Can we stop calling reform the government in waiting now?

[nostalgiaslie]

Another devastating defeat for reform and common sense has prevailed. Surely it’s time we stop?!

They are a minority party, they should never have been referred to like that, unless there comes a time when they objectively are. Their momentum relies partly on this kind of false narrative of them as a serious option. They have gone backwards since the sleaze stuff and the unnecessary by-election. The association with Trump does not really help in this country. But I’d be loathe to write them off just because there is a lot of money around them. Rich people benefit from having useful idiots in power just like in the US.

5 million reasons to not vote Reform

The reason Reform get all the airtime is the same reason Katie Price gets so much oxygen in the media. People just love to stare and gawp at the freak show. Take any troll thread on here and the engagement it gets even though everyone knows it's a troll. We as a society need to stop being enthralled by agitators and oxygen thieves and start being a little more serious. This will not happen.

Whilst they never had a prayer of actually winning there, I think it's significant that Reform and Restore between the 2 of them got fewer than half the votes that the tory candidate got. If the far-right parties were a genuine force to be feared their votes would be equalling the number for the more moderately right wing tories even in the labour safe seat areas.

I never saw them as a government in waiting. They can't even manage the councils they got control of...

I think a large part of the right wing media and TV client journalists have been guilty of propping up Farage for years.

They failed to ask hard questions about Reform and gave Farage and the party more publicity than was really warranted considering they only have a few MPs.

I guess now it is back to reality for Reform as even his potential voters have started to see Farage for who he really is and all the question marks about the party funding are finally in the public domain.

Plus with a new Labour leader some people have switched back to that party.

Thank goodness their popularity is starting to take a nosedive!