Would you avoid places that are now reform?

[TinaMariah]

Lots of people who live near reform cities posting online stating they will boycott. Many are black or brown and are concerned about the levels of racism they've experienced in the last few weeks, and are stating they will avoid. Many calling for annual events to be held elsewhere. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm definitely concerned as a black woman who has experienced racist abuse twice in the last two weeks, one where I was told 'farage would kick get rid of yas' (this was whilst watching the football). I'm definitely worried.

How are my remarks racist?

Oh Lordy, this is how stuff like this gets heated! I NEVER called Reform voters racist. I called the party racist. There is a very important and distinct difference.

Though I’m sure there’s a pretty damning venn diagram to be made.

@GiveMeSpanakopita I completely agree with you, it’s depressing how the poverty, lack of hope and complete despair in places like Clacton are just dismissed.

Isn't the type of attitude demonstrated in quite a lot of these posts playing straight into Farage's hands though? After all engaging with the disenfranchised has always been a fairly standard modus operandi for extremists at either end of the political spectrum. Nobody cares about you. They think you're knuckle draggers who live in backwaters that don't matter and they'd never demean themselves to visit anyway. Nobody understands your lives, nobody cares about your problems and the mainstream parties have done nothing for you. But we understand, we care and we will deal with your problems if you just get behind us.
And it's not just the constituencies who elected a Reform MP. I noticed as results were coming in last night that there were quite a lot of constituencies where Labour had won by a comfortable majority, but if you added the Reform and Conservative votes together they didn't look quite so safe for Labour after all. And they were largely areas with the worst economic deprivation. Logically they should support the left but they don't believe the left will deliver and Farage and co are only too willing to take advantage of that. If I were Keir Starmer I would be worried and thinking very hard about what I can do for these people to change their minds. Yes they are people who have voted for a party that I find totally repulsive but I don't think that necessarily makes them repulsive individuals. Some will be of course, you coukd day that about all the parties, but not all, and the question has to be why are they voting this way and what can be done to turn the tide. Isolating the populations who voted Reform will surely only make matters worse?

Does anyone have a list of the 90+ places where Reform came second?

May be that's why they voted reform ? Because I would imagine wages are low and work is seasonal and Frarrage promised not to tax people who earn less than 20k . I don't believe that racism was the main motivation for voting reform in these areas .

It's 98 so far but I think you'd have to Google. I can't find it as a list.

This is the issue with both Brexit and Reform- they give people the notion that the U.K. belongs to white people, and that it’s acceptable to say so.

It doesn’t, and it’s not. I’m so sorry that you’ve experienced racism, and yes, I’d definitely avoid those places.

The working class white are disenfranchised. Globalism has done fuck all for them and their towns have been changed. They will vote for someone who wants to change that for them. It’s not racist to be concerned about unchecked immigration and Brexit needn’t have happened had we worked that out

You need to look at turn out rates as well as %votes to find out just how prevalent those views are in the town.

so Nigel had 46.2%of the votes representing the 58% of population who could be arsed to vote. In other words around 27% of the population voted for him. There’s another even more disinterested or disenfranchised part of Clayton that won’t even be registered to vote

so , around 1 in 4 people you would meet are misogynistic racist bastards. Probably a large proportion are men. Meaning the people you’ll mix with mostly on holiday with children (also not in voting cohort) and women will be very nice and normal.

I think the way things are at the moment 1 in 4 of under 24 year olds are heaving with misogony between gender stereotypes and trans idealism or Andrew tate worshiping young males.

the issue here is what is turning people to vote right wing in increasing numbers. That has, imho, come from an increasingly desperate government looking to point blame on why people are experiencing a cost of living crisis away from their screw ups to a “common enemy” of immigrants or other minority groups. A trick as old as time from the medieval purging of Jews across Europe long before rise of nazis, to the denigration of Irish and blacks in 50-60 and any number of genocides you like to name. It is a diversion tactic and hence why the Tory’s spend way more time talking about stop the boats than stop the poverty, improve the economy,y, stop the rich getting richer.

we have to improve equality and level up the poor deprived areas, quell discontent with contentment. And magically racism will become unacceptable again, and migration seen for what it is as a useful way of proppping up a country with an increasing aging and infirm population and a falling birth rate . Immigration is a great thing- bring in people who can pay taxes in their working life, and support the gaining shrinking younger population, so women here can go out to work if they want without having to have children to support the aging population themselves. It brings wealth.

but hey, that’ll make it clear the Tory’s couldn’t run a country, and we’re only interested in themselves and making money. Again a culture accepted by them over 13 years as “normal” to make a buck at whatever opportunity off backs of tax payers. Rees Mogg should not have been allowed to be an MP unless he paid his taxes here - all of them.

Let's not forget the Labour candidates who made racist remarks....

Yes but all this has gone about due to massive inequalities under a Conservative government, poverty akin to Victorian times. I was reading an article on some Teenagers in a part of Middlesborough and life seemed grim, hopeless when I think in comparison to my own teenagers. Life was similarly unequal in the 90s under the Tories, I remember watching that drama Our Friends. In The North when I was a teenager and I think the depiction of the little lad who steals a car, goes joy riding in it and dies was probably pretty accurate about life then. Similarly, I lived in west and south London growing up and sadly heard about lots of racism, Stephen Lawrence’s death was near the area I lived in and these tensions and institutionalised racism were worse as a result of Thatcherism. I can’t see how all of this will get worse under Starmer, Reform have gained votes because the Conservatives have failed.

You cant really avoid places that voted Reform unless you take some stats with you. 4 million people are going to be hard to avoid!

The reason the majority voted for Brexit was because they were fed up with mass unskilled immigration from Europe - Most were white Eastern Europeans so the racist remarks are moot regarding that point…..

No. Because I understand that people vote for different reasons and that a reform vote doesn't mean that those entire areas are tainted. There's racists everywhere and always have been, whether or not they have voted reform.

@Dartwarbler ,

‘Immigration is a great thing- bring in people who can pay taxes in their working life, and support the gaining shrinking younger population, so women here can go out to work if they want without having to have children to support the aging population themselves. It brings wealth’

That is way too simplistic and what a lot of the wealthy educated think.

The right amount and type of immigration is a good thing. Zero immigration is bad but 5,000,000 a year (to choose a very high number) would also be a disaster.

Firstly you need the infrastructure to support an expanding population and that takes time. Secondly you need time for assimilation and integration with the existing population, especially if you are an immigrant who doesn’t speak English. No one resents the urbane Pakistani surgeon who buys a house in Kensington, is well read and probably speaks better English than I do. But if areas become ghettos where English language and culture are secondary, and the jobs the people do undercut working class British people taking away their dignity of work, then of course that causes resentment, but that isn’t racism.

As to it bringing wealth, low skill immigration brings increasing wealth disparity, as the rich and businesses get low cost work. But, the poor, on the other hand, have no bargaining power for their labour.

Also, your idea becomes a Ponzi scheme at some point. What when the immigrants don’t have enough babies and become old? Do you just bring in more new immigrants. That kind of idea supports the (ridiculous) conspiracy theory of The Great Replacement.

I speak, by the way, as a second generation Jewish immigrant.

What’s the vibe?

Great post 👏

I grew up in a Northern former mining town in the 70s and 80s. You don't need to remind me about the evils of Thatcherism. And no, I don't expect things will get worse under Starmer, in fact I bloody well hope they will get better, but it won't be overnight. But the fact remains that despite everything that has happened in the last decade and a half there has been a substantial swing to the right in the traditional Labour heartlands. Reform have managed to engage with a significant proportion of the electorate and to reverse that process Labour are going to have to do a whole lot more than not make things worse.
Obviously the situation is even worse for the Conservatives as they have lost voters to Labour, the Lib Dems and Reform but I think it would be a big mistake for the new government to underestimate the support for Reform especially in historically Labour voting areas.

Was it the north east @MrsAvocet ? I expected Reform seats around there but alas none.

This sums up my understanding of the people I know that support Reform. Societal drains

I'm assuming you don't know people from these areas...

Speaking only from my expeirence, ASBO.

So sorry that happened to you 😞. Sadly, a few years ago I was on a day trip in Walton on sea (just up the road from Clacton and also in Farage’s constituency) and as a white person witnessed a racist incident. I was queuing to pay for a few beach toys at a shop along the seafront. Even though I was second in the queue (behind a black lady with her DCs), the woman working in the shop ignored her and came straight over to serve me first. Of course I called her out on it and said the other lady was first, but she scowled and said she would serve me first. I told her what I thought of her and walked out without buying the items in the end!

I’ve never witnessed such blatant racism before.