderland should be melted down to “fill in potholes”.

On the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme on 10 May, Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, was asked if he was happy for someone with these views to represent Reform.

Tice refused to condemn Gibbins’ comments and instead accused the media of “smearing” and “sneering” against Reform.
Ben Rowe, who was recently elected to Plymouth City Council has also been suspended for anti-Islam and antisemitic posts.

The posts were unearthed before the local elections, prompting Reform to say it was investigating the claims.

Another Reform councillor, Barry Martin, who said that the job of a councillor was “so dull and boring” resigned just a year after taking his seat.

Reform Party UK Exposed has published the full list of Reform councillor departures so far:
Lost seats on 7 May

• Mike Morris
• Clarence Mitchell
• Alan Cook
• Mark Shooter
• Kira Gabbert

Resigned

• Daniel Devaney
• Stuart Prior
• Jay Cooper
• Barry Martin
• Stephen Mousdell
• Andrew Harrison
• Kenny Hope
• Danielle Cavanagh

Defected

• Nick Farmer
• Ashley Monk
• Jo Monk
• Matthew Jones

Suspended

• Ben Rowe
• Glenn Gibbins
• Paul Heyward
• Nathaniel Menday
• Laura Newham

Dr David Bull, Reform’s former party chair has also been replaced by Lee Anderson, the Reform MP for Ashfield. In a post announcing Bull’s departure on Facebook, Reform said it was “delighted” that Anderson has become the party’s new chair, adding: “David Bull has overseen unprecedented growth in his time as Chairman and will still remain heavily involved in the party”.

Perhaps look beyond the soundbites and propaganda that your beloved Labour government feeds you. And apply a bit of critical thinking.

😂
Advice I would send right back to ya @OneTealShaker

So tell us what Reform will do to fix this.

I'll wait.

I don't agree with calling people thick. I'm just pointing out that calling existing Reform voters thick (after the event) isn't the reason they voted Reform.
People who support Reform should be able to explain their popularity on the basis of their competence and policies. If they have to resort to 'the left made us do it' it speaks poorly of their confidence in their convictions.

This is an interesting turn of events. I'd be very surprised if it didn't sway some of the women who may have voted Reform towards Rebecca Shepherd. I don't know much about her, other than that she wants to support local businesses and improve SEND provision. (And of course will be highly unlikely to have made creepy misogynist and sexual remarks about women).

You’ll have to ask someone from Reform.

She did if your defence of them all over MN is any indicator. If I’m wrong, why are you doing it?

There was a study (peer reviewed and everything) a couple of years ago, that showed that right wing people are less intelligent than other people. So I am not really surprised.
They are also more religious which also correlates with a lower intelligence.

@5128gap if you persistently call people thick you are being offensive and patronising. Worked brilliantly with Brexit, didnt it. None of the major parties have covered themselves in glory running the country and no-one should want to vote for the offensive and patronising either.

I'm never going to vote for Reform - but I do have to decide whether I want to vote for anyone else or just abstain. People like you are why Reform has voters. No it's not "the left made me do it", it's the major parties were pretty useless so why vote for them.

Yup - our local pages were filled with utter bollox in the run up to the local election- mainly about pot holes! But they just didn’t understand that our local council (labour) don’t deal with that - it’s the county council- run by reform 😂 honestly they just couldn’t grasp that one simple fact.

we went to NOC so that’s going to be a shit show.

Huge local news story about to break which I know they will take credit for despite it being our Labour MP who orchestrated it.

People like you are why Reform has voters

Tosh. No-one would be thick enough to vote for a party they don't actually support just to get back at nasty lefties or whatever, would they?

Whether you are right or wrong (mostly wrong), why do I need to you anything about what think. You can keep guessing.

I’m not guessing. When someone shows you who they are believe them.

But it’s more nuanced again than “the left made me do it”.

It’s “reality now is pretty grim, and I’m willing to gamble on it being grimmer if there is a hope that it will be better - as I’m so desperate all I want is different, whatever that looks like”.

It was also an inevitable fall out from a lot of the IDE initiatives that came along. The previously (and still) privileged demographics felt like they were having something taken from them. The support for middle class, white men (and probably white men of all classes) is almost non existent. We’ve ignored that the individual people within that subsect of society have their own problems and issues, and tarred them all as having a privilege that we want to take away from them. It’s then natural human behaviour to rally against this. We absolutely needed to and still need to better level the playing field, but this could have been done in a way that didn’t alienate a powerful and numerous demographic, that then felt backed in to a corner and are coming out swinging.

(and I say this as someone as a beneficiary and supporter of IDE strategies - we evidently haven’t been getting it right though).

Sadly I think you’re right.

In the same way that Farage and co pushed for Brexit - harmed the UK’s prospects. Then positioned themselves as the solution to the damage that they caused in the first place. It’s absurd really.

I cammot stand Reform but had to reach out to my new councillor recently for support. He responded immediately and I was ignored by the Labour councillors (we have a number of councillors from different parties). I will never vote Reform, however his response so far has been good. Very different to the shit show that is being demonstrated across the rest of the UK!

@TemperanceWest Nasty old lefties - your words - live in a fantasy world. You insult voters and expect them to vote for you. You tell them what to think and that they'll lose their jobs if they dont go along with your bullying. You are not making work pay - you removed the benefit cap. You took money off poor pensioners and then gave too much back to those who are comfortable. You dont understand the working class at all.

Reform are promising the unachievable but they listen, you dont. Why not choose the fantasists who promise they can do better over the ones who are making a mess now? When people are desperate they look for any hope. The latest gimmick - reduce the cost of attractions that people cant afford to visit anyway because they are worrying about their rent and their food bill.

I haven't told anyone what to think or bullied anyone.

I am working class. So I think I understand the working class.

lol, ok. Because your approval is so important. However will we survive without it.

Reducing the cost of attractions is mainly about saving these businesses from going bankrupt, causing more job losses, more misery and less tax take. It restores something nice that middle income families used to enjoy before their mortgage and bills shot up way faster than their salary. These middle income families are typical labour / floating voters.

Families struggling to pay for food / rent aren’t the target.

😆😆😆😆

Reform are listening?

They are telling people what they want to hear and happily use false data, numbers and making false promises.

Very much like the Brexit party and UKIP

That awful racist comment has been widely reported across media.

I don’t think this is necessarily a bad idea in principle btw. Visitor attractions employ a lot of young people.

But I think that the government have misunderstood the mood - families on relatively decent incomes also struggle to afford bills. And how many are watching AI steal their job security? Visits to attractions in the school holidays, even at a discount, will feel like a luxury that can be cut to many.

Agreed!

I also think those focussing on “foreign rapists” really only care about “rape” in the original sense of the world -theft. They think people are stealing “their” women. They don’t actually care about the woman,
they just want to be the ones doing the raping (in the the modern sense of the word).

I agree, and the main point of doing this will be to keep the industry afloat, not to give little Johnny a day out, however it’s marketed.