So much talk about Reform, are people panicking?

[equisetum]

All across the boards people appear to be scared of just how popular they are.
If it's not panic, then why the desperation to tell anyone voting for them, that they are all racists?
Reform voters BTW, just very interested that no other parry is having such animated discussions. If they weren't becoming so popular, nobody would be talking about it.

@1dayatatime - I did not mean that Reform voters are racist, uneducated etc etc.
I was just speaking from my own anecdotal experience. Which is that I know some successful business owners who are voting Reform. They happen to not have attended university and are otherwise very clever/savvy. So it makes me wonder whether the level of critical thinking taught at university is rather more important than we think. Namely, that you do not believe one source, that you consider lots of different academic opinions, history as a whole etc etc. and that you most importantly do not trust your social media feed or even the news articles you are fed on your iPad.

What’s clever and savvy about voting for Reform though?

@CinnamonCuirass

"It will be better for democracy to ban Reform now and send a message to the electorate that politics is a serious business and far right parties cannot be allowed to participate. "

This is the scary hard left view in the open and straight out of Stalin's approach that political parties the left disagree with should be banned.

What if the Conservatives go harder right and morph with Reform - would you then seek to ban the new Conservative Party.

What if people protested against such a ban- would you put them in a gulag somewhere?

Do you honestly believe those posts- they are pre-election Panic posts designed to make people vote for the Conservatives probably!

“What’s clever and savvy about voting for Reform though?“

@Goldenbear - well it clearly is not, in my opinion. But I was surprised that some people I consider clever and savvy are openly admitting to voting Reform. Thankfully first past the post hopefully means we are safe in any event.
However, what worries me is that it appears to be a similar thinking that voted for Brexit, not because they really understood what it meant, but again as another protest vote.

I don’t think they’ll do anything in a hurry. They need to be united by 2029 so plenty of time for both sides to negotiate. I suspect Reform will be happy to stand alone for a while assuming Farage wins in Clacton as they’ll have the momentum for now.

Another factor to consider is the reality of a Labour government will soon become apparent and will look very different to what many hoped for. I suspect Labour will become very unpopular very quickly. It is quite easy to see a situation where voters are totally disillusioned with both major parties and that presents a huge opportunity for Farage and co.

We’re about to move into a fairly unique situation where 60% of people didn’t vote for a government that has a collosal majority due to the FPTP system. It will be headed by a new PM who has the lowest approval rating in history for a new appointee. In many ways it feels like Labour’s days are already numbered as they can’t attract new support even in the most favourable of times from their perspective. They are totally reliant on a split in the opposition vote. That won’t exist forever.

I assume this post is an attempt at humour.

“Another factor to consider is the reality of a Labour government will soon become apparent and will look very different to what many hoped for.“

@Charlie2121 - what do you mean by this? I think many people are disillusioned/jaded and know that Labour won’t be better than the Tories. But they are so fed up with the Tories lack of integrity/values that they will still vote Labour, knowing full well that the systemic challenges facing the country will be exactly the same.

That’s because we’re not.

Its the remainers that are at the left of the Dunning Kruger curve, not the bulk of the leavers.

University “education” does not equal intelligence. And with a degree “pass mark” of 40% it surely indicates exactly the opposite in the bulk of cases.

And yet you don’t know where Dulwich is or seemingly what the Establishment looks like!

It is about the boats - amongst other things.

And they do have a realistic plan.

If it comes to it, use the marines, and tow the boats back to France. The opposite of what the RNLI are doing.

If you can send in the military to murder millions of men women and children from 30,000 feet in Iraq then you can tow a few boats a day back to where they came from.

I think you're a bit naive re Reform and the Tories reuniting before the next election.

People with a bit of power/acclaim etc don't tend to give it up easily.

Have you seen the analysis of their costings?

Very far from realistic.

That is the beauty of not being one of the main parties - you can say whatever you like knowing you won't have to actually do it so don't need a real plan.

Are you and other Reform voters happy that people will die with this plan?
Has it become so bad that a sizeable proportion of this country would be happy for people to die on French (or British) beaches?
I get that people want immigration to just go away but it's chilling that you would want to employ military to do this to innocent people.

You’ve almost answered the question yourself.

Many people just want a change. When that change doesn’t materialise in the way they hoped for they’ll soon become very disillusioned.

It has been a long time since Labour was last in government and people have short memories. Labour has campaigned almost exclusively by being critical of the Conservatives record rather than detailing anything proactive they are going to do themselves. Once they’ve been in government for a couple of years that line of attack becomes redundant and that’s when they’ll be in trouble.

I’m not sure we’d ever follow but Aus do pretty much this with turn backs. The electorate there will never vote against that nor will left parties run a GE campaign on doing so.

A Labor gov is in atm and has kept the hardline policies

I don’t think we’ll accept it atm however

To add Reform isn’t what I’m voting for but the difference between two countries I know very well is apparent

i don’t care

i have 3 concerns

1. I don’t want my young children coming back from school questioning their gender

2. I want a stop to small boats

3. I want an end to male perverts in female spaces

its past worrying about money or whether anything has been “properly costed”

fuck that shit.

vote reform,

we’ll deal with the detail when the priorities have been sorted out.

What have you been smoking that you think Reform will be running the country in 29!

who says they’re gonna die?

I said tow them back to France.

They should claim asylum in the first safe country which is a long way from here. if they don’t and they choose to get on an unsafe boat for an unnecessary journey then it’s their risk.

@Goldenbear Just because you went to Dulwich college, doesn't mean you are part of the establishment. Farrago offers completely different narrative from the mainstream.. and this is what 1 in 5 in the UK supports..

@Araminta1003

"However, what worries me is that it appears to be a similar thinking that voted for Brexit, not because they really understood what it meant, but again as another protest vote."

I completely agree that a vote for Reform is a protest vote in the same way Brexit was a protest vote.

I don't even see Reform as a political party and more like a pressure group with some under funded un detailed general concepts rather than thought through policies.

But this didn't stop large numbers voting for both Brexit and Reform, which goes to show that there are large numbers of voters who feel politically homeless with the main parties and to whom these messages are appealing.

Perhaps he is the mainstream now.

lets wait until Friday morning shall we.

That’s not what I said. Not even close.

@Goldenbear

"What have you been smoking that you think Reform will be running the country in 29!"

Reform will most definitely not be running the country in 2029.

However there is a real possibility that after the disillusionment and anger at the failure by Labour to make any significant improvement after 5 years, could easily mean that a much more right wing Conservative Party that has merged with Reform will be running the country.

I don't think Reform will give you any of those.

Have they even a policy on point 3?