REFORM Party Questions.....

[Modernfamily2011]

Genuine question here, I do not want to start arguments but i'm honestly curious as to the hate for the Reform party....... I will be the first to admit that politics is absolutely not my strong point but this Election and for the last few months I have been doing a lot of research

I will not be voting Conservatives but Labour don't fill me with any confidence either, the Reform party Manifesto actually looks good, I would love the minimum income tax rate to be raised, Stamp Duty threshold to be higher, NHS change, energy bills to be lower etc

Am I just a little naïve and is this just a case of Farage talking nonsense? A bit like the Brexit debacle? Surely if these policies could have been implemented then they would have and where would the money come from? Farage is an excellent speaker and he knows how to play the public, there is no doubt about that

I would love some insight from those who know a little more about politics than me!

Yes, this is Farage talking nonsense.
His Party will never form a government. He can say whatever he likes on his manifesto. It won't happen.

Farage is an absolute grifting charlatan who does not give a shiny shit about anything except his own dreams of glory.
Just don't be taken in by him.
There's an article in the Guardian a day or so ago which interviews people who have known him, including an ex-partner, who say he is much more actually racist than he carefully appears to be.
I'll find it and post it.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jun/14/he-was-a-deeply-unembarrassed-racist-nigel-farage-by-those-who-have-known-him

I don’t understand how ‘Labour don’t fill you with confidence’ but you’re considering giving your vote to this charlatan and phoney, widely derided by most experts.
The manifesto or ‘contract’ hasn’t been subjected to the same scrutiny as the Labour party’s offering, his promises about Brexit haven’t been fulfilled. Far from being the ‘anti establishment’ maverick he likes to portray himself as, he’s just an establishment stooge for whom Truss’ economic plans were a wet dream. He’s bad news.

He exists to fill any far right vacuum that comes around. Farage’s people were sated by Boris but don’t have a political home without him.

Policies will be meaningless as, and he knows this, there’s no chance they’re going to be enacted.

Look up the damning report by his housemaster at school. They were worried about him even then.

The actual policies in manifestos of small parties are irrelevant - they will not form the government or set actual policies.

They may get a few seats and need to do deals with larger parties like the DUP's agreement with the Tories. They will negotiate at that point that they will supply their votes to the leading party in exchange for getting one or two tweaks to that party's legislative agenda.

In the case of Reform the specifics of what taxes they would like to cut are not based on any realistic prospect of then also having to run the country having slashed the government's income so ignore that. Will never happen.

Instead think about the general philosophical and ethical position behind the policies. Does the racist little-englander vibe appeal? How will that "tories aren't right wing enough" position affect the voting decisions of any elected Reform MPs when the leading party is trying to enact their legislative agenda, in the case of them not having a large enough majority to wave everything through the commons?

Yes, the tax cuts would be lovely, wouldn't they. We'd all love to pay less tax.

Have you looked at how he's proposing to pay for them?

He isn't. He had some very vague words about absolutely enormous "efficiencies" in public spending. Efficiencies is code for cuts.

So it's a choice.

Significant public services do you think would get cut or abolished - and they're carefully not telling you which ones and pretending it can be done without touching frontline services. This is a lie.

Or it's a return to the last time we had (much more modest) unfunded tax cuts. Trussonomics easnt a resounding success the first time around.

And that's before you get to the totally pie in the sky NHS plans. Where are all the GPs (for 3-day referrals) and consultants (for 3-week referrals and 9-week operations) suddenly going to materialise from, plus all the extra nursing and ancillary staff needed, at the same time as delivering net zero immigration?

The other policies are similarly vague, attractive sounding and utterly undeliverable. It makes the Green manifesto look credible and deliverable.

Also on energy bills - taking us further back to a gas-dependent economy where global prices are at the mercy of geopolitical events and the whims of despots isn't a great prescription

Energy bills went so high, and the UK was disproportionately affected, because of our dependence on gas for both heat and electricity. Other countries with more nuclear or other sources that don't rely on global markets were better protected.

Gas increasingly tends to be the highest cost electricity source. Anyone telling you otherwise is dressing up anti-renewables ideology as deeply faulty economics, and they're lying to you.

Farage is a lying, slimy sack of shit. Remember Brent and how that turned out? Remember the barefaced lies he told then too?

I had a thread about the bits I found actually scary here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/general-election-2024/5094915-welcome-to-reforms-vision-for-state-control

In general I would say if it sounds too good to be true it probably is! For example, Reform are claiming they cam cut 5p in the pound off public spending without affecting front line services. Given the absolute state of public services, do you really think this is possible? It's not going to make those services better is it, which is what most people want (I think).

Personally I think they are saying what people want to hear and sneaking in the more dictatorial policies "under the radar". I never want to live in a dictatorship, or a country with militarised police and military activity inside its borders against civilians. I never want the party I vote for to be totally run at the whim of the owner. Reform has been organised as a company rather than a democratic party precisely for that reason. Everything is down to Farage.

The whole set up sounds to me like it aspires for the UK to be more like Russia Or China. For that reason they could say whatever they wanted and I wouldn't vote for them.

Low tax and low regulation means no money for the NHS or education and no protection in work from the worst of employers, less regulated sewage ...

He campaigned for a hard Brexit which is partly why the UK has suffered most in Europe from high prices and inflation, difficulties in getting vital medicines into the uk

Restsblish fracking and coal mining to make climate change worse ( do you like this years weather? More storms ?)

Nuts

If you won't vote Conservative, why would you vote Reform? - they're like the Conservatives on steroids.

It's difficult to judge how popular Reform are at the moment, as they're currently flooding social media with bot accounts and sock puppets. Even on MN.

OP - Mumsnet hates Reform just like they overwhelmingly dislike Brexit. I wouldn’t seek a reasoned discussion on Reform‘s policies here. It’ll just degenerate into ad hominem attacks on Farage.

I'm keen for a debate on the merits of the plans.

Can you explain the coatings/savings to me? I'm particularly interested in where the public spending £50bn will fall, how the recruitment to meet the NHS waiting time commitments will work, and where the purported net zero "savings" will actually come from and how that is balanced against infrastructure needs for a non-NZ energy system.

Oh and I'd be keen to understand how increasing our reliance on gas would lower energy bills.

I would also like a reasoned discussion. Proceed.

Have they put it all on the side of a bus?

Every time I see this I think of the "they put pork pies on the side of a bus" line from this. Its still very funny and worth a re-watch before the election

Dare to suggest that you don't believe someone who has lied in the past, that you think his ideas are unfunded and the response is not debate or counter evidnece but "oh mumsnetters are so horrid and nasty they won't listen "

Don't write him off. Look at Geert Wilders in The Netherlands. Nobody thought he would get in.

I think Farage is a breath of much needed fresh air. We need to "reform".

So how did you think the tax cuts will be funded? What will give? Reform don't believe in public services especially the NHS. They want an American style health insurance system. No benefits for single parents, no funded social care,no funded childcare, the list goes on. All depends what kind of country you and your family want to live in. Personally I'm terrified of people like Farage.

I haven’t had time to review their “contract” yet.

I don’t think everyone who is concerned about immigration, or who might case a vote for
Reform, is a racist.

However, how many candidates has Reform has to pull support from this year alone due to racist and/or misogynist statements? I think the one over the weekend took us to 13 but I may have missed others.

They really should have been vetting their candidates because they seem to attract a LOT of very suspect ones.

Exactly. He could offer people a unicorn and free champagne every Friday. He isn't going to be accountable for anything he says.

Thank you everyone

I appreciate the majority on here don’t like Farage but I think we can all agree he is popular and his party is gaining momentum

Potentially he is saying all the right things (in my case regarding aboloshing IR35, lower taxes, energy bills etc) so why aren’t the Tories & Labour making more of an effort to address the energy bill issue? Why aren’t they making more of an effort to address the COL crisis? Labour seem to just shout about how awful the Tories have been without having any answers themselves

Everyone seems to only focus on Immigration when discussing the Reform Party

At the moment I honestly don’t know who i’m going to vote for but i am grateful for the replies because I am curious how someone can state all the ‘improvements’ he is going to make without having any way of implementing them, it boggles the mind! 🤣

At the moment I honestly don’t know who i’m going to vote for but i am grateful for the replies because I am curious how someone can state all the ‘improvements’ he is going to make without having any way of implementing them, it boggles the mind!
In part, they know they aren’t going to be greatly scrutinized. They might do quite well on vote share but I don’t think anyone seriously thinks they’ll be anywhere near government.

But also, I dare say that a lot of people who intend to vote Reform are doing it to stick a middle finger up to the other parties, so whether Reform’s policies are even remotely realistic is it not a concern for them.

One of the things that really worries me about Reform and Farage is their support for hunting. Their list of promises included supporting country sports and Farage is at the fox/stag hunting meets every season.

I don't want to see a return to animal cruelty and this would be on the cards with Reform. A vote for them seems to be a vote for fox and stag hunting.

OP - have you read the manifestos of other parties as you don't seem to know what they offer. All the information and how the parties intend to pay for it is there.