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

Couldn't agree more. I can't believe what I'm reading on this thread. The self loathing is incoherent and tragic. We have a national culture too, several in fact. That are also worthy of being celebrated and acknowledged. We're not a transient rock for all comers.

They used the same “us common people against the evil elites” campaign during Brexit. Remember when being worried about the economic hit was portrayed as being too posh to not want to “make do and mend?” Now here we are after that, the pandemic, and now two wars with a cost of living crisis, and no-one seems to be enjoying “making do and mending” - but if you mention it you get called an elitist snob who looks down on the people who talked up being happy to be poor in the first place.

Meanwhile Farage is taking £5 million “gifts” from crypto billionaires but that’s not elitist at all, nope!

I think assuming all left wing voters are the same is as stupid as assuming all reform voters are.

Sorted 🤪why has nobody else thought of this?

I’ve certainly seen far more posts (on MN and elsewhere) from people stating that other people think Reform voters are thick than posts actually saying anything of the sort.

I’ve seen more general “how could you vote for such awful policies” but then that comes from every side, and is pointed at every other party. “How could you support useless Starmer” “How could you think Badenoch is competent” “Can’t you see that Polanski is dreadful” etc. An awful lot of people think that anyone who votes for another party must be stupid.

If someone can sneer that every progressive left person is stupidly out of touch then it’s a bit rich to have a strop if some of them are also sneery.

We hear from Tice this morning that they are enormously grateful to a billionaire who paid £5 million to Farage “for his security “. Apart from the fact its taken him a good few days to come up with that as a reason for the undeclared millions, I’m a bit surprised that he thinks people are grateful to him 😂

I can understand why people are disappointed in both the Tories and the Labour Party right now. But they are going to be far more disappointed by Farage and his ilk, that’s for sure.

The whole “reform voters are all poor and stupid on benefits and are going to have their benefits taken away” is tedious. Plenty of wealthy areas have just voted in reform.
See Arundel in West Sussex for one example

@dwordle The problem for Britain is our economy is flat lining and has been for 25 years.

I don't disagree with this at all. It's plain to see whenever you leave the house. But, in that time, we've added how many millions to the population and had it rammed down our throats night and day, mainly by the left, that immigrants are a net benefit to the economy. It's gas lighting and people were seeing through it right from the get go, which is why this toxic debate has been going on since the Eastern European countries were given FOM.

The country is in a mess and we've been pulling the wrong levers to right it, only succeeding in creating a tinder box, ready to explode.

It was an " Ironic spelling mistake. Along the line of " We are called uneduceted".

There is near always a comment going to be made about that, and when the comment was the, the OP said "intentional because I know someone would look down on me for it" (paraphrasing). It was intentional.

I have no idea what columnists in the Guardian write.

I’m left wing and white working class, I generally do despise myself but that’s a whole other thread! I’m confused about where you got this opinion from. Unless I’m not caffeinated enough and misread the post.

What?

I know! They’re ironic spelling mistakes by people posting in the guardian too. They’re deliberate and they’re used in a sneery, superior way as code for ‘all reform voters are thick’.

when reform voters do it back, isn’t it more a case of ‘if you want some, you can ‘ave some?’ I can see exactly why they do it.

As an ethnic minority I’d agree with this. I remember during Corbyn’s campaign when he had a poster claiming he was the only one who could help POC unleash their potential. Bewildering.

I think you are in for a very nasty shock of what Reform will do for working class people. This is a power and money grab by a very greedy and slick bunch at the top but by mobilising the votes of those gullible enough to believe it - someone I know in business and not in a good way has just been elected for Reform in Suffolk - he’s a conman to boot, doesn’t pay people and whijst irrelevant changes his name like the wind and has at some points pimped himself out Asa cross dresser - his main business is in a heavy decline because no one wants to work with him - he doesn’t even live in the area. He’s in it for the kudos and the possible back handers, isn’t remotely interested in people’s actual issues. I get people’s frustration but you are totally barking up the wrong tree.and no most people like myself ( sometimes Labour sometimes Lib Dem) do not hate white working class - what we do hate is the idea that all their issues are caused by those not like themselves, be that ethnic minorities, people doing ok but not a tradesman ( get a real job isa common one) the idea everyone down south gets everything and they are some kind of persecuted section - I’m originally from a midlands mining town and working class and whenever I go back the chip on the shoulder mentality is off the scale despite their pleasant paid for house and 4 holidays abroad a year . I also know a fair few very left wing working class too , people who believed in people like Skinner and Corbyn , I understand why , but fundamentally I think they were wrong too . You can give people the moon on a stick but they will still want more without any effort

The 4D chess involved in this is head splitting. Why don’t you just be sincere and say what you mean, instead of communicating in winks and in-jokes and then calling people who don’t get it “elitists?”

Unfortunately reform voters are generally poorly educated or narrow minded or selfish....or all of the above.

Britain has changed nothing you can do to reverse that change. You are entitled to vote for what ever you want but please stop moaning that things aren't getting better when you keep voting for parties who are enriching those so far detached from your way of life. Farage is no friend of the hardworking family struggling to make ends meet.... that man would throw you under a bus if it lines his pockets and serves his pals. And he will and he said he will because day one of power he will repeal a host of legislation that will hurt the hard working family he's so keen to sing about.

So wave your flags, celebrate the immigrants being sent home and look forward to having all the trappings like healthcare, holidays and sick pay put on the bonfire

I'm a Socialist and I recognise that a great many people are having a hard time and feel they have been failed by the mainstream parties and yes, much of this has been caused global economics, post industrial decline, the pandemic, etc. but also policies (or lack of them) The poster above who said little has really changed since Thatcher, whoever has been in power, is right.

When Bernie Sanders ran for President in 2016 he was one of the few politicians who acknowledged the disaffection and struggles of working class Americans and their valid discontent and unlike Hillary Clinton and her 'basket of deplorables' rhetoric, didn't judge them for it. His answer of course was socialism and he never had much of a chance in a country that is highly suspicious of it. The result? Trump, the great hero who they could trust to make everything right. That delusion is still holding although Trump cares for nothing other than himself.

It's a similar situation here, people who don't feel as if they're being listened to and are struggling will look to someone who makes what they see as attractive promises (and has nothing else to do currently) Although I think they are wrong to think that Farage/Reform give a shit about them, let alone have any answers, the discontent is real and all other parties need to look hard at themselves rather than criticising their former supporters, because however much I dislike Reform, the truth is that they are currently appealing to wildly different voter demographics.

People aren’t voting for Reform because they expect them to solve their problems and turn the UK into ‘Jerusalem’ . They are voting for Reform to sound an alarm. Because they have been failed by the political system and failed by both Labour and the Conservatives, They are sending a message with the only means at their disposal.

I don’t even think the premise is correct that it’s only the working class that are voting for Reform, there is huge demographic change that is happening without much comment from those in power or the media which will have and is having a political consequence. To me it’s similar to what has happened in the USA where many cities become majority minority and they vote one way and that tends to see more demographic change and real population decline. It’s why politics is more consequential in a practical way and many people think you have to get ahead of it if you can. I actually think the Liberal Democrats are very interesting as they seem to concentrate on certain areas and ignore others in a way other parties don’t dare.

Your post reminds me of this video

Nov 3, 2016 Ami on the Street: Are voter ID laws racist and suppress the black vote? Satirist Ami Horowtiz goes to UC Berkeley and Harlem to find out

Conservatives and Labour have been doing amazing jobs.

Let’s be honest, it’s the name - “Reform!” Sounds great, what needs to be reformed? “EVERYTHING!” Even better! How do we do that? Well, but just fixing all the obvious stuff (and someone else has already outlined up-thread): stop people taking the piss out of the immigration system, lower the cost of living, make more houses available for young people without destroying the housing wealth older people have managed to amass over time, make work pay and everyone proud and happy to be British. Easy peasy, why hasn’t it been done already?

The problem with populism isn’t that it’s “popular,” it’s that it promises easy solutions to difficult problems. It blames everyone else for not fixing difficult problems (They’re too stupid to fix things! They’re conspiring against The People! We should close down the universities because education ruins the youth!), but isn’t any better at fixing them. Look at Trump - he moved fast and generated endless headlines, but Americans are getting angrier and angrier that he’s not done a damned thing to actually fix any of the things that made them vote for him in the first place.

I just say: everyone, no matter who is running your council right now start looking at everything they’re supposed to be running. Fixing pot holes, collecting rubbish, delivering social care, keeping the local environment clean enough to live in, running libraries, etc. Look at what’s not happening, and why. Look at the budgets and how they’re allocated. And if you’re not seeing huge improvements from one council to the next even after registering a big protest vote, ask yourself why change isn’t happening as easily as promised.

Reclaim pride in this country.

outer than sticking up a load of flags what the F does that actually look like? What specific actions and policies will there be?

They [the left wingers] 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.
This is the right wing misunderstanding the left. The left is not in favour of 'benefits, handouts and other free things'.
They are in favour of wealth and income re-distribution, which means taxing the wealthy and those with high incomes, in order to fund a "big" state, so that the state can pay for what everyone needs: universal free healthcare, free education, transport, roads, effective policing, etc. etc.
As part of that package, the left which I subscribe to believe in universal benefits, i.e. non-means tested benefits, e.g. the state pension being paid to everyone who has paid the NI, the same state maternity pay for all mothers regardless of income, etc.

Their entire mental architecture is premised upon the premises that

. Working class people are poor
Obviously. That is in the very definition, if you are using an economic definition rather than a cultural one

. The only way for them to not be poor is for the state to give them free stuff
See above - the state should be giving this "free stuff" to everyone. It should be universal, non-means tested, and funded by adequate taxation.

. 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.
The analysis totally falls down here.
This is not what the right-wing are promising in their campaigns. They are promising that the working class will get more free stuff (social housing, better NHS, better roads, etc.) by getting rid of the 'foreigners'. The lie is that the voters are not getting this free stuff now is because of immigration, not because the right-wing doesn't believe in it.
What right-wing campaign has ever been honest about not believing in mass social housing, subsidised transport, free healthcare, etc. ?

[...]
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.
The left of course understands this. They understand people want to feel pride in earning their own money and supporting themselves without 'handouts', whilst also having social housing available, education, healthcare, pensions, policing, free care homes for their parents / grandparents, pot-hole free roads, etc.
They want to have their pride and have the freebies.

But it is not easy to deliver such a blossoming economy.

@CurlewKate Another one of these posts. You called it yesterday on the other thread when you said you’re “not a conspiracy theorist BUT” yes, the pattern is now becoming even more obvious. Whether OP is human or bot or half and half (human posting ChatGPT/Claude/Grok words) is immaterial and irrelevant; this is dishonest engagement. Bring the popcorn.🍿

As for OP, your “friends” were already here, so you’re a bit late. Your username has only been active since the beginning of the pre-election period, you posted short, throwaway comments on two popular threads and then boom, almost nothing but pro-Reform political comments. Is this why Farage was voted as the most popular on MN? Because the kind of people who quote X and think Grok is good showed up here mid-March? Regardless, thread is well-worn territory:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5527585-aibu-to-feel-so-weary-of-labour-voters-going-on

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5526946-to-think-the-main-mumsnet-demographic-are-out-of-touch-politically