New election poll shows a very divided country!

[estellacandance]

Reform on brink of outright majority if election were held today

https://www.thetimes.com/article/53644fbd-d669-446f-bef1-f5db0ceff159?shareToken=f5dd3aab35a7c456e59ff3468d805a8c

They are only going to get more popular as they are the only ones willing to address mass immigration.

It’s true and if that’s what appeals to the British population, then that’s democracy.

If they do win i hope people who dont want him in number 10 put the blame at the feet of where it should sit. The incompetent Labour and Tory parties. They've both been beyond appalling. Maybe it will be a tough lesson for them to finally understand never to take the electorate for granted. Always listen to the majority. It's been a two horse race for decades and we need a shake up. If it actually makes the parties step up to the plate that can only be a good thing.

I'm not sure that Reform are going to hold together for the next four years. There have already been rifts and falling out (remember Rupert Lowe?). They don't seem to have any policies except 'we hate foreigners' and their finances don't bear close scrutiny. Where did Nigel's girlfriend get £800,000 cash to buy a house?
Now they're parroting Trump on paracetamol and swans FFS.

I really hope not. Have any reform voters even looked at the other policies/ideas reform has? Or is it all about mass immigration?

I don’t vote reform but frankly, I think it will serve a lot of people right if they do get in. Immigration has been the number one public concern for decades now, and the political elite think that they can just arrogantly ignore it, and fail to come up with any adequate solutions. Whether you agree with it or not, you can’t just ignore the feelings of the majority. Lots of people voted Brexit for the same reasons.

If an Election we as held now ok
But it's not for another four years.
A lot can happen by then.

It’s true and if that’s what appeals to the British population, then that’s democracy.

It will most likely mean Democracy on the way to autocracy. Like America

And the poll showed Reform could get in today if it joined with the Conservative Party which is not quite what the heading and lead say. Somewhat misleading.

So looking at the next 4 years:

To be fair Labour is trying to do their best in a very difficult situation which is unfortunately creating an economic doom loop. The UK has a debt to GDP ratio of 96% which whilst significantly higher than other developed countries is below the average of other G7 countries. The current annual deficit is over £100 billion, current national debt is £2.7 trillion and the interest bill is £105 billion- similar to the entire education budget.

Labour can't cut spending because of the opposition from their own backbenchers (Eg WFO, PIP reforms etc). They can't increase borrowing anymore (as Liz Truss found out the hard way). S
So that leaves them with increasing taxation which further slows the economy thereby further reducing tax revenues and creating the need to increase taxes further and so on.

All of this will mean that unless there is a global economic turnaround then Labour's popularity will continue to be weak over the next four years. They are losing hard left votes to the Greens and more right leaning Labour supporters to Reform.

The Conservatives are polling low figures mainly because they lost credibility running a shit show for 13 years. However voters memories in general are short so I expect their polling figures to increase slightly up to 2024 but nowhere near enough to be able to win a majority.

The LibDems appear to have completely failed to understand the lesson of the US election that you don't win elections simply by "not being the other guy" which in their case is Reform.

The Greens are hard left and the largest unfunded policies of all parties.

Reform is not much better with the unfunded policies only second to the Greens. Where they are winning is by promising "change " or radical change. In a world where the Conservatives and Labour have simply been at the wheel of managed slow economic decline then "radical change "
is genuinely attractive to a lot of fed up voters. That said as we get closer to the election I would expect them to lose some votes to the Conservative (assuming the Tories get their act together- which is a big assumption).

Personally and looking forward to the possible changes between now and 2029 I see a Reform / Conservative coalition winning.

It’s not about the number of people who’d vote Reform though, it’s about the number of constituencies that elect a Reform MP.
An entirely different thing.

Interesting. The more Starmer pisses people off the more go to Reform.

In some ways I hope they do get in just so that people then realise how inexperienced they are and exactly what they’ve voted for. They’ve not costed policies, they’re trying entirely on immigration. They’ve will decimate the nhs.

In defence of Starmer he is in an impossible situation. He can't cut spending because of his backbenchers, he can't borrow more money because of the reluctance of the money markets and when he increases taxes it just slows the economy further requiring even more tax rises.

It’s not just that and he hasn’t helped himself by stalling growth with the last budget. They’ve snookered themselves. And then the rhetoric which is ramping up around ID etc isn’t going to help.

But he stalled economic growth by increasing taxes in particular NI increases. Cutting spending wasn't possible due to Labour backbenchers saying they would vote against the spending cuts.

Unfortunately the slow down in economic growth has led to a reduction in taxes receipts which will lead to further tax rises and slower economic growth again and so on in a fiscal doom loop.

Yes I agree with you there. The only bit was the ‘in defence of Starmer…’ part I don’t think he can be outside this, it’s him too, it’s mostly him as PM. Other than that completely agree.

I would pin part of the blame on his backbenchers but in any event it is still the "Labour Government " who are to blame.

IMO the reform vote is a ‘none of the above’ rather than a positive endorsement of them.

If they do win i hope people who dont want him in number 10 put the blame at the feet of where it should sit. The incompetent Labour and Tory parties.

people need to take responsibility for being idiots too.

IMO the reform vote is a ‘none of the above’ rather than a positive endorsement of them.

Have people learnt nothing from Brexit? 🤦🏻‍♀️

They have learned nothing sadly, they want to continue falling for lies and bullshit.

I don't think Reform will deal with immigration at all. Farage doesn't actually care about that. He just wants to be in power.
He has no more of a plan than the current government.

He has to rely on the group of voters who will just stick their cross in the Reform box, regardless of who the MP is, where they live, what criminal convictions they have. So he will continue to speak on popular issues whatever they are. It might be a whole other bunch of scapegoats in three years time.

They say they are willing to

They won’t actually do anything

Words are cheap

Everyone knows immigration is an issue. However solving it is very complex and certainly won't be cheap.

Also Farage is a lazy bastard

He can’t even be arsed to do his MP job far less the PM