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?

I think many parties have underestimated the strength of conviction in immigration over a period of time to their cost. The main stream parties have been happy to label those that are anti immigration as racist and bigoted and all this has done is to inflame opinion and push voters towards what was once a fringe party that aligns with their values.

For many I know there is a perceived as threat to British culture, history and values through continued immigration and yet they feel scared to articulate this as they would be labelled.

Islam in particular has been noted as having a value set and culture that to many does lie at odds with a British way of life people hold fear so it is unsurprising when a politician is open about this, yes, some will vote for him. You will not see this feeling openly articulated elsewhere as no one wants to be 'that person' who is an alley d racist or Islamaphobe. However the feeling does exist under the radar in many especially working class communities and they feel they have been ignored.

Major institutions including the BBC cling slavishly to the idea that multi culturism has been an unbridled success and any critique is met with cancellation or hectoring about bigoted views. I think this a approach hasn't worked and in retrospect major institutions should have paid attention to this growing public view.

If you look at France where the National Rally could take power I think we could find lessons for major established parties about ignoring what might seem unpalatable public opinion.

Perhaps we need more safe spaces to discuss immigration and it's impact on culture (and perhaps the nature of democracy) without demonisation?

Dear

I am not sure that "fuck you" is as nuanced as you give it credit for.

What is the answer to immigration in your opinion? Reform have said they'll address 'non essential' immigration. They've obviously realised that their former promise of net zero was unrealistic.

The NHS for example, is one of the biggest organisations in Europe. There are tens of thousands of vacancies and we're not investing in training people in the UK. Without immigration, how are we going to fill those vacancies? A lot of immigration is for students. Should we stop students coming in?

If multiculturalism doesn't work, and many countries believe it doesn't, what should we do to promote integration?

https://news.sky.com/story/reform-uks-tax-plans-disproportionately-benefit-high-earners-analysis-shows-13156776

Yes, I think any normal person would have assumed that.
An issue is that people will not feel the emotional impact of how it hits people they cannot see.
Inequality is bad for the economy* (a point that seems less controversial now than 20 years ago), but we are often mainly concerned with how we are doing against the people around us. If people in jobs are getting worse off, many of them will want disabled people etc to have their standard of living lowered too.

*Some people use the word "economy" to mean rich peoples' yacht money. This is not how I mean it here.

@cupcaske123 There is a national debt, which is an absolute amount and needs as many people as possible to pay it off. That is a major issue.
Ideally, people would be having plenty of kids, but that drops with financial insecurity. As long as the economy is about hoovering as much money as possible to the very rich, this is unavoidable and immigration is required.
The point of Reform is to keep money being sent to the very wealthy.

Reform are not sidelined from the media in general but the BBC do exclude them as much as they can. I've noticed when other TV stations all reported that poll when Reform got 1 percent more than the Conservatives, the BBC did not report it, just ignored it.

Brexit vote - a referendum, of the simplest kind. The General Election is a constituency based FPTP election with all the constraints in term of how strong and strongly distributed support for a party is. As electoral processes they are not remotely comparable.

This seems disengenuous. Debate raged fiercely during Brexit on immigration and regaining our sovereignty. Now many are voting for Reform on immigration and threats to our identity.

I'm not seeing a lot of difference. And the man behind it all is Farage.

Can anyone voting for Reform say how they think Reform will fulfil their promises?
There are actually things in their contract that I would support but I don't see how they can afford to make the changes without cutting services or raising taxes. And the suggestion seems to be that they won't be raising taxes on wealthier people.
I would not vote for a party set up the way Reform is set up, even if I did support all their policies, but I think that some voters (not all), see the headlines and then vote without thinking about the financials.
I've also asked above if there are any particular candidates that people are impressed with (apart from Farage). I know nothing about any of them (and honestly, those that I have read about have not impressed me).

I agree that we need mature and nuanced debate but it goes for all, and doesn’t just come from the left. I do, however, think that there are lines that need to be drawn around racism and sexism/misogyny. Freedom of speech and accepting and respecting different views is good but not when they harm others.

Great post 👏

@cupcaske123

personally I feel a lot of people would think the questions you pose are important.

One thing we certainly have to accept that all the major parties now accept immigration is too high and perhaps radicalisation could have been made some time ago.

Yes, there are genuine questions about supporting the NHS and business through immigration but I think it is important people can discuss immigration as a political issue without being demonized as racist.

we also need to look at the foot cause why people are increasingly becoming concerned about immigration. I think amongst many though in public debate it is rarely articulated there exists the concern that unlimited immigration will have a lasting impact on our culture, democracy, community relations, gender politics and ultimately how we view ourselves as a state.

Multi culturaism falls down when there is a failure to integrate or for immigrant communities to be hostile to a host culture, living parallel lives or being openly critical of aspects of our liberty.

I will give an example: if I were to go to Saudi I would be expected to cover my head and adhere to strict rules pertinent to Islam and Saudi law/culture. We accept this.

However if a Muslim emigrates to France and their child has to remove a hijab as part of uniform policy then there is an uprising with accusations of the French state being 'Islamaphobic'.

It is this fear of other religions and cultures e texting our laws and customs to change in order to advocate then that drives a lot of people rightward politcally. With increased immigration there is ever increasing pressure politically for change to happen in various areas of our society to accommodate an increasing minority with deeply held views on lifestyle that do align with our western secular liberal morality which globally has been shown to be successful.

realisatiom

Sorry for the typos!

Everyone thought Hitler was a figure of fun when he joined politics. Farage went into the jungle to appeal to ‘the common man’, eating kangaroo bollocks, and came third. He said he wasn’t standing in the election. Now he suddenly is.

My daughter’s boyfriend works for a team of accountants and they are all voting reform and trying to encourage him to. He is really shocked. This is in an area of the north with high immigration figures compared to elsewhere and people are falling for lies and propaganda, but from across different backgrounds.

Labour need to bridge the gap appearing, however small it may be dismissed as at first, or this could be a real problem for this country in a decade.

I don't think Garage is Hitler and is some ways a classic character but it actually feeds into this narrative for him and his followers to be accused as fascists as there a lot of people who wish to debate immigration and it's consequences in a mature non hateful way without being labelled as the National Front. These views were dismissed during the Brexit debate and isn't the same mistake being made?

should we have discussions about immigration levels and what constitutes British values without bringing Hitler into it. I think that may show a paucity of debating capabipity.

We have the fifth highest rate of immigration in the world so I agree that our levels aren't sustainable. I think the issue people are dodging is investment. Big business loves a constant influx of cheap labour and people who don't know their rights.

The government are inviting a lot of people in but there's no investment in infrastructure eg GP surgeries, hospitals, schools. There's no investment in training and no increase in wages to attract people from the UK into traditionally poorly paid work. Rent is often impossible to afford due to lack of regulation, mortgages are beyond most people's reach and we have a lot of working poor. People who work damn hard for their money and are barely existing.A lot of precious housing is bought up by people investing in the property market.

I agree that people should respect our culture and values and that we should encourage integration.

Comical above

The Danish Peoples Party (equivalent of Reform) have been successful, but actively avoid Government for that very reason.
They actively push for more money for the wealthy, but also make slogans about more money for nurses and old people. As these contradict, they have to avoid Government but are able to get their tax breaks for the wealthy and petty restrictions for brown people.

That's your contribution to the discussion is it? I thought this needs to be discussed without personal attacks. That we needed a 'safe space'.

I'm happy to hear your views on immigration, how it can be decreased and what can be done to fill those roles.

Much of your posts discusses the price of property. People who have substantial wealth are able to squeeze people having to rely on their wages.
I think that really is a substantial problem and reflects that the economy is increasingly centred on making the very wealthy are wealthier.

Churchview
**
“….. and a third that claimed Africans “have a low IQ”

The irony 🤣

Does it? I mentioned it once.