Article about Mumsnet on Unherd. "Has Mumsnet fallen for Farage? Labour is losing Middle England"

[lechiffre55]

The title is slightly clickbaity but the article seems fairly balanced to me.
It's about what Starmer and Labour have done wrong to lose support. No element of smear against Mumsnet.
https://unherd.com/2026/01/has-mumsnet-fallen-for-farage/

Protest votes can have bad outcomes. Lots of people said they voted Leave to teach Cameron and Osborne a lesson . About Austerity I suppose?

Anyway, the voters will have plenty of time to judge Farage and Reform on their record , running councils in Durham , Kent and Nottingham. That's going to be .... interesting.

First point on that site for my area:

'Launched new legislation to bring the UK's railways back into public ownership which will improve rail services across Scotland.'

We already nationalised the railways in Scotland. In 2022. They're still shite. Next!

'The only reason someone might imagine this particular community to be a hotbed of Right-wing sentiment is that Mumsnet is a key platform for gender-critical feminism. Several of the campaign groups that successfully opposed the Tories’ daft “gender-self-ID” legislation in the 2010s spun out of forum debates there, aided by the founders’ commitment to civil, open debate.
But unless one becomes “far Right” merely by knowing biology is real, that tells us little about Mumsnetters’ overall politics.'

Bingo.

And this is the more pertinent point:

'there are far more politically homeless Mumsnetters than Faragist ones.
The more significant story, though, is the fall in support for the Labour Party. Labour’s share of the poll fell from 41% in 2024 to 18%. Among a demographic staunchly supportive of social welfare, this is damning. Presumably a few have broken for Reform, bumping that 14% up to 20%; but the biggest beneficiary is “Don’t know”, rising by 20%. In other words, a proportion greater than Farage’s entire poll share has abandoned Labour, mostly for political homelessness. '

Parties who want to win over some floating voters should be engaging with, and listening to Mumsnet.

That massive drop in support for Labour? You could reverse that.

Ask me how.

Would love to know what site or media channel is a “representative microcosm of the UK”.

Maybe - just maybe - there isn't one.

It's more of a 'don't know' problem. Those of us who have thrown up our hands in horror at the lack of choices on offer are saying so. Who to vote for? I haven't a clue. I think 'none of the above' covers it.

It doesn't have to be a “representative microcosm of the UK” for a someone who knows the site well to be able to recognize shifts in opinions over time.

There isn't one.

I think the value of MN as a barometer is that (a) it's got a huge user base and (b) once you consider it leans a bit to the left of the electorate, you can adjust for that and look at the trend.

I have theories about why MN has historically been Labour friendly. Women and especially mothers are more risk averse than men; they're more likely to cling on to the status quo rather than wanting to burn it to the ground. Look at the proportion of FWR posters who use "populism" as a swear word and are really worried about undermining trust in institutions.

But then imagine that the institutions don't work for us. Imagine that they might even be hostile to us. How many here put their trust in the BBC or the Guardian or Stonewall or the unions or the Labour Party? How did that work out for you?

And then the collapse in support for Labour doesn't look surprising.

Thanks for the link, I really enjoyed the article. But then, I like Mary Harrington's work (though I think she overdid the ham/gammon metaphors).
It's refreshing to read a non-sneery article about MN (unlike the Independent one).

Yes. Also look at all the Labour activists who worked very hard on here in the run up to the election telling us how awful we all were and insisting Labour would sort everything.

They were lying. People fell for it to the extent Labour won a landslide. So, short term win.

Once someone realises they've been duped, though, you're going to have to work twice as hard to 1. acknowledge your failure and 2. win them back again.

Look at Wes Streeting as a good example. He was revealed as a bastard when he signed up to that anti-women list. Then he did pretty good work apologising and making reparation by listening to women and standing up for/with them. Now he's trying to play both sides again.

(When I say 'both sides', I mean 1. gender critical feminists and 2. Labour party activists/lobbyists who cleave to TWAW for whatever reason. General TRAs are actually irrelevant, and merely present a tedious if fairly unhinged physical threat, as revealed by Bashback's recent escalations.)

So, longterm, Labour are going to have to work a lot harder to 1. listen and 2. take genuine steps to win women back.

Bridget Philipson is not it. Streeting is on a shoogly peg.

Where is?

I have never ever voted anything but Labour
Reform next time for me
I am sick of working to pay tax for people who come here with no job skills - who have a poor grasp of the language - who come with no money but expect to be given housing and food - or come here illegally
We own our own business and employ people from India and Europe but they are skilled people who speak English
Labour have increased corp tax and NI which has resulted in a mass of redundancies _ we have reduced our staff count by 30%)

The other valuable thing I think Mary picks up on is the class element, and the desire not to be seen as gammon adjacent.

You don't need to be a Marxist to know that someone's view of a policy proposal might differ according to one's material circumstances. For instance, legalisation of all drugs (hello Green Party) might sound great if you're a BBC producer who enjoys a line of coke or two at the weekend, but probably doesn't sound so great if you live on an estate full of smackheads.

Or, high levels of immigration can be great if you live in a nice area where it mostly means interesting new restaurants, but there are many more people living in not-nice areas that are bearing the brunt of the Boriswave.

One of the biggest news stories in America right now is the massive fraud scandal in Minnesota linked to elements of the Somali community, who have looted the taxpayer to the tune of multiple billions of dollars. This has been known about for several years, but the media didn't care to investigate it, even when Minnesota governor Tim Walz was Kamala Harris's running mate.

Democrat aligned media didn't want to touch the story, partly because of the fear of being accused of racism, partly because Democrat politicians are up to their necks in it. A left-wing blog in Minnesota broke the story and was ignored. Conservative journalists dug and were ignored. A young Mormon guy with a video camera went viral on X with an exposure of the fraud, and CNN attacked him rather than investigate the story. The local papers in Minneapolis still refuse to even mention the story.

There's an obvious parallel with a UK story.

Again, the centre left seem to see this as a comms problem that can be sorted by better narrative management rather than addressing the actual problem.

No argument there. Why does MN have to be in order for it to be interesting that polling is showing a change?

It’s not anyway because it’s backed Labour since 2009 in that poll even when they were in opposition and now the number for Reform is lower than polling generally. Even though it’s overtaken Labour.

The pp probably didn’t mean that, but it shows that mn is more Labour than anything even with the switch.

The main problem, I believe, we have raised successive generations who believe it really is all about them. Couple that with almost complete ignorance of how any politics works (let alone the UKs) and you get an electorate who simply doesn't do compromise. Instead they believe (wrongly) that there has to be a political party just for them and if there isn't they whine incessantly. Probably because it's a lot easier than actually doing something about it.

(I guess I want to be a paperback writer 😀)

The main problem, I believe, we have raised successive generations who believe it really is all about them. Couple that with almost complete ignorance of how any politics works (let alone the UKs) and you get an electorate who simply doesn't do compromise. Instead they believe (wrongly) that there has to be a political party just for them and if there isn't they whine incessantly.
I think that depends on the way you see 'compromise'. I'm an older voter, and I'm very aware that politics isn't 'all about me', but I will not vote for a party (Labour) that treats my concerns with contempt.
From your post, it seems that I should put aside my concerns for the sake of the Common Good (as Labour supporters were telling us pre-election) but I can't, and won't.

Plus the same posters were doing the same about the last lot so really it’s just stop because their party is in.

The main problem, I believe, we have raised successive generations who believe it really is all about them. Couple that with almost complete ignorance of how any politics works (let alone the UKs) and you get an electorate who simply doesn't do compromise. Instead they believe (wrongly) that there has to be a political party just for them and if there isn't they whine incessantly. Probably because it's a lot easier than actually doing something about it.

I know about compromise, but I won't vote for a party which has such contempt for women and women's rights. That Phillipson is sitting on the EHRC advice and also calling it 'anti-Trans' sticks in my craw. We are half the electorate and they - even the women - don't give a flying fuck for our safety, dignity and privacy.
Unfortunately the other parties are just as bad.

No, it's not the electorate's fault that feel no politicians adequately represent them, their interests, and their views.

Insulting the general public, holding them in contempt, and characterising them as 'ignorant' and 'whining' when they express dissatisfaction is exactly the type of arrogant stance that offers easy options to people like Farage.

This is the point Dom Cummings was making in his recent appearance on the Spectator podcast. I don't always agree with Chairman Dom, but he was on the nail.

The Democrats should have responded to Trump's election wins by saying, we need better candidates and more appealing policies. Our next campaign should be more about kitchen table issues and less about Hillary partying with celebrities. But nooooo, they doubled down on their mistakes, they just said, we should have imprisoned Trump, we should have blocked Elon from buying X, we should have pressured big tech into doing more censorship, we should have had more of the woke identity politics that even our own voters hate.

Ten years later we're seeing a handful of ambitious Democrats cautiously suggest that maybe it might be a good idea to talk about kitchen table issues.

It's a similar thing in Britain, and I'm not going to get into whether Brexit was a good or bad idea, but the political class promised us a referendum, and promised to abide by the result, and when they didn't get the result they wanted, spent the next several years behaving like a toddler refusing to put his wellies on.

There were a handful of Labour MPs in Red Wall seats - Stephen Kinnock, Caroline Flint, Gloria De Piero - who said, we voted Remain, we don't like the result, but the people have spoken and we have to accept that. Labour could have listened to them but preferred not to. A similar dynamic was behind Leanne Wood's marginalisation in Plaid.

There is a trend, as Cummings points out, of West European governments dusting off the box of tricks they used to stage colour revolutions in Eastern Europe and using them to prevent populists coming to power at home.

This idea that the electorate is deficient and the political class needs to save us from our own bad decisions - that's not a fringe view, it's very common among regime mouthpieces like Rory Stewart and James O'Brien and Lewis Goodall. It's the same kind of thinking that gives us MPs like Alex Sobel saying he doesn't want terfs voting for him.

I think this is a very dangerous trend. You may not like Nigel Farage but he's a safety valve. The more the centrist political class continue on their authoritarian turn, the more likely we'll end up with something much uglier.

Agree. It was the democrats moving so far away from normal people's opinions and morals on things like child safeguarding and women's rights which lead to Trump getting in. Most people really aren't pro- males in girls sports or child sterilisation.

Whatever you think of Trump he is sufficiently in touch with normal people to pick up on the clue that thinking adult men should compete against girls and enter their changing rooms is going to be a vote loser. And he was right and he capitalised on that. The 'Kamala is for they/them, Trump is for you' was genius and summed it up nicely.

This.

Mandelson was banging on in the Blair era about their fantasy of the 'post democratic era' where there would be no elections allowed and he and the other superiors would do to the electorate what was good for them.

This is why we will end up with Reform. The absolute arrogance of these people... .and they are dishonest, disorganised and not even basically compentent, they are in no position to be handed unlimited power with no ability to get rid of them.

@SionnachRuadh
Really agree strongly with your post.
Just want to add another example of the immense distance between the electorate and the politicians.
Jo Swinson. Brexit referendum result is causing chaos among the politicians across all parties. It ends up causing a general election. Jo Swinson leader of the third place party the Lib Dems thinks she's going to win. During campaigning she's saying that she would consider Lib Dems winning a mandate to ignore the result of the referdum. Didn't even keep her own seat, let alone win the general election. Party leaders always have a huge advantage in their own consituency because of the prestige of having a major party leader as your MP. The level of disconnect was incredible. Thought her party was going to win and block Brexit, thrown out of her own constituency. Some of these politicians are completely out of touch.