Reform

[Floorflood]

I don’t want to vote Reform and I am certain their economic policies don’t stack up but some of their policies sound great. I keep seeing SNP warning that Reform want to slash spending to restore income tax rates and bands to that of England, and I think GREAT! When millions are going to stonewall, Hamas, LGBT Youth Scotland and spent on legal fees defending their whacko policies, overseas aid when it’s not devolved, and so on, surely slashing is very much needed?

Apparemtly Reform would do away with wasteful environmental polices. Again, is that a bad thing? The environment is very important but it seems like we’re the only nation making ourselves far poorer to protect the environment. It’s pointless doing it alone.

Apparently Reform will renege on the closure of oil and gas in the North Sea.

They even might do away with Holyrood apparently! Bloody hell, sounds AMAZING! Where do I sign up?

This is the SNP bad mouthing Reform by advertising their policies, and I can’t help but feel that they all sound like sensible things. But Farage is a genuine racist and they won’t get my vote.

Why aren’t other parties appealing to the electorate in the same way?

Other parties are appealing to the electorate in different ways, because different policies appeal to different people.

The large aspects of the Reform programme that appeal to you are pretty standard Tory fare, so perhaps you could vote for them.

Agree with pp. Vote tory

And waste your vote?

Sorry, you want to abolish Holyrood?

I’m about as anti-SNP and independence as they come, but abolishing Holyrood would radicalise me 😂

Slash spending and return to English tax base?

more than half the population - the less well off -will have a higher tax burden? No thanks. Geez is that their policy? Take money from the poor to give to the rich ? Is it in writing ?

id like them to spend a damn sight more on education
not saying the snp is great

Quote : " Apparently Reform will renege on the closure of oil and gas in the North Sea."

Has it been closed ? Is it being closed ?

Is that what Reform are saying ? Wow, that's a lie then, is it not.

No new drilling licenses is a whole lot different than closing it.

And have Reform gone socialist now? Are they going to nationalise the oil companies to drill where market forces say it is likely too expensive to do so, given that oil and gas prices are set on the world market.

Anything to do with Farage means we are being lied to! Remember the billions Brexit would bring to the NHS? It’s sad to see so many people not seeing the next UKIP party or BNP.

I detest, I mean really detest the SNP and their myriad of failed, tax wasting policies. BUT, I could never vote for Farage and his Trump-sponsored racist bigotry.

I feel politically homeless right now, but Farage is not the answer.

I don’t get involved in the independence debate as a rule but I genuinely think anyone who is unionist and wants to get rid of Holyrood must have had a complete brain lobotomy.

Support for independence would skyrocket.

Although if, and it’s a massive if, Farage gets in power that’s likely to happen anyway.

Why? What’s the issue with abolishing Holyrood? In what way has it improved our lives here in Scotland? All I can see of taxes have gone up and public services have got worse.

I mean you aren’t wrong with taxes have gone up and everything else has gone to the shit, but abolishing it isn’t the way. We need a party who can manage devolved matters for the better. And currently that appears to be falling to no one. It’s a very shit situation to be in if you’re a voter, unless you’re staunch independence/SNP to the detriment of absolutely everything else, which I am not.

You might like the sound of some of their policies (I wouldn't trust anything Farage says but he is good at spin). However, can you really trust him with the nhs? The man has repeatedly expressed his belief in private health care. He is wealthy and will throw the poor under the bus because he has no empathy. No matter what they say in their manifesto, they will decimate the NHS to fee up cash for tax cuts for the rich. And remember, most of their key players now are failed tories who caused lots of our problems in the first place.

Yes but at least he’s admitting it’s fucked. This is yet another area where the mainstream parties are totally and utterly failing the electorate. A 2 year+ wait for a hip replacement isn’t a health service. It’s a national embarrassment. I have health insurance. I can get seen next week if I needed to. Why should the rest of the taxpayers wait years in pain? The whole funding model needs to be scrapped and started again, but none of the mainstream parties have the balls to stand up and say it. Apart from Reform.

I agree good old Nigel is lying through his teeth and that we’ll end up with an American system under his watch when we want a European one, but my goodness why don’t they other parties take the floor, admit it’s broken and start again? Instead all we see is the SNP chucking an ever increasing amount of the budget into the NHS where it instantly gets eaten up by overly generous pay rises and services just keep getting worse.

It’s just like immigration. Thats not working either. Keir could take the floor, say we’re pulling out of ECHR, write our own bill of rights that suits our needs and crack on. But no, he doesn’t want to do that. So Reform will get in, scrap the ECHR and create a new one written by them that leaves no one with any rights.

Do you want Labour to come up with a plan to rearrange NHS funding or Reform?

Do you want Labour to create a UK Human Rights Act or Reform?

Yes I agree with you. When Scotland has been run SO BADLY for SO LONG and with an SNP looking like they might get into power again it’s hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel.

While I’m not disagreeing that the Scottish Government has been poor abolishing Holyrood isn’t the answer.

The fact is the UK Government has also been extremely poor over the same period, depending on people’s political leanings they tend to criticise one and ignore the other.

Like always mentioning ferries and never HS2.

Or always mentioning Michelle Mone/Covid PPE Scandal but never the Campervan crisis.

The constitutional landscape being what it is means both can blame each other for their failures and the public are lost in the confusion.

In that case maybe the next referendum should be a choice of either independence or a full return to UK Westminster governance.

@Floorflood Labour, definitely.

You may start to care about the NHS when your premiums go up because everyone is scrambling to get insurance.

Where Reform have got in on a local level they have already been catastrophic. We're talking spending 70k on flags and millions on a waste consultant (leics and notts). The Leics lead for children and families in the council couldnt even spell families (true story)! I don't think he had even got his gcses.

Just because they are admitting things are f*cked doesn't mean they can fix it. Particularly as most of their leaders are from the very party who messed everything up in the first place.

Exactly,

Another point is that annoying but true phrase that past behaviour is the biggest predictor of future behaviour.

Farage’s utter lies over Brexit has damaged the country beyond anyone’s imagination, yet it has made him a lot richer.

Why would anyone think that given the keys to Downing St he wouldn’t do exactly the same thing.

Just like his hero Trump.

I have no party I’m keen to vote for, and very much not an SNP voter. But I am horrified to see Reform’s progress in Scotland. Their policy platform is not at all plausible: it just doesn’t make sense even if you do want to see lower taxes (and even worse public services). I honestly can’t understand why anyone who isn’t a racist would vote for them. If you want most of the policies people are complimenting here, but aren’t a total racist, you can vote Tory.

I think you've already made up your mind, OP. But just in case there's any hope, I'll leave this here. Spoiler alert, he is just out to line his pockets and isn't a details man:
https://metro.co.uk/2026/01/15/i-tricked-nigel-farage-hailing-ian-watkins-tells-him-26308517/

I’ve already said I’ll NOT vote Reform because he’s a racist wanker, but I just think they’re stealing a march on other parties who aren’t addressing policies that really matter to people. Like high taxes, the terrible state of the NHS and schools etc. let’s admit the NHS funding model is dead and do something about it - quickly.

I need some help here OP. You are saying that the NHS is a major issue for you, and you are sort of suggesting the Reform can "fix" it.

But I can't see any mention of the NHS in the Reform manifesto. What are their plans re the NHS ?

Policies | Reform UK (reformparty.uk)

@Floorflood I find your posts contradictory. You say you're not going to vote Reform but you also seem to be very impressed by them. Labour have admitted that the nhs is broken and they are reforming it. But radical.improvements won't happen overnight. And abolishing it and starting again would leave people without vital care and cost a huge amount in setting.up alone.

Other parties do have policies on e.g. the NHS, it’s just not the quick and ‘easy’ answers being mis-sold by Reform.

They’re not fixing the funding issue though. The only areas which got increased funding in the recent Scottish budget were NHS and welfare. All other areas were cut. That’s public services being cut due to ever expanding NHS and welfare budgets. We cannot get better public services until these two expansions are addressed. People have said that Reform are going to privatise the NHS. I cannot see any other option. And yet the mainstream parties seem set on shambling along with the current disaster, constantly cutting EVERYTHING else until these two expansions entire nation is nothing but health and welfare.

I get private healthcare through my work. This money goes to big finance companies every month. In Europe this money is collected from employers and fed into the nations healthcare system to provide a high quality healthcare for all. It disappoints me so much that none of the current mainstream parties are voicing this as being the only practical alternative. Healthcare is failing to provide a service anymore in SO MANY areas (ambulance waits, CAMHS, dentistry, hip / knee replacements to name but a few) and is only going to get worse. Things aren’t getting better here.

Pre COVID the CAMHS queue for ASD assessment was 3 years. Now they’ve pretty much entirely abandoned even assessing people. This is children’s lives. It’s appalling. We aren’t a 3rd world county. We shouldn’t have a 3rd world health service.

@Floorflood so you want the NHS to be privatised. What about people who can't afford private health care?