Why would mumsnet leftists vote Green over reform?

[Wizeman]

Now I have your attention

What are the substantive political reasons for voting for the Green Party over Reform UK?

Please avoid responses based on personality or tone (e.g., claims that one leader is “nicer” than the other). Instead, I am interested in clear policy-based arguments and ideological reasoning.
Reform UK is led by Nigel Farage, a businessman with a long-standing role in national politics. The Green Party is currently led by Zak Polanski, whose professional background includes work in theatre and as a hypnotist.

With that in mind, I would welcome serious explanations focused on policy positions, governance approach, economic strategy, and long-term outcomes, rather than personal character assessments.

Can you give us a breakdown of where the 'hundreds of billions' are coming from?

I understand the maths that you've made up. I wasn't asking for your fictional interpretation of what the financial impact of these imaginary millionaires might be. I was suggesting you back up your claims with evidence, but it seems you don't have any.

1 in 10 construction workers in the UK are immigrants
1 in 5 NHS workers are immigrants
1 in 3 transport workers are immigrants
1 in 2 transport workers in London are immigrants
1 in 4 care workers are immigrants
1 in 4 cleaners are immigrants (1 in 2 in London)
1 in 5 dentists are immigrants.

All of these sectors have long term staffing problems. There are currently tens of thousands of vacancies outstanding.

We need immigrants to build infrastructure.

So there is no point asking the question of how mutch it costs?

One thing is true, we have the highest global outflow.

We wouldn't need to build anything if the population wasn't exploding, we wouldn't need more people working for the nhs or transport.

Between the time when immigrants are young and fit and when they get sick and old they work and pay taxes - same as British born people.. They have children who go on to do the same.

European migrants were net contributors to the UK, mostly because they were young, here to work, and left before they got old and sick. Brexit put paid to that.

The NHS, transport, construction would collapse without immigrant workers.

A key factor in population growth is the aging population.

We would still need to run everything from GP surgeries to maternity wards to trains with an aging population.

We would still need to replace, improve, innovate. New energy systems, replacing aging infrastructure etc

The old people can care for each other; that's why we're headed that way with the retirement age constantly moving up. Soon, we will have carers who are older than the people they are caring for.

To build a city of 500k it costs in infrastructure 50 to 100 billion, probably more in the uk because it costs more than any other nation to build anything in the uk. HS2 cost over 100 billion, how much do you think a city of 500k people would cost? Much more. Net migration has been in the hundreds of thousands for well over a decade now meaning all this infrastructure still needs to be built. No houses, long waiting lists, large class sizes all because our infrastructure is over capacity and new infrastructure hasnt been built. That's why all though the nhs budgit has doubled over 20 years, waiting lists have gotten longer because we cant build the hospitals quick enough.

If you lower imigration it gives us a chance to built the houses and hospitals we need. Then once they are built you can lower the amount being built per year and use the funds to go elsewhere. This will take 5 to 10 years, you cant fix the nation overnight. I hope you understand.

Of course there's a point, but only if you base it on real figures, not made up ones.

If we lower immigration how will we build the houses and hospitals we need?
How will loss of immigrant tax impact spending?

The UK isn't the most expensive place to build.

A lot of the failure to build has been down to Tory austerity and lack of workers, notably the exodus of workers following Brexit.

Your statement that stopping/reducing immigration would release 100s of billions of funds was based on a sketchy estimate of building a fantasy city.

You're not in the UK are you OP?

When he was MEP Farage's voting record was 745th out of 746 MEPs. The only MP with a worse record was hospitalized for most of the period.

He was a member of the European Parliament Fisheries Committee. During his tenure he attended only one out of 42 meetings during a crucial period of Common Fisheries Policy reform and failed failed to vote on key changes. Despite all his wailing about British fishing rights and territories he didn't even show up.

He didn't represent Britain or his constituents then.
Why would anyone think he would do so in future?

Around 9.1 million or 21% of people in the UK (aged 16-64) were economically inactive as of late 2025 (Aug-Oct).

It's insane to import labour to fill the vacancies and at the same time pay 9.1 million or 1 in 5 of people benefits to not work. A figure that grew by 7% in a year.

Now you might wish to write all these people off as lazy or unable or unwilling to work but I'm not.

I think you say the facts better than me 🤣

Of course we would, the NHS hasn't kept up with demand as our population age and becomes increasingly unhealthy - fat, diabetic, alcohol abuse, zero exercise.

I live in an area of pretty much no migration - Cornwall, yet GP/NHS services are as bad as say in Birmingham.
Hospitals and GP surgeries full of old people, with multiple health issues.

Tories let in 5m people since Covid, many of those same Tories are now in Reform....
So Reform are clearly are not the answer.

With Blair and the EU, those workers were younger, mainly highly skilled and many have returned back to their home countries as they are doing better than the UK is...
The SE Asians and Africans will never return and neither will their dependents.

In regards to your last paragraph. - is that true though, with no recourse to public funds if on a visa? Low paid workers have their wages topped up with universal credit and can claim pip/ carers allowance for dependents I believe. I can never find an accurate source for this though, do you?

Yeah but includes SAHM's, students, early retirees (none on benefits) ...the genuinely sick/disabled, the rest are, in the main, unskilled, no work experience, no transport, most no driving licence and many with substance abuses.

They are in the main, unemployable and or need a great deal of supervision before being able to work on their own.

We should never have used sickness benefits to keep youth unemployment figures lower.

If you think these people will save the UK, you may be disappointed 😥

Millionaires spend their money ensuring that they don't pay that kind of tax. The super-rich (multi millionaires, billionaires, conglomerates etc) are not taking a PAYE salary and handing over their fair share of tax like the rest of the population have to. They're using companies, trusts, dividends and all kinds of workarounds to make sure they don't have to contribute that kind of money. I think it's actually you who doesn't understand the maths.

I've never understood the term economically inactive, these people are either spending money or they're dead. If they are spending money they are not getting from benefits, they are contributing to the economy via VAT and the use of goods and services.

My eldest is economically inactive; she's actually in college, but it's a special course for young people with anxiety, asd or ADHD who would struggle in full-time education, so she isn't timetabled for enough hours for it to count in stats as being in education.

She is 100% economically active, she has a very healthy inheritance, and she is not shy about donating it to local tattoo artists, dog groomers, and retailers.

She had a complete meltdown when I asked her to help me unroll a roll of vinyl. The chances of her building infrastructure are somewhere between never gonna happen and are you actually insane?

This whole focus on people who are economically inactive is nothing but a distraction from the fact that there are no jobs for young people, and growth is either slow or stagnant.

I wouldn't back Reform because I can't think of a single individual who has caused more economic damage to the UK than Nigel Farage with his one man campaign to take us out of the EU. Brexit has measurably reduced UK economic performance. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates long‑run productivity is 4% lower, with both imports and exports about 15% below a non‑Brexit scenario. CEPR analysis finds UK GDP is already 2–3% smaller than it would have been otherwise, with weak trade and investment consistent with forecasts. New NBER research shows deeper long‑term effects: by 2025, GDP was 6–8% lower, investment 12–18% lower, and productivity 3–4% lower due to sustained uncertainty and higher trade barriers.

Your figure of 9.1 million includes the early retired (who fund themselves and have no need to/will not work - about 30%), students (approx 25%) , people with long term medical conditions/disabilities (approx 40%).

It also includes parents at don't work in order to look after children and people unable to work because they are caring for elderly/sick relations.

The percentage of the economically inactive population who are actively seeking and available for work is much lower than your 9.1 million figure. Less than 1 in 10 of them are actually looking for and able to work.

Nobody except you said lazy.

You (rightly) wanted credible sources, so I'd start with Brexit analysis - Office for Budget Responsibility; The impact of Brexit on the UK economy: Reviewing the evidence | CEPR; The Economic Impact of Brexit | NBER

They are not the facts though.

The greens are political opportunists just like the Lib Dem’s. If people actually knew what they were like they’d shit themselves. They are long removed from the well meaning hippies of yore.

I watch with interest for when the TRA’s collide with the Muslim vote.

polanski is as much of a chancer as farage.

Of course we need to build infrastructure! Are you aware of the disaster that the privatisation of the water companies has led to? The infrastructure has not been maintained and now we have water shortages and contamination because the private companies who control the water have taken all the money to pay themselves and their shareholders staggering amounts of money - our money. This creates the wealthy people you revere so greatly, and we get nothing back in taxes. The money we pay for water - something actually essential to life, not a luxury! - has gone to enriching a small number of people and we don't have the infrastructure to have decent, reliable water throughout the country. We do have some offshore billionaires having a lovely life at all of our expense though, and of course we need to make sure we don't upset any of them by implementing a fair tax system, right?

Honestly, you want to blame immigrants and the unemployed for taking more than you think they deserve, and you're totally ignoring the people who are actually fucking up the country and the planet so that they can live a life of obscene, unearned wealth beyond imagining. Immigrants and disabled people are small fry in comparison to what those people have stolen.