Why is there no coverage of reform party policies ?

[Alfreddoeblin]

Just that really. Labour and Tory party to a greater or lesser extent are being scrutinised hugely. The reform party not so much. Why ?

Nottinghamshire is not up north.

@SomersetBrie Look at post by boys3. They will struggle to win northern seats.

@Papyrophile

"They have a lot of billboards out locally, and we have an inconsequential Tory MP, and a changing population (it's Cornwall, and there are bundles of well-off blow ins buying nice houses in pretty villages, which they will almost certainly try to set in aspic)."

Historically neither Labour or the Conservatives have really given a shit about Cornwall- simply seeing it as a just another seat in a place where people go on holiday rather than a region with its own identity.

Unfortunately MK doesn't seem to be fielding any candidates in this election but the Lib Dem's at least got recognition for Cornwall as a national minority and with little chance of being in power have also tended to produce better local MPs.

I was directing my question at someone who said they thought they would win seats up north and I was curious where.
On doing some digging myself, it seems that Lee Anderson and Nigel himself are the most likely to get in and I don't think there are any specific seats up North where they would be confident.
I am torn between wanting Nigel to get in and hope that Clacton run him ragged as their local MP, and the more sane side of me hoping he doesn't and that he finds something else to do quietly and I don't have to hear of him again.

after Clacton, perhaps Boston and Skegness is the next possibility, but a possibility no more than that I'd suggest. Lincolnshire is East Midlands. From the newspaper article it was a constituency somewhere in the West of England after that.

That was 76% Tory in 2019. Tice would really have go some to upend that.

True @blossomtoes . Although no Bexit candidate stood in 2019, and if memory serves the B&S constituency recorded the largest leave vote in the referendum. UKIP took 8% in 2017, but more pertinently 34% in 2015 (vs 44% for the Tories). So I can see it being possible, although hopefully they will fail. No prizes for 2nd place in FPTP.

Why are they launching in Wales, hopefully people are not thick enough to vote for them here, despite them being thick enough to vote to leave the EU. How can anyone take these charlatans seriously?

We're no thicker than the voters in England. In fact it was thought to be English people living in Wales who pushed the numbers up enough for Leave to win here.

This is what the Telegraph thinks. 😂

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/17/reform-uk-manifesto-nigel-farage-must-believe-in-fairies/

Any chance you could c+p that article? It's behind a paywall.

"For all the terror he triggers in Brian Cox, Nigel Farage is a saloon bar bore, not a beer hall putscher. Winning power doesn’t really interest him. He has never had any sort of governmental responsibility: the perfect tribune for disgruntled Right-winger, who can be safe in the knowledge that none of his ideas really matter. Deport asylum seekers to the Moon? Sounds tremendous!

But Reform UK’s once-and-future leader is a victim of his own success. With the real prospect that a Farage-Davey tag team will push Rishi Sunak into the abyss, many Right-wingers will have been paying close attention to today’s manifesto launch. Sorry – “contract” launch. But unfortunately for those hoping for a serious policy prospectus, the document has the imagination and incontinence of a back of a fag packet doodle after a hearty lunch.

Lifting income tax thresholds. Scrapping carbon targets. Net zero migration, quitting the ECHR, and cutting NHS waiting lists to zero. What’s not to love? Yet it’s all too good to be true. Pledging to cut taxes by cutting £50 billion in spending is easy. But what happens when you tell the Treasury – or your backbenchers start demanding a new A&E in their seat?

Farage is great at identifying problems – stifling taxes, ridiculous immigration levels, climate lunacy– but providing genuine solutions would be too much like hard work. If Reform UK ever got into power, the Sir Humphreys of the Whitehall Machine would stump him within a week. Rather than resolve Britain’s problems, he’d soon decamp from Number 10 to drown his sorrows in The Red Lion.

But Farage isn’t interested in power. This is not a plan for government, but a Santa list of cask strength policies designed to woo wavering Tories. Farage isn’t aiming for Downing Street, but to hand every Conservative MP their P45. His proposals will strike many Tories as exactly what we should have been doing in government these last fourteen years. If Labour wins anyway, why not vote for it?

Reform’s “contract” might be a far from serious document. But Conservatives only have ourselves to blame if we find it so attractive."

Related Topics
Nigel Farage, Reform UK, Labour Party, Conservative Party, Immigration, Brexit
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Copied and pasted from today's Telegraph for @BIWI

Thank you @Papyrophile

I especially liked this line:

the document has the imagination and incontinence of a back of a fag packet doodle after a hearty lunch.

Bunch of Hitler fans it would seem; not worth even reading their manifesto which is a fish hook for the foolish and racist

https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/06/17/reform_uk_manifesto_2024/

All this means Reform UK have a total unfunded cost of at least £38bn - about two Liz Trusses.

It was the bit about believing in fairies that tickled me. Sorry about the paywall, I thought I could share it.

And yet still some people go on and on about VAT.

IFS didn't need much time on scrutinising the 'contract'

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/reform-uk-manifesto-reaction

There wasn’t much to scrutinise really. You can promise diamond shoes all round if you know you’re never going to have to deliver it.

TBH, most people know what the Reform lot stand for!!

It starts with immigration and finishes with immigration.

The only other thing I heard once come out of Mr Farages mouth was,
"increase the tax exemption to 20k" - it was a pie in the sky figure but something I have campaigned for, IE, as tax allowance thresholds have fallen behind massively, increase to 18k ASAP and this will result in more people seeking work and take out most pesnioners out of the tax trap those on on benefits and those on benefits

Interesting that Reform Ltd in their "contract" state that they will have zero non-essential migration, which means around 500,000 net migrants a year for the next several years.

I wonder why they don't say the half million number?

Whether we like it or not, the "three main parties" are now Labour, Reform and the Conservatives.

I'm not sure this will age well come 5th July. Reform are highly unlikely to have more seats than several other parties, not limited to SNP, Lib Dems, Sinn Fein and DUP. Depending how things pan out Plaid and the Greens may also end up with more seats than Reform, quite possibly also independents.

Totally disagree.
Reform is not a political party, it doesn't have a democratically elected leader.
Reform do not have any meaningful policies.
Reform will be lucky to gain a couple of seats. They are an irrelevance being given far to much airtime. It will also be interesting to find out where the funding is coming from.

There are three seats I think Reform have a chance of winning - Clacton, Boston & Skegness and Lee Anderson’s. If they get all three they’ll be spectacularly fortunate. If that makes them one of the main parties I’m an albatross.