To think Reform have peaked?

[RunMeOver]

Polling support has fallen from pushing 30% to around 25%.

Vote share in 2026 local elections 27%, compared to 32% in 2025.

Dysfunctional Reform-led councils finding there's very little they can actually do to enact their election promises.

Individual candidates being exposed as racist and/or sexist scumbags (who'd of thought!).

The Labour government addressing their voters' key (only?) concern, with net migration plummeting from its high under the Tories.

Man-of-the-people Honest Nige staying untypically absent from the spotlight while he hopes questions about millions donated by foreign crypto billionaire just go away.

And maybe, most simply but importantly - TIME. Just time, for people to scrutinize their ridiculous "plans" to make society so much better while decimating the tax base so they don't actually have any money to do it with. Time for people to realise they don't actually want to lose the NHS, etc.

There will probably remain a hardcore who will still maintain immigration is the root of all evil even when net migration is negative, believe everything they read about the woke socialist conspiracy apparently running the country and stay loyal accordingly. But Reform's ability to reach beyond this core and appeal to the reasonably intelligent centre-right and socially conservative seems to be limited. And if the drop in support continued to somewhere below 20% they might return to just being the day-to-day annoyance that the far right have always been in this country, rather than a genuine electoral threat.

Can we hope?

We can always hope.

But is hope justified?

yes I hope

I hope too

I'm kind of pessimistic actually. I think the lurch rightwards is broader than UK domestic politics. Globally in the polls it's an expression of existential despair in the teeth of late stage capitalism but for all European countries there's always the background hum of fascism - after all, we invented that shit. And it never really went away. From the Ustase during the break up of Yugoslavia in the 90s to the Azov brigade in Ukraine from the 2010s till now, via various Polish, French, Italian etc manifestations, we all have a tendency to match rightwards. A few fuckups at local level isn't going to halt that.

Similar to the the devil, the greatest trick European fascism ever played was pretending it was a spent force. It meant we took our eye off the ball. Because make no mistake, farage is absolutely a fascist. We put him on question time like he was some kind of comedy pet and failed to listen to what he was actually saying and, crucially, failed to challenge him. And now here we are.

Hopefully. You know the saying give them enough rope ….
they are proving themselves to be the incompetent idiots anyone with half brain already knew they were.

I'm hopeful the picture will change given that we are three years out from a General Election, and finally, there appears to be some sliver of evidence that their patter is being seen through for the nonsense it is.

If the recent trend continues then it's good news. It's still a depressing state of affairs, and I think that in hindsight the European democracies made a mistake in not legislating Fascism out of existence post WWII. It's not a legitimate political ideology, it's hate and misinformation for the purpose of rabble rousing. I once heard it said about Moseley and his ilk that you can't fight fascists with words, because neither they, nor their supporters are remotely interested in truth or honest debate. They are motivated solely by prejudice and venality, so they will pay no attention to anything put to them which challenges their views or standpoints, because they know full well it's entirely baseless to begin with. Instead, you fight them with guns and bombs, and when you've done away with the matter at hand, you outlaw their organisations so that you can immediately imprison anyone with ideas about a revival.

I've long thought Farage has no designs on, or any intention of becoming UK PM. He's far too lazy, far too concerned with self-promotion to actually bother with the tiresome nonsense of trying to lead a government. His entire schtick is about shifting the Overton window further and further rightwards so that useful idiots in politics and the electorate will facilitate his plans for him, and he and his ilk can profit. This doesn't preclude some other bampot group led by some other chancer stepping into the void created, but I think he'll bugger off soon enough once he feels he's inflated his bank balance sufficiently. Interesting that Reform UK is a private company with Farage and Yousuf at its head. Why anyone would be donating money or paying subs to a private enterprise is beyond me, but then Reform fans are hardly known for their powers of foresight or their ability to spot a scam.

People are already stepping into the space though.

That flag campaign that started last year, that was funded by someone. It was organised. When you look into the people behind it, it's all offshore shell companies, with the young lads who are the face of it being one of the board members. It was a coordinated attack. And we responded by saying you couldn't hang things off lampposts and wittering about hurt feelings. When we should have been rooting them out, exposing them and at least jailing them (for preference I'd shoot them but you can't do that in peacetime). For being fucking dirty fascists.

Totally agree Nige has no interest in being PM. Too much like hard work. Reform will be dead in the water once he is gone. Can't imagine many of the racists who make up a significant part of their voting base would go for Yusuf.

This is true.

We've a problem in central Scotland right now with a small group of people gathering to shout invective at hotels. It's the same small group travelling to various towns, some of them can no longer protest in their home town due to bail conditions (snigger), so they all hop on the train and decant to some other place to make a nuisance of themselves and annoy the locals.

Their Social Media is hilariously chaotic. Boy do they love their AI slop. But the concerning thing is, the main ringleader has a long history of involvement in Far Right groups, some of them since outlawed, most of them connected with criminal individuals who are wanted by UK police, that sort of thing, and given this person's history, they are in no way employable by any legitimate business, and yet the money keeps materialising to organise these protests, disseminate their propaganda, keep the grist going.

They are a bunch of prototypical halfwits who would struggle to find their own arses in the dark, so the fact that this has been going on for months, it's concerted, is showing no sign of relenting despite the fact that practically nobody is paying them the blindest bit of attention, and most extraordinarily of all, it hasn't quickly fallen apart a the seams due to infighting, recriminations, vendetta etc as these things invariably do, it is clearly not just the work of the neanderthals fronting it. There is far more going on than is immediately apparent.

Oh god I really hope so, and some of these replies are giving me hope - particularly @XDownwiththissortofthingX , your struggle to find their own arse in the dark made me snort 🤭.

The only concerning thing is the Elon of it all 😕 I hate the fact that he's now a fcking trillionaire trying to find horrendous ways to spend his money. Someone really needs to Luigi him.

I hope so. But traditionally labour we anti Europe and anti immigration. Tony Benn didn’t want to join EU. Trade unions were against immigration as they lower wages.
Nigel doesn’t want to be PM, he would have to actually work, but I think Rupert Lowe does .