Reform party seems to be ahead in my area.

[Moier]

Any of you voting Reform?
My area was always labour..( I've never voted labour).. but according to what I'm reading.. it's surprisingly gone the other way.
Will have to wait and see.
Did him being in I'm a Celebrity make him more popular..or is the extreme right the way to go?

If you seriously care about women’s rights then you really should know about Andrew Tate. Farage has basically said he supports his views and talked about blokes being able to be blokes. Basically supporting the promotion of a very extreme form of toxic masculinity.

Tate is being investigated for people trafficking and rape amongst other things. Has boasted about assaulting women. Thinks they should be kept at home without possessions and are the property of men.

He’s also close to Trump and said he thinks the West is a fault for Putins invasion of Ukraine.

He is not a feminist or an ally to women. He’s the antithesis of that.

How do you think they will do that?

I think they’ll do better than predicted in terms of vote share even though I wouldn’t expect more than a few seats. I think the risk is that once they get a toehold, that legitimacy will help them recruit some more credible candidates- i’m thinking Jordan Bardello types. I don't think it’s unfathomable that they become the main opposition party within two elections. What is worrying is that I know people who are voting reform and not who people think of - youngish, well educated, highish income people. I haven’t really discussed it with them but I was surprised. Mind you I know someone who voted for Trump despite being gay and married to an immigrant, so go figure.

Do you think they have any individual candidates who would be capable of taking on big jobs in government? I mean, following after the Tories the bar is low, but I wonder if you think they have people capable of making the changes they say they will make?

I’m really saddened by the number of misinformed views in this thread. Things clearly gleaned from social media without a critical eye.

We are in a very dangerous phase of history. Climate change, start of WWIII, people struggling to feed and house themselves, public services crumbling. Now, more than ever, we need a grown up at the helm. Someone sensible and not hyperbolic.

It’s been widely reported that Russian bots are on all types of social media trying to create division and fuel instability.

PLEASE DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH before you vote. Read the manifestos. Watch the candidates in full. If you read something or hear something that sounds too good to be true or tries to create strong feelings in you, fact check it. Go to several sources. Don’t rely on social media or one news source. I’ve read several news sites over the last few years and none of them give you the full picture.

This is a democracy so it’s great that we all have different views and can exercise our right to have our voice heard BUT it’s a responsibility and we owe it to each other to really think about our decision and ensure we are as fully informed as possible. We are heading for stormy seas and who is at the helm will matter. A LOT.

If you care for our national security at all do not vote Reform. Farage is a sock puppet for Putin, evidenced by his parroting of Kremlin lies about the Ukraine war. Everyone now knows Russia pushed for Brexit, it worked. They are now pushing Reform. The aim is to destabilise our democracy. Farage is telling you what he thinks you want to hear, he doesn’t mean a word of it (except for his misogyny and racism, I do believe that’s genuine.) Aside from anything else their promises are completely & utterly uncosted and would bankrupt the country.

It’s Russian influence that concerns me too. We have to self research for this election. We can’t rely on sound bites from the media and social media. There is too much at stake.

It's very important. Russia is a big threat.

It’s not letting me edit my post but to clarify I mean to say more that Farage is a useful idiot rather than being directly controlled by Russia or anything like that. But I do believe each vote for reform would make Putin happy.

Farage now thinks the Russians were justified in Ukraine.

I agree, totally. Useful idiot is a good description too.

Here’s why we’ve got this problem of right wing groups! People like you.

Our local reform candidate makes a big point about controlling the borders and people moving here from other countries but also mentions how he's lived in Denmark and Sweden. What a tit. Alright for him to do it but not for other people. To my dismay our neighbours have got his sign up in their window so must be voting for him. I think reform are picking up the disgruntled Tories.

Reform will get a handful of seats if they are lucky. FPTP is not on their side.

@Gabbsters has it spot on. Reform will probably take a bigger overall vote share than the Lib Dems. But the latter will win likely 30 or more seats, as compared to the maybe 2 or 3, that Reform might get. And just as likely they'll get none. Personally I'd prefer the zero option.

The Lib Dems have some seriously concentrated support in specific parts of the country, with upwards of 40% or more support in those constituencies.

Why is 40% important? Because in only around 20 seats in the last General Election in 2019 did a candidate securing less than 40% of the vote secure victory. And with just one exception (32% in a NI constituency) these victories still needed to be in the 35% to 39% range.

Reform may well pick up a few dozen second places. But in FPTP there are no prizes for second place.

This is what Reform are about (quite about Putin)

"I said I disliked him as a person, but admired him as a political operator because he's managed to take control of running Russia," Mr Farage said.

From West provoked Ukraine war, Nigel Farage says www.bbc.com/news/articles/cldd44zv3kpo

Imagine him ever "taking control". It would be disastrous and it has a sinister ring about it, given what we know for certain about Putin.

Watched a report yesterday on the computer systems that China had hacked. Government, NHS, etc and the vast amount of data they had harvested.

Apparently they could shut down many systems now. All without firing a bullet. So China concerns me.

I would recommend that the citizens of mumsnet stop ‘othering’ and monstering Reform and its voters. And start encouraging the other parties to actually talk about issues like security, defence and immigration and its effects. Otherwise the exact same thing will happen as with Brexit - those who aren’t listened to by the main parties will simply vote for the ones that bother to engage with them.

The reduction of international relationships and all disputes to ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ with nary a though is also unhelpful. Reality has nuance. It is also perfectly possible to recognise that evil people can be strategically brilliant or good orators without condoning what they chose to do with that skill. Pretending they were dumb as a box of rocks is stupid and reflects more on the commentator making such a suggestion. But hey, we live in a Hollywoodised era where apparently people are incapable of logic or reasoned discussion.

The sheer arrogance shown on most threads by left wing voters is astounding. As is the description of policies that are merely right of (true) centre as ‘extreme far right’. They are not. Most police's and positions that the modern left objects to have in fact been proposed in the past by politicians on ‘the left’.

This election is going the same way as Brexit - and the ‘left’s’ Refusal to engage like grown ups with issues that do actually concern a large part of the population is going to have the same effect now as it did then. It was 17.4m “fuck offs” back then. That’s a wide pool for any party to drawn from.

Validus - do you really think it is just left wing people that oppose Farage?

I’m a centrist, small c conservative and I utterly disagree with his ill-thought out spouting. I loathe his vaguely concealed racism and misogyny. He’d wreck the economy and he is only interested in making things better for people like him.

that and the fact that he’s pulling off a huge grift in presenting reform as a political party when in fact it’s a business that he owns the majority of shares in! It blows my mind that he isn’t being challenged on this.

What he is is a very persuasive and charismatic speaker and sadly many people can’t see beyond that.

He’s already done huge damage with brexit and people are happy to fall for his lies again. It’s quite hard not to feel frustrated by it!

@Meadowtrees absolutely. The man is a conman and a liar. He knows how to appeal to the people who engaged with his Brexit lies last time though. He's a smooth operator and some people are evidently prepared to overlook his total lack of principles or morals.

He has also studied and learnt from the people he admires - trump and putin. Not my idea of role models!!

@ValidusThe sheer arrogance shown on most threads by left wing voters is astounding. As is the description of policies that are merely right of (true) centre as ‘extreme far right’. They are not. Most police's and positions that the modern left objects to have in fact been proposed in the past by politicians on ‘the left’.

We aren’t saying that we fear them because their all their policies are far right. It isn’t just about their current policies, but who they are as people and what they have the potential to become. Their candidates openly admire fascists and some have been involved with far right groups like the BNP and NF. That is terrifying. These people are far right, even if their manifesto tries to portray them as ordinary moderate people.

Farage is planning on scrapping women’s rights, and protections for gay people, disabled people and ethnic minorities. That is FAR right and actually is in the manifesto. It is not moderate, centre-right politics, its subjugation of protected groups. People fought for decades for these protections. But when we’re chained to the kitchen sink again, “We didn’t know that this is what they’d do” won’t cut it again. They’re telling us, we should listen.

He admires Trump, Putin and Andrew Tate. That should tell us exactly who he is.

There are so many parallels with the rise of the Third Reich, and that is why we fear them turning us into a dictatorship (which Farage has said he admires Putin doing the same in Russia), not because we think that everyone who votes for them is far right. Because we have strong views about Farage does not mean we’re “attacking” every potential Reform voter.

@Validus Excellent post. The ability to see and understand nuance appears to be a lost skill.

This may well turn out to be a 'fuck you' election; the same as the Brexit vote.

But it’s not “fuck you” when it’s yourself that you’re fucking, it’s “fuck me”. You might think you’re socking it to the man, when you’re punching yourself in the face, just like Brexit.

Agreed, anonym00se. Farage literally OWNS reform. There are no members who vote to choose leaders, he makes all the decisions and all the wannabe reform mps have to agree with him, there is no one in reform to hold him to account. He is absolutely a dictator in his own organisation and if, god forbid, he gained any sort of power that is the direction he’d follow. I have seen no evidence that he supports democracy, other than as means to getting power for himself.

He is a very dangerous man and I too find the parallel with the rise of the Nazis chilling. No country is ‘settled’ or ‘finished’ and democracy is never secure. Look what happened to Iran.

Polls have come a long way in 32 years. The Tories won by a slim majority, which was down to zero by the time of the 1997 election.

EDIT: I quoted the wrong post?!? So sorry!!!!