What will life be like under Reform?

[Easipeelerie]

I have accepted the likelihood of the next government being Reform. I don’t think the government after that will necessarily be Reform. But in the 4 Reform years, what do people think life will be like for the different groups in our country? Will we see very immediate changes?

I'm sorry to hear that your husband and you have had to put up with this, and with the kinds of comments we see about benefits.

You might be interested to learn that many people claiming "Out of Work Benefits" are actually in work - up to part time work, from what I remember. There has been a big increase in the figures because of the way they have been are classified for people being moved to Universal Credit. It doesn't reflect how many people are actually out of work and on benefits. More or Less on Radio 4 did a very interesting piece on this recently, which I would recommend to anyone. It's annoying that the terminology seems to be used by the DWP quite thoughtlessly, and is giving good weather to one political side.

You might be interested to learn that many people claiming "Out of Work Benefits" are actually in work - up to part time work, from what I remember. There has been a big increase in the figures because of the way people being moved to Universal Credit are classified. It doesn't reflect how many people are actually out of work and on benefits. More or Less on Radio 4 did a very interesting piece on this recently, which I would recommend to anyone. It's annoying that this terminology seems to be used by the DWP quite thoughtlessly, and is giving good weather to one political side, when it should aim to be as perspicious as possible.

Our parlimentary terms are usually 5 years. Just for clarity.

6.5 million is a huge number of working aged people. I know some of them physically cannot work, but this country is on its knees. Not only are they not working and paying taxes, working people are paying to support every one of them. This money could be going into infrastructure projects, new hospitals, schools etc. This is a huge problem.

https://frasernelson.substack.com/p/are-there-really-6m-on-out-of-work

@AbsenceOfLoveIsJustAsBad - I appreciate your honestly, but I would really advise against voting for Reform as 'something different'. I think they will be much the same but far more corrupt, and corruptable, because a Reform government would be full of people who won't even understand their responsibilities and required ethics as MPs. You may laugh, but by and large the UK has a pretty straight-edged political system compared to many.

At any rate, be sure the read Reform's manifesto before you vote because I think there are likely to be ideas in there about the NHS and worker's rights, for example, that should worry most people.

That graph makes it look as though almost everyone claiming UC is out of work. This can't be correct. Lots of low earners are eligible for UC, especially if they are parents.

Shock horror. All these claimed savings Reform Kent council they were going to make with their Elon musk DOGE cuts and out they now they are actually wanting to increase the council tax. It's almost as if they were lying and haven't got a clue what they're doing. It will be the same if the electorate are foolish enough to put them in power in Westminster.

What a surprise eh. I actually had no idea Kent council was now reform so that’s more of the shock for me.

Also “Linden Kemkaran” a former BBC journalist - is he a reform councillor now?! Extraordinary.

Wonder if we will find more links like this to explain why Reform get such a disproportionate amount of media coverage.

"Everyone thought we'd come in and there were going to be these huge costs we could cut away but there just aren't," said a third senior Reform cabinet member in Kent. 😂

Back in 2022, Kent County Council were reporting significant future budget gaps, even if they made drastic cuts to services. Surely only fools would go in thinking that this was going to be easy?

Well, we all know that shoe is a perfect fit.

This cannot be a serious post.

Reform UK, costing you more money, whilst lying that they’ll save you money. Don’t believe the lies
folks! We must not sell out our children’s futures to this. It’s not just Kent council. Look into Durham too.

Reform UK Durham Leaders calling for more pay.
Reform UK Mayor Andrea Jenkyns calling for more pay.
Reform UK Staffordshire calling for more advisors.
Reform UK Scarborough Mayor 600% pay increase.

Same playbook as the US, lie about savings, cut vital services all whilst bleeding the system dry.

They’re laughing at us now!

I agree! They must look at us following the American shit show decent into Authoritarianism and be shaking their heads and wondering why we are so keen to destroy our country.

Oh, not forgetting that Reform also want to pull us out of the ECHR www.facebook.com/share/v/1XPq13QVXt/

This. Nothing much will change and the civil service will run things. It’s always been the same.

Well not according to the Reform manifesto.
Zia Yusuf, Reform UK's Head of Policy and DOGE, has stated that "the majority )of civil servants) will be fired"
The party's manifesto calls for immediately replacing civil service leaders with "successful professionals from the private sector"
It will be a shit show.

Exactly. We've all seen how well this method has worked in the US.

But of course Yusuf, Farage and all their bezzie mates will make tons of money out of it, so that's fine.

I don't see how anyone can be so naive as to think voting for that lot will make anything better. It will be so, so much worse. Though perhaps with slightly fewer brown people, so there's that.

Why isn't there a party that is for ordinary man/woman anymore? One that supports taxation to improve public services, one that supports nationalisation but also one that wants to control immigration and is conservative with a small c.

Maybe because not all ordinary men and women support taxation or believe it will improve public services?

Can you imagine what life would be like in the UK without general taxation? The most vulnerable would suffer, and things are so bad for them already.

But I am sure there are ordinary people for whom it's all about themselves and to hell with everyone else.

Research shows that the happiest countries are those without a huge gap between rich and poor e.g Finland, Denmark etc.
There was a LSE report that looked at data from 18 countries over 50 years and found that low taxation did not help grow the economy. So there is a myth that low taxation grows an economy. Low taxation generally makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. I would hate us to be like America or South Africa where huge gaps between rich and poor fuels their high crime rates.
I do think that people should be rewarded for hard work so I also believe that people should earn more if they've worked hard at school and have good jobs so I am not a socialist. I don't think so many students should go to university as some are wasting money. I also believe in controlling immigration because I don't think high levels help with community cohesion and I believe in assimilation not multi-culturalism. That is why I am conservative with a small c but there isn't a party that represents my views. Maybe my views are too unusual?

Well the Reform led Wiltshire council is advising that it thinks 'it' should set the boundaries on what the council thinks is ok for a child to walk to school. Therefore it's being set at 5 miles and transport withdrawn to save the council money. That is children as young as 8 I believe although some say it could be 5 years of age. It's going to be very dark at night walking home 5 miles ? Are all the councils going to follow suit or just Reform councils. They are quoting a saving of £50 million 😳 that is eye watering amount by taxis, and possibly are not the right way to get children to school, so build schools locally or get those nice business property developers to build these services , like schools and doctors surgeries than raking in huge amounts of money just selling houses 👍

The direct consequences of their leadership decisions won't be very different to how it is now under Labour.

They'll make some populist decisions which hurt the economy - but Labour are already doing that at a grand scale, so it won't be any worse.

There will be a few scandals around individual MPs and concerns about links to dodgy countries - but no more than Labour scandals and links to China.

They might make some headway on reducing net immigration. Not sure whether they'll succeed, but at least they don't actually believe in open borders and giving away the UK like Labour do, so they'll at least try.

But the biggest risk when they get in (democratically) is that it will increase social tension. The Left only believe in democracy when everyone does what they want: otherwise they try to force their beliefs on others. So I expect public unrest at a level which would challenge any government, and which will be hugely damaging to the UK.