Reform party

[TalkToTheHand123]

Will Reform win any votes at the local elections?

I don't think that Labour are doing an especially bad job it's just that they are discovering the harsh realities of Government finances that they can't raise any more debt and increasing taxation harms economic growth.

A large number of voters had high (unrealistic) expectations of significant improvements under Labour now feel disillusioned.

Though what Labour is at fault for is a failure to recognise the secondary impacts of their policies, for example the scrapping of the non dom tax status has led to over 10k very high worth individuals leaving the country, VAT on private school fees has led to an increase in children going to state schools, the WFA reform has led to a higher uptake in those claiming pension credits etc.

Reform are offering non thought through, non detailed and non costed sound bite policies that may sound appealing but are either unrealistic to implement politically or unrealistic economically. It a bit like "let's take back control ".

The state sector hasn't collapsed and the rich leaving is nothing new, Brexit being a big reason.

Labour is rightly being attacked about the Welfare cuts but both the Tories and Reform have said the cuts don't go far enough.

Labour are starting to improve the NHS, Reform wants an insurance based health system, not that they mention it, they just blame immigrants for the lack of doctor appointments

Fine if you can afford it, if not, you are screwed with Reform

But let's face it, Reform is about immigration and not much else.

I get that. What I don't want is reduced farming standards (who knows how badly these chickens have been farmed) and if we accept chlorine washed chicken , what else do we accept? US food regulations are not as stringent as ours.

Ours have to be to comply with trading with EU countries.

You forgot that they're also about profiteering off of business.

@Breakitdown

I agree that if the UK were to allow chlorine washed chicken imports from the US then it would fall out of line with EU standards jeopardising our far greater exports to the EU.

Turning the argument around the US doesn't allow the import of certain French cheeses that use either unpasteurised milk or have been matured for less than 50 days on food safety standards. Do you agree with such a standpoint and do you think that the UK should adopt the same standards on food safety grounds?

I agree the US are free to decide for themselves what they will import.

If the UK upholds it's stringent regulations pertaining to food imports, I'm happy with that.

A very British party......

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is launching a drive to raise funds from wealthy offshore donors in low-tax jurisdictions including Monaco, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland, taking advantage of Britain’s loose funding rules to bolster its coffers.

https://www.ft.com/content/b133a72a-902a-40fc-aa53-76a7c2833cc3

The average voter won't care about that though. Honestly, I don't understand how people are still voting for reform after the balls up that was brexit. I honestly think critical thinking should be taught in schools.

Also think there should be a cap on party donations.

Those leaving the UK, do so for a variety of reasons, our new Nom Dom rules are common around the world eg the USA are stricter still on overseas earnings.

We cannot compete on taxes with countries like Dubai & i'd imagine those leaving planned this long before Labour, we've been in decline for a while now.

Labours problem, as you've identified, is that the country has no money, the Tories really did manage to waste so much over the last few years, not least a very expensive NI cut, £10billion per year thats costing Reeves...

@Alexandra2001

"Labours problem, as you've identified, is that the country has no money, the Tories really did manage to waste so much over the last few years, not least a very expensive NI cut, £10billion per year thats costing Reeves.."

I agree that the NI cut by the Tories was unnecessarily expensive and it would have been better to simply reverse it rather than place it on employers which simply reduces the incentive to employ workers.

But even at £10 billion pa it pales into insignificance to the £450 billion wasted on Covid measures that to be fair the majority of voters supported at the time.

I think there should be a total ban on foreign donations. If you want to buy votes you should pay tax here.

Oh come on most of their suppliers can't spell basic words let alone think critically.

Yes there was definitely strong support for these BUT its not like we were asked for what the Govt should do first, the Sunak/Johnson decided to do all of this and we agreed.
They could have chosen another course.

Furlough was a joke, business really did take the mick on this... and 10s of billions then wasted on business support loans, Eat out to Help out... the PPE scandal is even bigger than first thought too.

We weren't asked in advance on any of these, we trusted the Govt would act competently.

I am sure the Reform voters are delighted with the latest YouGov prediction on the mayoral elections

https://bsky.app/profile/yougov.co.uk/post/3lnmxql7dnc2d

@Alexandra2001

"We weren't asked in advance on any of these, we trusted the Govt would act competently."

But the measures were very popular at the time - after all the electorate love it when Governments spend money on them at the time, it's just that they don't like the consequences of belt tightening and debt that follows on - it's a bit like the Christmas splurge followed by a miserable debt burdened January but just on a massively bigger scale.

As for trusting any Government to act competently that's naive in the extreme. Government's act in their own self interest to be elected or re elected and will promise voters whatever they want to hear to achieve this. That's the fundamental flaw in democracy.

That may be as it is but the function of Govt is to do what is necessary, we'd just had an election, Covid shouldn't have been a popularity contest.

Eat out .... and Business support loans were widely criticised at the time.

Its unfair, if thats what you re doing, to blame the electorate for the monies wasted, thats down to Sunak and Johnson, same as the NI cut is down to Hunt and Sunak.. done to win votes, shameful.

Yes in times of crisis, people often do trust the Govt, they did over this, Cameron on Austerity, Blair on Iraq, Thatcher on economy and Falklands.

I thought pre GE Labour getting in would prompt an increase in support for Reform.

It is strange to see such a leap so early on, that light blue line increasing each week so far.

@Alexandra2001

T"hat may be as it is but the function of Govt is to do what is necessary, we'd just had an election, Covid shouldn't have been a popularity contest."

If the function of Government was to do what is necessary then no political party would ever get elected to become a government if they told the truth - they would forever remain political candidates rather than politicians.

Voters would always vote for a political candidate that promised increased services funded through "cutting Government waste " or "closing tax loopholes " or the current favourite of "being the fastest growing economy in the G7". Rather than voting for a candidate that was truthful and said that if you want better services then you need to pay higher taxes or if you want lower taxes then you need to accept lower services.

@EasternStandard How do you feel about the way Reform is polling? Are you encouraged by it?

This data shows that Labour voters are turning to the Lib Dems and Greens and it is Conservative voters who turn to Reform

Thats not really what i was saying, was it...

Talking specifically about Covid and the £450billion costs.. Bojo's support rocketed in the early days of the pandemic, once people saw what he was actually doing, it plummeted, yet still they kept making the same errors....

People tend to vote how they do for a variety of reasons, some are extremely unclear... how do you explain the Tory supporters on here? 14 years to put the UK in a good place but what did they actually do?

...they wrecked the country... i ve asked before "Name a public service that is better than it was in 2010?"

They couldn't even manage to give us clean rivers and seas, just ever increasing bills... yet no criticism of the party will be broked.

Never had an answer but obviously, given the increased support for Reform & the loss of support for the Tories, plenty do, correctly, believe they've wrecked the country.

@Alexandra2001

Covid like all issues was going to be a political popularity contest.

Don't spend enough on Covid measures then they are criticised as not caring enough about the Covid victims.

Spend too much and it's a problem for another Government.

@Alexandra2001

"People tend to vote how they do for a variety of reasons, some are extremely unclear... how do you explain the Tory supporters on here? 14 years to put the UK in a good place but what did they actually do?

...they wrecked the country... i ve asked before "Name a public service that is better than it was in 2010?"

They couldn't even manage to give us clean rivers and seas, just ever increasing bills... yet no criticism of the party will be broked."

I don't think the Conservatives wrecked the country any more than I think that Labour will wreck the economy. The reality is that both parties had their hands tied politically on what they could achieve. The early years of the Conservatives were preoccupied with the fall out of the financial crisis and the need to reduce or at least slow the increase in Government debt. Then there was the preoccupation of Brexit (which was self inflicted) and then Covid. Equally Labour now have their hands tied because of the size of Government debt.

Yes public services and infrastructure have declined but this is largely due to the population increasing by 10 million from 58 million in 2000 to 68 million 2024 or the equivalent of building a new London or eight new Manchesters. Public services and infrastructure has simply not kept pace with this growth for example the last new water reservoir built was in 1992.

Add in the massive deindustrialisation and move of manufacturing to China and you now have 9 million people economically inactive or a quarter of the available workforce.

I don't think if either Labour, the Conservatives or the Lib Dem's were in power for the last 14 years it would have made much difference.

I feel how I already posted, it’s strange to see.

I’m ok with the red line going backwards oth.

On where voters will go when moving from two main parties to an extent it’s likely, although it’ll be interesting to see Runcorn soon and Wales next year.