This post nails it about left wing voters on Mumsnet over the last two days

[ProudAmberTurtle]

It's by an ex-academic on X, about posts on Reddit over the last 48 hours but is equally applicable to Mumsnet, where I can seeing posts stating things like:

"How stupid are Reform voters? Don't they realise they'll get fewer benefits?!"

The irony is of course that it's those posters who need to be educated, not the working class voters they mock because they think they're thick.

Here you go:

Reading through Reddit threads in which leftists/progressives express their bewilderment/confusion/fury at working class English voters for casting their lot in with Reform, one of the things I'm starting to understand is this:

They simply do not understand how a government could help working-class people in any other way besides giving them benefits, handouts, and other free things.

Their entire mental architecture is premised upon the premises that

1. Working class people are poor
2. The only way for them to not be poor is for the state to give them free stuff
3. So left-wing parties need to promise them lots of free stuff

Then, when these working-class voters instead vote for right-of-centre parties who instead promise an economy in which they can build a career, start their own business, make a financial success of themselves and start a family, they're confused.

Because, again, in their mental architecture, what the working class are supposed to want is free benefits from the state.

But what they actually want is a fair shake at making their own way in the world, making money, getting on in life.

And the left simply doesn't understand that what these voters want from the state is an economy in which they can actually do this.

x.com/i/status/2053073719086469193

There is something useful in what that post is saying about aspiration, but then it slides into a straw‑man version of the left.

It isn’t right that left‑wing people want people stuck on benefits - they don’t see dependency as a good outcome. Benefits are meant to be a safety net - necessary because the economy is weak (and sometimes unfortunate life events need a little extra help to recover from). Ideally fewer people would need benefits if things were working properly.

The problem is more about balance. The press reports endlessly about Labour’s harm reduction measures and there is much less focus on their strategy to fix a stagnant economy and help people actually get ahead. That creates the impression of low expectations, even when that isn’t the intent.

Reform taps into that gap by talking about control, and getting on in life. But behind the rhetoric, they don’t have the vision or expertise to deliver the kind of economic rebuilding that we all need.

So we end up with a choice between a left that hasn’t articulated their vision for growth well enough, and a right‑populist alternative that talks aspiration without a serious plan to make it real.

This. I remember Labour when it truly represented the working classes. Now it’s more so called ‘trendy elite’ - thinking they are morally and academically superior. And sneering at those that don’t buy into it.

Then they get confused when their previously core voters turn away from them 🙄

It's "revolting" that their family are patriotic?

Yes. Patriotism is a thing of the past, multicultural Britain as it is today is about bringing people from all over the world together under a unified banner of humanity. The cross of St George and that other flag represent a place that brought nothing but harm to the people's of the world. We are better than that now.

A working class non-issue. Sheer arrogance. Who do you think you are?

This! As a PoC, the most racism I’ve experienced is insidiously from middle class left wing voters who don’t consider me a true Asian, more Oreo, because my family are well educated, financially secure and Tory - not needing their benevolence. And I always ask, at what point do I get to vote from the perspective of a citizen or be treated as a one, an equal of theirs, rather than an immigrant? It’s the same people for whom diversity only counts when PoC live visibly segregated in certain streets and estates, not when PoC live in the same naaice houses with the same lifestyle as them. I’m always amazed that so many leftie voters in London don’t have any close first gen immigrant friends in a city where there’s so many - yet constantly talk about immigration.

Couple of them on here, completely missed your point.

I'm not working class but I think it's a shame that the media has skewed things so much that some working class voters think that Reform want to help them.

Dont Reform voters tend to come from what would be termed as the underclasses?

The Working classes who could benefit from a government who wants the economy to grow and support people in that (which Reform dont seem to be able to deliver but lets pretend that they can) are already on that pathway, they're plumbers, small businesses, working in care or equivalent types of job

The working classes who wont benefit from that are those who are on zero hour contracts, part time working with huge benefit top ups due to the cost of housing etc, those with disabilities who cant work full time or are carers for elderly or children. Minimum wage, insecure employment, unable to upskill due to lack of ability or capacity.

The underclasses who cant or dont work, wont benefit either.

Brexit-type policies don’t grow the economy. I’m depressed that we’re watching America eat itself alive and we think ‘great, let’s try a bit of that’.

Someone who tries very hard to make a better world for everybody with real active policies, not parochial fringe issues that have been manipulated by bad faith actors.

I wonder how other countries who were also colonialists in the past manage. I dont see any shame in hanging out flags in Spain or Portugual, they're celebrating their past and embracing their future, just like the UK should do.

Patriotism is what you make of it. You show by your post you dont even understand what it means.

You should add lacking any self awareness.

Totally agree. Farage has taken people in with his ‘man of the people’ act. He is nothing of the sort.

He is millionaire who went to Dulwich College, which is one of the most prestigious and expensive independent schools in the world. A couple of years ago he got a £5million gift - according to him, a personal gift- in cryptocurrency.

The trouble in this country is that patriotism has been tinged with something else by people in 'fit in or fuck off' T shirts drinking all day lager under a St George's Flag, by Tommy Robinson and his 888 bus and a general philistinism at the things we can genuinely be patriotic about.

Also the 'patriots' are often the ones calling this Broken Britain.

Patriotism isn't "a thing of the past" - it's a foundation for social cohesion and functioning societies. Healthy attachment to your own country correlates with higher social trust, volunteering and support for shared public goods.

The Cross of St George and Union Jack symbolise England's and Britain's history. Yes, empires involve conquest, exploitation, and violence (as did the Ottoman, Mughal, Mongol, Arab, African, and every other empire or kingdom that ever existed).

But Britain's Empire abolished the slave trade at a time when slavery was the global norm. This was driven by a domestic moral campaign.

The empire also spread common law, property rights, parliamentary institutions, railways, irrigation, education and modern medicine to places that lacked them, and ended practices like suttee (widow-burning) in India.

From science to literature and philosophy, we punched way above our weight. And that's something to celebrate and, more importantly, remember.

I think unfortunately it has also been used by people who want to slag off anything that Britain is or does or has done. There is a real talking down of the UK by the left, and I am a left voter, its damaging. Its like a person having poor self esteem, self fullfilling prophecy about how awful they are, they cant do anything, they carry guilt which is a wasted emotion about something they did or didnt do years ago. They dont see that they should be aspirational or ambitious and look down on others that are

Thats been the UKs message to itself for years within the left. It has then allowed a vacuum where 'patriotism' is viewed as little Britain whereas it should be aspirational, celebratory, proud and ambitious.

More than a couple! Look at the next few posts after your one :)

Yes, but what was it George Orwell said? That 'England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.'

What came first? I would argue that it was this attitude from the intelligentsia that people finally pushed back on. Had the university educated middle class not had this attitude, patriotism could have been wrestled back from the NF in the 1970s instead of allowing them to own it.

What I see on MN is that more often than not it is the Reform voters who instigate the "thick insult" usually.

Because it seems to be their election strategy. And it is a proven strategy when used when used by authoritarians seeking to create a cult of personality. Especially when there is no firm political ideology or manifesto, but there is a person seeking power at any cost.

Yesterday I saw a post where the pro Reform poster admitted to using a spelling mistake to be pulled up on. In another the poster used a daft idea of push bike power station, that the poster later admitted was nonsense. Two different threads had the near same gish gallop solid wall of false claims, no punctuation and no structure.

It is designed to get a reaction. And when someone reacts, the thread instantly switches to " you calling them thick or wot, typical anti reform elite".

It's the same method of creating division as Mao used in his cultural revolution pre internet, and as Trump uses post internet. " I am one of you, see how the elite talk down to us".

This thread is just another example of that strategy in action.

@RedTagAlan Yesterday I saw a post where the pro Reform poster admitted to using a spelling mistake to be pulled up on.

This is interesting in itself. Why are they doing that? That hasn't come out of a vacuum, has it? It's because the self proclaimed intellectually superior posters who look down on reform voters use spelling mistakes in their own posts when referring to them. For example, 'forrin' is now used so much instead of 'foreign' in the guardian by the commentariat, I'm surprised the G don't adopt it as one of their official style forms.

Did you get all that pseudo-philosophical claptrap from Mein Kampf? Higher trust comes from living in a place that values humans as people, wonderful and different as we all are. I can't believe what I'm reading.

I think this works as an explanation of why working class voters voted for Thatcher in the 80s. Struggling to see how it works for Reform, who don’t appear to have any policies that would grow the economy.

Your problem is that you assume change = better. This is nothing to do with class, it's a failure of imagination. Reform voters really don't seem to grasp how much WORSE everything can get. Firetreev is right. 'Your life is a bit shit, is it? Tell you what, why don't I go ahead and tell you some fairy tales about how that brown bloke over there is getting on a boat back to where he came from? And while you're clapping I'll dismantle your worker protections and take another 10% of your wage to give to the 0.5%. Those yachts won't buy themselves!'

And by the way, the Greens are the other face of the same coin. Just replace brown bloke with rich twat. And they'll give the 10%of your wage to a weed smoking guy in a frock writing angry tweets about how vulnerable and marginalised he is.

Absolute nonsense, made by someone who clearly has little understanding of poverty.

Labour made a clear pledge to make Britain fairer, to end the attack on those on welfare. Austerity has permanently damaged the UK..... irreversible damage and this was acknowledged by Boris Johnson.

The problem for Britain is our economy is flat lining and has been for 25 years. We also have social problems that are not quickly solved. 83 billion pounds worth of debt held by water companies, aging population and a pension shortfall, a million homeless, poverty increasing, aging infrastructure.

You can't blame those not in work for this mess, this mess has been in the making since Thatcher. It's called decline and it's being made worse by greed

Farage wants to cut red tape, slash benefits, privatise the NHS and bring in insurance and cut spending.

This will bring in considerable suffering and likely cause lasting harm with no sure way to reverse it. Funding healthcare through insurance hasn't resolved the dental crisis as millions with private dental care are finding. There's always a shortfall and premiums to negate this are always very expensive.

If you want to understand our problems then I urge you to approach this from a global perspective. Look to Asia and Africa and accept that we are in a period of change. We have no right to success on a global stage and our past may be catching up with us. Leaving Europe has left us vulnerable and dealing with mounting red tape, and remember it was Farage who took you there. Are you any more free, I would argue that you are now trapped unable to leave an island in decline. Will a Reform government be able to aggressively force it's place in this new world.....I doubt that very much considering the size of the global economy.

I'm afraid it's not Labour who are to blame but more it's voters for repeating the mistakes since Brexit and refusing to accept that change is coming whether you are on board or not. Britain is not in a place anymore to reshape the global trade network.....and thanks to Brexit we don't even have a voice.

If Farage thinks that bullying will get himself something globally then he's in trouble. If he thinks getting into bed with Israel and the yanks will achieve power then again he might find himself outcasted more by Europe.