Reform as a protest vote

[twirlischocolate]

I hear and read of people who would normally vote for one of the main parties but are now thinking of voting reform.

I am in my fifties and I remember being spat at, called a paki just walking down the street and told to fuck off for no other reason than I don’t have white skin. Told by teachers to stop telling tales if I was hit/punched by kids while they were screaming National Front in my face.

After the referendum I heard stories of people being shouted at in the street “we voted leave so leave” The people being shouted at were all brown. I was in the queue at the post office when an old lady in front of me said to the Indian lady who worked there - as we voted leave you’ll be leaving now won’t you?

The people who spat at me in the seventies would now be voting reform.

You may be saying - Farage offers a different way. To me Farage emboldens these people - evidenced by his refusal to disown or deselect various reform candidates recently.

Some people would say that it’s a protest vote and they’ll never get in - but every single protest vote makes him think that people agree with him and makes him louder.

And as to the man himself - he shares platforms with the AFD and says that real live human beings should be left to drown in the channel. Is this who we want anywhere near power?

A few years ago he was so broke he was doing “up the RA” videos for 80 odd quid and suddenly he has a Coutts account. Where has this money come from?

I know none of this matters to those who are absolute reform voters but hopefully it will make those who are protest voters think again.

I know you may ask “but what’s the alternative for the politically homeless?” Maybe an Independent- I don’t know but I really don’t think reform is.

Farage is an out and out hypocrite, with two of his children having dual citizenship and he's had foreign wives and girlfriends

He is frightening when it comes to immigration, the health service and foreign relations and both he and the Reform Party have pretty shady fun

The Reform Party isn't even a 'proper' political party, is it?

All this fascist and his Brexit/Reform Party have done is create political chaos, splitting votes and creating discord with their barely veiled racism, pandering to the worst of the disaffected and white working classes

Even if Reform loses so badly that they lose every deposit, they will always be there, working away in the public consciousness and using hate and scare tactics to appeal to the knuckle draggers

Reform are so dangerous with their populist bilge.

It’s crazy to vote for anybody in ‘protest,’ you should only vote for a party if you agree with the majority of their policies and would be happy for them to get in. Look at all the people who voted ‘leave’ for Brexit as a protest, never thinking it would happen, and who ended up regretting it. If you don’t like any of the main parties you can spoil your ballot or you don’t have to vote at all. Plus in many constituencies there will also be independent candidates or other small parties running too, Reform is absolutely not the only alternative to voting for one of the major parties.

I live in a deprived town in the north west and the Facebook pages are terrifyingly filled with people who will vote reform

What I want is for NF to be constantly and repeatedly asked the question ‘ Where is the £350 million per week you stayed could be spent on the NHS if we left the European Union?’
Asked this question constantly to remind the fuckwits who voted leave that they were lied to.
I also want it brought to attention that he still holds dual nationality, and as such is free to travel throughout Europe without the restrictions Brexit enforced on us.
That will do for now.
Op- I’m sorry you have been treated like this.

Was it him who got coveted in MacDonalds milkshake that time?
I’ve said to dh I would love for someone to throw Aldi products at him.
Can you imagine the fielday their marketing team would have.

I don't think there is. With our system number of votes doesn't equal number of seats and they are still only predicted max 7 by electoral calculus.

I actually agree with some of their stuff!

What is it you agree with?

@twirlischocolate Thank you, you write well and I can only completely agree. Reform is racism in a smart suit.
A common theme in Reform voters is they are all the type of people who when they say "I don't get it", they assume it must not be true rather than accepting they just don't understand.

@No3387 Similar here, I am from a sinilar place and see the same thing.
It is typically men, typically older, and struggling to understand why the world no longer revolves around them in a way they did not appreciate it used to.

@Gingernaut I know one of his school friends, who has been surprised by his rise. He did not stand out that much other than being a pro-Nazi avowed racist.

It depends on the options where you live but most constituencies have 7+ candidates standing, not just three.

Voting tactically is an option too.

I don't personally understand what a protest vote is for.

I'd like my vote to help achieve something if at all possible.

Why waste it?

www.getvoting.org/

I’m sorry you’ve been through that, it’s absolutely awful. But thank you for posting, can’t have been easy to write but I hope it has the effect you want - I agree completely, I think voting Reform could be disastrous and I worry that people seem to think they’ll do well.

I won’t be voting reform or conservative. But why is Farage and reform voters racist?

Do you agree with their support for country 'sports'?

Farage openly supports fox and stag hunting. A vote for Reform is a vote to bring back hunting.

This is why people say Farage is racist.

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

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farages-most-controversial-moments-ukip-brexit-b1122381.html

https://hopenothate.org.uk/chapter/who-is-nigel-farage/

I wish Farage and his dream of a dictatorship would just do us all a favour and do one.
Op I’m sorry that you’ve had those awful experiences, it’s shameful.

I’m so fucking pissed off with the media for giving this gobshite a platform once again.

He’s a nothing, a nobody but they keep giving him airtime.

I wish he’d died in the plane crash years ago so we didn’t have to see his toady face and hear his whiney voice.

How though?

How many MPs do you think they’re going to get? They’d need to get more MPs than the Lib Dems AND more MPs than the Tories AND more MPs than the SNP.

At this point I would be surprised if they get more than Plaid Cymru or more than the Green Party. Surely people can see their promises are an uncosted nonsense?

I wrote earlier "A common theme in Reform voters is they are all the type of people who when they say "I don't get it", they assume it must not be true rather than accepting they just don't understand."

And that matters. They cannot see why we cannot just sack all the NHS managers and keep the front line services. If we reflected for a few minutes, we would realise that an organisation the complexity of the NHS will require organising and most of them will be making the place run more efficiently. But if you do not think there is stuff you do not understand, Reform budgets make sense.

The popularity of the more right-wing, populist parties is a reaction to the left becoming more and more chillingly dystopian. Listening to the leaders of the major left-wing parties in the UK, you could be reading an Orwellian novel.
It genuinely scares me that we are be looking at potentially decades of neo-Marxist nihilism.

I can't vote Conservative because I sincerely don't want them in power and think they deserve to lose.
I can't vote for any of the left-wing parties because I don't hate my country.
For a number of reasons I'm unsure of Reform (although they are at least talking about completely remodelling the NHS, rather than just pouring more money into a black hole, when we know the system itself is fundamentally outdated and not fit for purpose).
I may just have to spoil my ballot.

Listening to the leaders of the major left-wing parties in the UK, you could be reading an Orwellian novel.
It genuinely scares me that we are be looking at potentially decades of neo-Marxist nihilism.

You must be listening to leaders of different parties than we are seeing on the news!

Yes I see what you mean. Like those people who circulate memes saying we have to close our borders or have zero immigration or something else that obviously can’t happen.

*the left becoming more and more chillingly dystopian. Listening to the leaders of the major left-wing parties in the UK, you could be reading an Orwellian novel.
It genuinely scares me that we are be looking at potentially decades of neo-Marxist nihilism *

Can you give some examples of this @magentarain