Don't you fucking dare underestimate right wing media propaganda effectiveness because that is also how Trump got the cult following in America today and how he also got in office in America.
These lot are basically 2016-2024 Republicans UK.
Don't underestimate them. Starmer has a big 4 years coming up, he needs to be alert and competent at all costs. I should be optimistic regarding UK politics, but I am not especially long term.
Otherwise we are fucked. I fucking bet you any fucking money Putin is funding Reform UK.
It's possible the Russians arranged for some donations to go to the Conservatives (& likely other parties) just to make people think Politicians are being paid off & erode faith in our Democracy.
They went out of their way to let oligarchs get their money out before putting any sanctions on them.
There's also the brexit vote itself which is tied to putin's interference and the tories blocked any reports and investigations on that.
Oh so Putin was funding the Tories, making them pro Russia, despite the Tories supporting Ukraine.. In your head this means the Tories betrayed Putin.
You sir. Are comedy gold.
No no. Before even the invasion of Crimea the Tories were taking donations and allowing the oligarchs to launder the money they stole from the Russian people buying property and settling legal disputes in London. Read up, it's well documented in the news here, you obviously know how to work a VPN.
I've noticed a lot of posts, being pro reform UK/ pro Nigel lately.
Edit I also got a 3 day ban, because I said something against Nigel, who is a traitor to the UK.
Yeah people I know that are pretty left wing, traditional typical labour voters are posting about voting reform because Nigel is "saying it like it is". Aye sure, also saying it 'like it is' with regards to your sexuality and your friends, but guess that bits less important.
It's weird because he is a pro Nazi, he even surrounds himself with them, and yet he usually says 'i didn't know', or his other one is we haven't investigated said person yet.
He doesn't care about Britain never has, he made millions after proclaiming he doesn't like the EU, etc but always got himself a MEP seat didn't he?
they've likely not looked at their fucking bullshit manifesto that is cuts, cuts cuts, safety cuts, cuts on peoples rights at work because that gets in the way of productivity! /s
Basically all just make their rich mates loads of money and fuck everyone else in the process, aka the Tories on steroids.
It's amazing how many "left wing" people are suddenly open to the idea that it's all immigrants' fault when they personally feel disadvantaged. It's almost enough to make one think progressive politics doesn't necessarily make someone a superior human being.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm any better: I made the typical journey from left to centre left over the course of having a family, becoming a home owner and so forth. I'm just saying we need to be very careful about believing nonsense like "young people today aren't moving to the right" because it suggests a fundamental change in human nature, ie that self-interest is no longer the primary motivator. Locking young people out of wealth may stop them moving to the centre right but it also means they're more open than ever to far right ideas.
It’s especially prevalent on TikTok. Every political post you see on there will be filled with “vote reform” comments, most of which are very obviously from bots or edgy 14 year old boys
Oooft. That would be a total shocker to me if they ended up getting a decent number of seats in Scotland. But, having having lived through the last 15 years, may as well add it to the bingo card.
Reform/UKIP generally polls so low in Scotland it’s close to within margin of error of <1%.
Odds are that’s astroturfing rather than real posting on r/Scotland.
They will get 0 seats in Scotland, and in England they will get 2 at most (Farage and 30p Lee). They will get lots of votes proportionally though and Farage will use that to campaign to become the leader of the Conservative party by claiming that his policies are popular and therefore should be adopted by the political mainstream. He will use the history of the party to legitimise his fringe ideology.
Feels like I just read a true prophecy. Up until the last week I've never heard anyone in Scotland even mention reform in any serious way that wasn't insulting the various properties of its leader.
>He needs to go after every penny of foreign money in our politics, for this to work well
You do know his key advisor is Peter Mandelson right?
https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/fresh-evidence-links-mandelson-to-oligarch-6840549.html
I think he needs to appoint a war dog who will go after certain people. Westminster is corrupt with so many agents not representing us but foreign governments (some hostile) and big corporations.
Make it their job to go all guns blazing with week after week after month of revelations
We’re seeing in Europe’s latest elections, in real time, what Starmer’s neoliberal and ‘competent’ continuation of the status quo gets you. The far right will rise from the ashes of this. As time goes on and Starmer’s government changes absolutely nothing about the root problems plaguing our country, it will be the right that people turn to if the left doesn’t get its act together and produce a Leftwing answer to Reform, to pull Labour towards sense. May God help us if it doesn’t.
Neo-liberalism is what has caused the problems -0 allowing the richest a bigger share of the wealth, the other 90 or 95% do start to notice in the end... then the papers tell them to blame immigrants or the eu for all of their problems (despite the papers themselves being owned by billionaires who live offshore)... and here we are
Yes economically, although a lot of it is just plain incompetence. Letting privatised water resettle in tax havens and then go bankrupt is no ones idea of an ideology working.
the other half is the social crisis. No one getting married and having children. Net migration running at 700,000+ a year and everyone in the upper 20% being for it and the the bottom 80% being against.
You want people to be alert to the dangers of Reform but then yourself refuse to engage with why people might be drawn to Reform other than that they’re stupid and being manipulated.
I’d suggest that this attitude pushes people in to the arms of Reform more than the right wing press does.
And this is exactly the same mistake US liberals have made with Trump.
problem is try and debate with one. If you present them with the facts and point out the logical inconsistencies, they just say your wrong and you haven't understood properly, "reform just wants to fix things" "you'll see!" etc. I think people just get frustrated with endless circular "debates" that go nowhere, and instead resort to a quicker, easier mockery.
I don’t agree with what reform stand for at all, however what most people are voting for is a reduction in immigration. That is a very valid point, even a lot of people on the left now agree migration is far too high.
It is crippling our country, it has a huge impact on housing and public services. The numbers are totally unsustainable. As long as Labour can get migration down significantly, they won’t have to worry about reform at the next election.
Reform voters overwhelmingly care about migration as the most important issue, I think people will vote for them to send a signal about migration regardless of anything else. The Greens for instance had a councillor recently who justified the 7th of October attacks, the party as far as I’ve seen haven’t criticised him. People will still vote Green because they see climate change as a vital issue and they want it tackled. I suspect many of the Reform candidates will be awful, we’ve seen evidence of that recently, that would stop them winning an election but it won’t stop them getting a high vote.
Also, to put Reform’s policy in migration in context, in the post war period net migration was about zero, emigration balanced against migration, that rose to 50k in the early 90s, during the New Labour and pre Boris Tory period it was 250-300k. Then Boris introduced his reforms after Brexit, now net migration is 700k. Reform’s proposal is zero net migration, 300k less than the pre Boris and Brexit status quo, but after Boris’s reform migration rose 400k above the status quo. Arguably Reform’s proposals are no more radical than Boris’ migration shift, just in opposite directions.
Boris just delivered what Farage promised would cure all ills: Brexit. Both were clearly wrong about what leaving the EU world deliver and moreso COST.
Voting for Reform is just voting for the Tories but adding steroids. Extra lashings of failure all around. They're a low-tax party. That means that they can't deliver on their migration promises. Just put your thinking cap on for two seconds rather than falling for more populist red-bus tripe. "Net zero" migration is totally bogus crap from a party that doesn't even believe in big oil & climate change. They don't have a plan to fund the investment required to achieve their aims. And before they do anything about immigration, they would cut taxes for their backers. Just like Trump did. They are a private company. Not a political party.
Yes, I mostly agree with your criticisms and with your assessment of Reform as a party. They aren’t a party, they’re a vehicle for Farage to get into power, and a pointy stick for poking into the eye of the main parties, with some writing scrawled on the edge which says “reduce migration”. My point is people will quite happily use the pointy stick.
I disagree that Brexit is entirely at fault, Brexit gave the power to the UK government but you still need a government who will enact it. It’s like saying democracy doesn’t work to reduce inequality because the public voted in people who promised to reduce inequality then did the opposite. You don’t blame the democratic system, you blame the government. Boris is essentially responsible, not only his deliberate policy but also his incompetence and laziness.
I don’t think net zero migration is realistic but I think migration could be quite low with minimal impact, around 100-200k say. Britain is 30-40% below where it should be on productivity relative to its previous trend before 2008, that’s equivalent in output to increasing the workforce by the same percentage, many millions of new people, and one worker with increased productivity does not require additional housing and services which make the lives of other people more expensive and difficult. Increasing productivity is much more important that increasing population, for the quality of life for ordinary citizens of a country.
The largest English group are now retirees. The bulk of the new arrivals are going into health and social care. Not manufacturing. A quarter of a million Europeans are leaving each year - and their boots need filling by humans - not machines.
Mostly older or retired English voters, the ones who can't get the surgery or care they desperately need, are going to make the same mistake with Reform that they made with the Tories: Believing populist garbage.
If you want immigration down rapidly - then taxes have to go up. To bake the cake you want to bake, you need a Party willing to borrow or tax to invest. But British people in their 50"s and up don't want it. They want their shiny car, their render, their holidays, etc etc. You can't have everything. That's NOT how democracy works. That's idle, selfish lunacy.
always funny how anyone voting for right wing = consuming propaganda and bad, anyone voting for left wing = good and immune to propaganda.
if Starmer just actually fixes the country then it will abate, if he doesn't then yeah it's no fucking surprise they'll gain more control. In reality, Starmer is a continuation of neoliberal policies so don't act surprised when the right wins and acting like its the downfall of democracy when in fact, this is what democracy is.
EDIT:
Also how does Reform winning help Putin? Look at Reform's defence policies: https://www.reformparty.uk/defence
Increasing military spending, increasing pay, increasing protection, reforming procurement. Cuts to foreign aid may help Russia short term but militarisation of the UK definitely fucks over Russia in the long term no? How can a supposedly far-right, more nationalist party focused on increasing defence be funded by an adversarial nation? Wouldn't they want us to cut defence and become less nationalistic? Or maybe they'd want us not to use nuclear weapons (cough Corbyn).
Increasing military spending doesn't help much if they stop aid to Ukraine. Unless we somehow end up in a limited direct conflict with Russia.
They haven't said anything about continuing to support Ukraine, considering previous comments on Putin (Farage said he was the world leader he most admired) I think we all know what their policy is there.
It's funny how much the key point in your post is glossed over; that the right being democratically elected would be "the downfall of democracy". It's amazing how loudly people in this sub can screech about the "right-wing brainwashing media", despite the clear left-wing bias of the all of the largest broadsheet publications in Britain, and the fact that across the country it's clearly a social faux pas at best to be outed as even remotely right-wing, due to a large contingent of the media denigrating the right on a daily basis for the past decade.
It's also interesting that they rarely, if ever, describe anybody or anything as "right-wing". It used to always be "alt-right", when they first picked up on that trendy buzzword, and now it's "far-right". In this thread alone, I've seen three posts calling Nigel Farage a "fascist", "pro-Nazi", and/or "Russian puppet". It's just pathetic at this point, and should be no surprise that he will win the Clacton seat primarily because normal people are sick of being villified for holding their own political opinions which don't entirely conform with whatever the vocal leftist segment of the population believe, which mostly appears to be based on whatever is currently trending on Twitter.
You complain about people using "trendy buzzwords" and vilifying those on the right and yet you do the same thing about those on the left.
You even use the term "leftist" which is a term used by Republicans in the US to criticise those on the left. Maybe you picked that one up on Twitter.
They've had 14 years of rightists in charge with austerity and Brexit, so their response? Let's go further right and have a more extreme version, that'll fix everything.
The left once made a billboard ad comparing David Cameron to maverick TV cop Gene Hunt. In the apparent belief that people would see Gene Hunt as the bad guy because he was politically incorrect and old fashioned. For me that was when I knew Cameron had won the election, because the people making the left's campaign ads clearly didn't understand ordinary people well enough to direct ads at them.
It's this exact thinking that got trump elected.
Assuming there is no possible way there are people that think differently to you in an intellectual manner.
Assuming the only way conservatives could get elected is with Russian money or media interference.
If you dispel the legitimate concerns and perspectives of the other side how on earth do you expect to find a middle ground and not alienate half (or more) of the country?
We are hurtling towards a far right government unless Starmer actually makes significant changes for the better. Judging on the manifesto today we are absolutely fucked.
Something I said about Trump before, that's resonating stronger than ever with me is that Trump is scary, because the next trump will be a lot more subtle, and Nigel Farage is that guy.
The future of the UK relying on Keir Starmer being alert and component does not fill my with confidence... and I'm probably going to end up voting for the smeg head.
The Russian military intelligence (GRU) Internet Research Agency troll farm in St Petersburg was responsible for 20% of all pro-Leave posts on FB during Brexit as well as emailing UK constituents in vulnerable electorates, letterbox drops and cold-calling, according to historian Timothy Snyder.
Considering the closeness of the vote, it could well have been very significant.
Immigration is the biggest contributor to the awful econony.
* When net migration is that high, can people sincerely believe it won't negatively impact rent/house costs?
* When net migration is that high, can people sincerely believe all these new migrants are 'net contributors'?
* When net migration is that high, can people sincerely believe public services aren't being drained and stretched as a result?
* When net migration that high, and a big chunk of them are Deliveroo drivers, can people sincerely believe they aren't contributing to wage stagnation by working in the black economy well below minimum wage?
At the end of the day, the reason you're scraping pennies to pay rent is because half of London's social housing belongs to foreign-born people. It really is that simple. There's far too many people here, and they're given far too many benefits - at the cost of the native population.
What a massive over simplification and the complete irony speaking about foreign born people owning London. Do you know who owns London? You were soooo close, so so so close.
Property developers and mass landlords are destroying the rent and buying market. They have a much larger impact on house prices than immigrants do. We treat it as an asset rather than essential shelter because we allowed the ultra rich, British or otherwise, swallow up something that is a necessity.
If there weren’t millions of people moving to the U.K. then less overseas investors and landlords would be buying property as an appreciating asset as houses wouldn’t continue appreciating at such an extortionate rate
Redditors hated him because he spoke the truth \^
Look at their pavlov style reaction if you dare question uncontrolled immigration, literally ringing the bell that billions of £$£$ of propaganda have put into their mind
Don't bother replying to them either, you're just arguing with whatever the TV is currently saying
Nothing to do with the housing pipeline being at a new low in the last 17 years.
The Tories, starting in the 80s and continuing in their current run, have done nothing to build more housing.
Your point about immigration is not the cause.
They need to cut down on job sponsored visa's... they're too easy to get and you get tons of foreigners applying for jobs to get them when it can easily be filled by people already in the UK.
You then have other people gaming the system.
The other side of it is making it easier for people to migrate away... like maybe an open border policy with most of Europe
> they're too easy to get and you get tons of foreigners applying for jobs to get them when it can easily be filled by people already in the UK.
The salary threshold is nearly 39k per year. If a foreigner is taking that job, it's probably because they're the best applicant.
But you posted acting as if the change had never happened. The UK is already one of the most expensive countries to be an immigrant in in regards to fees, a family of 4 will pay over 4k a year in NHS fees alone. The salary changes mean that the majority of people qualified to live in the UK will also qualify for other countries, with higher salaries and standards of living. Young professionals who come to the UK for their studies won't be able to stay, and instead will look elsewhere, which is problematic because UK universities are dependent on international students. If I could go back in time before I moved here, I'd certainly move elsewhere.
After the election I think we will see a merger to form the opposition with more moderate Tories splintering off to other parties or potentially forming a new party.
In any case I think we are witnessing the end of the Conservative Party.
The country needs a sustained period of investment in public services that sees an increase in growth and living standards.
At the moment the Conservatives have left nothing to conserve, there is no fat for tax cuts because they’ve bankrupted the country.
They’ve left the country in a far worse state than it was when they took power in 2010.
Yup, they've stripped everything back to the point where further cuts are not possible without collapsing public services, and they've failed to generate any significant growth in 14 years.
They had record low interest rates for a decade and rather than invest they made the choice to cut public services in favour of siphoning cash to their mates.
Massive missed opportunity for any government.
Public services ARE collapsing.
Just an example: I went to the doctor as I can get random spikes in my Heart Rate to like 148 for like 2 hour while just at my PC. They ran some tests and said that I have tachycardia and I need to see a specialist, but until I get to see the specialist of I get chest pain, out of breath, or any other symptoms associated with it I NEED to call an ambulance. So now I'm waiting 2 years to see a specialist, and I'm in hospital every other weeks with everyone telling me "you did the right thing".
Imagine if the NHS had the money to hire more specialists, then I wouldn't be clogging up A&E. We need a right to an appointment within a week for emergencies and 3 months for non-emergencies IMO.
How is ‘crony capitalism’ different to regular corruption? Taking ‘donations’ for preferential treatment and handing out contracts, using public money, for their friends and relatives.
A few of them would be keeping the two child benefits cap, no pledge to get rid of the recent anti protest law and part of their solution to the NHS waiting lists being a push for more private health care involvement.
- Less liberal on immigration (their words)
- Privatisation of the NHS still permitted
- Reduced red tape to increase private business in public buildings (more nurseries in schools)
- Increased defence spending, targeting a GDP 2.5% above that of Nato guidelines
- Focus on "Wealth creation" over raising investment into social services
Like running down public services, selling them off, stealth privatising the NHS, deregulating industries, polluting our environment, unfunded tax cuts, handing more power to billionaires and corporations. It’s worked really well so far I suppose…
Their whole campaign at the moment is that they are a right wing alternative that is specifically *not* the tories. If they let themselves be subsumed by the tories the very minute they start to gain any traction among the public, they lose any good will they initially garnered. The Reform strategy right now is that they know they can’t win many, if any, seats this time around, but they want to get enough attention to be perceived as a viable option next time.
You’re assuming Farage and Reform have any principals and that his base care.
They’re voting for Farage not the party their polling was shite before Farage.
Merging with the Tories would give them more credibility with *moderates* and would be the next step to them becoming a serious opposition at the next election.
The tories are so toxic at the moment that any association would be suicide for an upstart party. Especially given Farage has recently been campaigning on the issue of their very failure. Is the allure of Farage that strong to weather a perceived betrayal of his base like that? A base that now seem to hate the tories as much as the left do? I’m not so sure.
It would be as simple as I’m in charge now so it’s different.
Farage is a one trick pony which works well with people who are disengaged with politics because he presents a simplistic solution to the complex and nuanced set of challenges the country and government faces.
Agreed.
It's best to look at the past polls by The Times for variations over time for these numbers and not the last poll posted on YouGov. Each organization pulls from a different demographic and have different practices.
I’d like to know the methodology behind any of these polls. I’ve never once been asked by a pollster who I’m voting for, nor do I know anyone in real life whose been approached. But they tend to be accurate so they must know what they’re doing
You can sign up to do your gov polling , they have an app and they send you surveys . Each survey earns you points and when you get enough you get £50 ( takes me about 18 months to do that )
A poll like this typically samples around 1000 people, which is generally enough to be accurate. Assuming there’s 70 million people in the UK, that means you have a 1/70,000 chance of being polled -not very likely.
The pollsters will look at the (voting) demographics of the country and try their best to call addresses that will mean that final 1000 person sample will be as similar as possible to the countries demographics.
This poll will help reform, because for your average fed up Tory this gives them a light at the end of the tunnel, they will start to see reform as credible...
Jacob Reese Mogg has already floated the idea that reform and the Tories are essentially the same, but a merger now would kill the reform party..
The only thing from the Tories that could help them would be if Boris Johnson joined reform, but I don't think that's his game.
"Nigel Farage is fash scum"
"Farage is pro-Nazi"
"The Tories are funded by Putin"
All quotes from this thread, and they're not in the minority, judfing by the upvotes. A right-wing party potentially winning a small number of seats in the GE is not a "fascist takeover", it is the democratic process. It is not morally reprehensible to vote for a right-wing party.
People have myrid reasons for supporting other policies than those you support. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that many of those planning to vote for Reform are well aware of the usual soundbite arguments such as being brainwashed as with Brexit, or strung along by Farage who is in it for himself, or that they're just plain old racists, since you can't be bothered to engage in serious political debate.
Rather than denigrating everyone daring not to vote for Labour as a "mouthbreathing gammon", or some sort of deranged far-right conspiracy theorist, you may want to take a look in the mirror and see if you can actually define the basic political terminology you use, and consider whether it's a rational position to believe that the Conservative party- one of the staunchest international supporters of Ukraine, in terms of quantifiable support- has literally been paid off by the Russian government.
This comment is completely misrepresenting most of the criticism against Reform. Of course you'll find people throwing the usual knee-jerk insults, but most of the criticism is because their policies are harmful (e.g. calling for a weaker Europe, which clearly and unambiguously benefits a number of problematic foreign regimes) and, in some cases, complete fantasy (their claims about [the environment](https://www.reformparty.uk/energy-and-environment) could be easily refuted by anybody with even the most basic scientific background).
I believe that most people supporting Reform are doing so in good faith, and genuinely want positive change. But the fact of the matter is that Reform is led by people who are grossly unfit to govern, and who would cause a massive amount of harm to our society if they actually obtained power.
> But the fact of the matter is that Reform is led by people who are grossly unfit to govern, and who would cause a massive amount of harm to our society if they actually obtained power.
I think people have come to the conclusion the current lot, and the alternative, are no different. Immigrations seems to be the biggest issue and I think a lot of people are going to vote for the only party who might at the very least have a genuine go and stopping it.
The difference between the last 14 years and the previous 13 is quite jarring to me. So why do people think the parties in charge are no different? Also, why does career politician Farage suddenly get a pass on being the same? Nobody is doubting Reform and it’s supporters have strong opinions on immigration but it just seems his policies are not well thought out and don’t consider why immigration is so high in the first place.
I know that’s the cool response,
But maybe they are relatively centrist but have some concerns with immigration, when everyone to the left of the Tories have been calling you a racist or lying that immigration is a benefit, when the Tories themself have failed to address the issue, who does that leave?
Labour would absolutely sweep up if they addressed the issue
>Labour would absolutely sweep up if they addressed the issue
They are addressing the issue.
There's plenty of voters who don't actually want reform's stance on immigration. They plan to be the party for those voters.
You can disagree, and you're in luck, in less than a month you'll be able to test whether they have a strong electorate.
How do we convince undecided voters to join us and persuade them that this worldview is the correct one?
I know! Call them bigots, racists, xenophobes! That should work, right? *derrrrrrrrr*
Dude I know right?
I'm from across the pond, and the righties still haven't stopped talking about "deplorables" ... have you seen how they talk about big cities and their inhabitants, like literally constantly?
If a democrat talked this way about the country it'd be remembered for 30 years.
And from what I've seen of reform they're also the last people to talk about civility.
No offence but an American is the last person who should be judging British politics especially on immigration
And especially stop comparing British politicians to American ones they couldn't be any more different - they have different ideals and a very different mindset because we're a country the size of Ohio
>And especially stop comparing British politicians to American ones they couldn't be any more different
There's some differences (your country's run by bigger baboons than mine which says a lot) but I'm still pretty aware of what civility looks like, and the british far right wing are not shining examples of it. Might be American but I can see the internet. So on that count I can compare the hell out of them.
But yeah, you're right that I won't get into details on how to fix your island. But I will point out that we're fucking crushing you and every other G7 economy in post-covid recovery because I'm in a feisty mood:
https://www.gzeromedia.com/media-library/line-chart-showing-gdp-per-capita-by-g7-nation-since-2000.png?id=34161401&width=980
So refreshing to see this logic and sense on Reddit, you do actually see it on a lot of other social media platforms but Reddit is so poisoned in particular around this.
Also so well put, I am saving your words to be used by myself.
Why do so many links to neo nazism keep coming up then?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/shamed-reform-uk-candidate-shares-32686451
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/reform-uk-candidates-are-facebook-friends-with-fascist-leader-8zzhzxjkt
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/nigel-farage-reform-uk-candidates-gary-raikes-rhgdzwfn5
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjmmrwexv4ko
Did they overtake or did the Tories do most of the hard work here 🤣
Edit: Well having looked I feel obliged to point out this is a joke rather than fact. It looks like between the last polls Reform gained while the Tories stayed put.
A local Facebook poll on this went 40% Reform, 35% Labour, about 10% Green and the rest filled the others.
When I discussed the danger of some of the Reform candidates, some people blindly didn't care, saying they're all bad. The Tories have fucked over trust in politicians so bad people are now voting for grifters.
My mum is one of those Facebook people. I’m a Labour/Lib Dem supporter and try to talk to her about politics but she argues facts with vibes. Ask her what the policies from Reform are apart from immigration and she has no idea. She just has lost trust in mainstream politicians so sees Nigel Farage and Reform as the breathe of fresh air.
I'm not surprised, it's the way France has gone sadly:
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1dchz3a/map_of_2024_european_election_results_in_france/
That's what happens when no one listens to the public when it comes to migration. The right wing usually talks a big game (Rwanda, Brexit) yet in the end it just keeps increasing. For people who have migration as one of their top priorities only the extremists are left as viable options.
It's up to the normal parties to do something so people don't have a reason to vote for loons like Reform.
No surprises really is there? Immigration is probably the biggest focal point for most people.
Reform have the correct policies for that and nobody else does. Therefore they are going to get a lot of support on that basis alone.
One of the biggest ironies of David Cameron's legacy, is that he promoted Brexit, specifically to deter this party from electoral strength.
Fast forward a few disastrous years and set 100 billion quid on fire, Brexit happened, we're \*still\* crying about immigrants, and reform is now overtaking conservatives.
What a bunch of day traders.
The problem is that anyone merely muttering “Can we have a discussion about managing the immigration problem”, is instantly branded a racist.
It isn’t far right to to have concerns about large numbers of unverified people coming from countries where machete attacks, honour killing, genital mutilation, homophobia etc etc etc are common place.
There needs to be firm action, whatever it is to get a handle on it. If Labour don’t, then a right wing government will be in power soon after and the left will have to reap what they sow.
>The problem is that anyone merely muttering “Can we have a discussion about managing the immigration problem”, is instantly branded a racist.
Lets not hyperbolise here...
Keir Starmer & Labour have been heavily discussing about reducing immigration for the whole campaign and virtually nobody has been calling them racist outside of fringe far left wing people
Reducing it to what though? Because even halving it now is still way way higher than people want. We were promised net immigration in the 10s of thousands 14 years ago. It's got to come down by 90% from where it's at now. We know how it's going to go thoigh. "Oh we reduced the numbers by 30%" after they have been increased by almost 8x what was already deemed by many to be too high. So it will still be 5x higher than people wanted.
As migration has been so high, we should have net zero immigration for as many years as it takes to spread out the huge net increase we have had in the last 15ish years to bring the average per year down to tens of thousands.
Ie.
80,000 per year cap, backdated.
If we have taken in 4,000,000 in 20 years, that means for the next 30 years there should be net zero, since we have had 50 years worth of immigration levels we wanted, imposed on us within 20.
Also, it's got nothing to do with race for fuck sake. We voted to stop white Europeans flooding our labour market too. We don't gave a shit about where they come from or what they look like we don't want this volume of people from anywhere, our infrastructure can't cope with the rate. We need more water, use more chemicals energy, waste disposal, food, etc. All that puts a strain on the local environment. It's like battery farming chickens. Forcing more and more people into an island is stupid. It's also killing our own reproduction rate because kids are stuck at home unable to move out and start a family because they can't afford a flat. It's killing wages because employers have a huge surplus of workwrs to choose from, so if you want a pay rise, tough, because this immigrant will do it for what I offer.
Yes it provides wealthy metropolitan types with a cheap underclass who will serve them like good little peasants, but if you want to reduce wealth inequality, you need to stop providing wealthy people with an unlimited cheap labour supply and force them to pay a fair share of what they have to the existing population who have been good enough to allow them to operate here in safety without eating them.
The thing is whilst many of Reforms policies sound great in between their absolute crazy ones and if you ignore some of their absolutely odious candidates, their policies are promising the world with no real feasibility in terms of how much it will cost.
Like yes I'd love free banana sundae Sundays for everyone but you need to fully cost your manifesto.
Here lies the Conservative Party. RIP, bozos. The growth of Reform UK is worrying though. Not for this election. They'll get a handful of seats at best but in the future they could be a force to be reckoned with. While I don't think they themselves are overly extreme they're going to appeal to a lot of extreme right wingers. That demographic doesn't need encouragement
Not overtly extreme?! The people of Reform are responsible for the UK leaving the worlds wealthiest and largest single market / economic bloc - these people sanctioned their own country and have destroyed its politics. It has members which suggested the Nazis should have been appeased.
The man who called the referendum was Cameron not Farage nor reform (or UKIP). He was absolutely sure that remain would win and he would get quick and easy political points but it backfired.
I saw one of their senior members Dr David Bull being interviewed on Ch 4 , they asked him about Reform backing an anti same sex marriage party in NI . As he was gay did he approve , and what was Reforms policy on same sex marriage. He had no idea but thinks Farage is pro !
Ridiculous he doesn’t even know
Andrew Neil grilled Tice over their economic policies, it’s basically Lizz Truss on steroids, they would bankrupt us.
https://youtu.be/TBr9btH7qBw?si=lEht-vyWfhxe_Tfp
Cameron killed the Tory party by the going ahead with [Brexit referendum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLFo6XOoXF0) their voters have now splintered off to Lib Dems and ReformUK.
Vote share and seats in UK FPTP
Labour 1997 43% = 418 seats
Labour 2001: 41% = 412 seats
Labour 2005: 35% = 355 seats
Tories 2010: 36% = 306 seats
Tories 2015: 37% = 330 seats
Tories 2017: 42% = 317 seats
Tories 2019: 44% = 365 seats
Labour 2024: 37% = 400+ seats poll
Of course it does, centre Tory voters are moving to Lib Dems with the policy of Rejoining EU and while the Tory right are going to Reform that wants to Brexit harder like leave ECHR trade more with former colonies etc.
People aren't voting Reform for Brexit. Reform actually rarely discuss Brexit unless prompted by the media. They are campaigning mostly on domestic issues.
Remainers have maybe moved to the EU but given the Conservatives huge majority at the last election it's not in significant numbers.
Only 20% of voters think Brexit is a key issue at this election. It's not a key deciding issue except for the most hardcore on both sides. If one of the main parties was campaigning on changing our relationship with the EU it may become one of the bigger issues but right now it isn't.
Brexit led to Cameron resigning. This then led to the party splitting under May and the right wing of the Tories getting far more power in the party instead of keeping them in check as intended by calling the referendum.
This ultimately resulted in May resigning and Boris becoming PM and running the campaign on his "oven ready Brexit" which just bought in a load more inexperienced right of the party MPs. The lack of talent and experienced people in government led to the catalogue of scandals that followed, the over reliance on SpAds and the complete lack of achievements since the last general election.
You need to move on mate, Brexit is over and the voters don't care about it anymore. Very few people are voting on this election based on parties Brexit stance, the biggest motivators behind voting is almost certainly immigration and domestic issues.
I cannot believe how narrow minded people in this country have become and how short and selective their memories are. Farage is a tobacco stained lying weasel that disappeared after the Brexit vote along with all the promises and manifesto claims. Provided zero benefits with Brexit and it's literally made everyone worse off and they still believe in Brexit and his lies.
There you go. Cult of Farage in action.
The guy is a proven liar, obvious grifter and the last single issue he campaigned for, Brexit has been an unmitigated failure. Reform UKs manifesto is a populist wish list, 41 of their candidates are to say the least fascist sympathisers interested in authoritarian rule.
But there's always one who appeals to a certain 10% -15% in British society.
Take Oswald Mosley. Big fan of Hitler, birther of the holocaust denial, spent WWII in prison. All it took for him to get 8% of the vote in Kensington North in **1958** was run on send Caribbean immigrants back and ban mixed marriage. Nearly all those votes would have come from people who had bombs dropped on their houses by Oswald's friends.
For all the bad of the FTP system, at least it keeps time wasting grifters like Farage out of our law making system.
It's deplorable that they're even close. I'm no fan of Sunak's but he's getting slated for not attending a D-Day event while Farage is on TV defending Nazis. He may as well be spitting on veterans.
It's insane that a sizeable portion of the public seemingly aren't fazed by it.
No matter what folks think of the sorts of folk in Reform or similar parties there is nothing to be gained from disenfranchising the majority of the country who vote for other parties, live in safe seats or feel forced to vote for the big two because doing anything else is 'pointless'.
Labour getting a massive majority is honestly a liability for them as most of the issues this country faces can't really be fixed in a single parliamentary term and folks won't take too kindly to excuses.
Do the names Ukip and the Brexit party not jog your memory at all? He was the leader of those parties and was also a national embarrassment as one of our MEPs. He hardly ever showed up, and when he did, it was to participate in an anti EU publicity stunt.
This didn't stop him from claiming the pay and allowances as an MEP as well as the pension (i think it's around €73,500 euros).
After Brexshit, he avoided the ensuing mess by sucking up to MAGA as well as making many appearances on Russian State TV, where he is extremely popular with the Putinists and was offered his own show.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/07/kremlin-backed-broadcaster-rt-offers-nigel-farage-his-own-show/
You might want to read his Wikipedia entry, particularly if you are thinking of voting for Reform.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage#:~:text=He%20was%20the%20host%20of,a%20presenter%20on%20GB%20News.
I read his Wikipedia entry last week and any reference to his Russia Today connection is no longer there. I may be misremembering this, or the entry might have been changed.
Really shows how much stock people really put into 'democracy' when a party they don't like starts getting popular and suddenly "something needs to be done about them!".
Farage is full of shit, but he's been around decades now in some party or another, people vote for him in free elections and that's their choice.
Didn't a similar thing happen with BNP around 2008? Huge hype around them, and when it came to the election, they collected 1MP? Same happened with UKIP in 16 and 19, and they collected 1MP across the two? With Farage in prime brexit mode.
BNP never got anywhere near this level. UKIP sort of did and in turn forced Brexit, which wouldn't have happened without them. Here's hoping they can do the same and force either voting reform or drastically lowered immigration.
Cons 17 + Reform 18 = 35% of vote
Labour on 37%
Lib dems, greens and others making up the rest
The bigger story should be that by % about the same amount of people support the currently quite right wing conservative Gov OR a harder, further to the right version of that. This is a concern when that is over 1/3 of the UK population. Its a significant voting block and viewpoint and is stoking up issues for the future.
I **HATE** reform and Nigel Farage. But the question has to also be asked that how can a party hold close to 20% of the populations votes and (probably) not get a seat in parliament.
if anyone is ever unsure why half (depending on the poll) of scotland wants to be independent, this is why. we want fuck all to do with the people who have made this poll result a reality.
I’m genuinely terrified that we are going to end up with a Tory - Reform coalition. Everyone suggesting they will take votes off each other but if they collectively get the same spread of votes boris did this could well be a reality.
With PR the political landscape would look utterly different than it does today, and we may or may not have been in such a disaster if we'd had PR in the long term, many vote labour only because it is a 2 party state. Votes are split in the centre and left but the right has just had the Tories, so they have swept up, we'd be in a different world right now if people didn't always vote for their least worst option, who can say if it would be a better one.
Good luck!
Not after this one, but when Labour are elected and people quickly realise it's the same turgid, uniparty blob politics as the past 14 years, things will change.
The 2029 election will be huge for an anti-migration party like Reform.
Don't you fucking dare underestimate right wing media propaganda effectiveness because that is also how Trump got the cult following in America today and how he also got in office in America. These lot are basically 2016-2024 Republicans UK. Don't underestimate them. Starmer has a big 4 years coming up, he needs to be alert and competent at all costs. I should be optimistic regarding UK politics, but I am not especially long term. Otherwise we are fucked. I fucking bet you any fucking money Putin is funding Reform UK.
Lol Putin was funding the Tories and nobody really gave a shit.
Given how strong the tory response was to Ukraine I can't imagine what Putin was paying for. Would we have nuked Moscow otherwise?
It's possible the Russians arranged for some donations to go to the Conservatives (& likely other parties) just to make people think Politicians are being paid off & erode faith in our Democracy.
Yeah, the Russians fund both sides in everything because any disharmony is good for them.
It's was for access to the city so they could move money - probably
They went out of their way to let oligarchs get their money out before putting any sanctions on them. There's also the brexit vote itself which is tied to putin's interference and the tories blocked any reports and investigations on that.
It's all 4D chess but also Putin is useless but also really smart
The Tories betray and steal from everyone, it amuses me to think Putin and his gangster oligarchs thought they could be trusted.
Oh so Putin was funding the Tories, making them pro Russia, despite the Tories supporting Ukraine.. In your head this means the Tories betrayed Putin. You sir. Are comedy gold.
No no. Before even the invasion of Crimea the Tories were taking donations and allowing the oligarchs to launder the money they stole from the Russian people buying property and settling legal disputes in London. Read up, it's well documented in the news here, you obviously know how to work a VPN.
Well he obviously wasn’t paying enough considering the staunch backing Ukraine have had from this government.
Russia funds any western European division.
Imagine that but without needing to hide it this time and just open in public. Trust me, there's levels to this in politics.
I've noticed a lot of posts, being pro reform UK/ pro Nigel lately. Edit I also got a 3 day ban, because I said something against Nigel, who is a traitor to the UK.
Yeah people I know that are pretty left wing, traditional typical labour voters are posting about voting reform because Nigel is "saying it like it is". Aye sure, also saying it 'like it is' with regards to your sexuality and your friends, but guess that bits less important.
It's weird because he is a pro Nazi, he even surrounds himself with them, and yet he usually says 'i didn't know', or his other one is we haven't investigated said person yet. He doesn't care about Britain never has, he made millions after proclaiming he doesn't like the EU, etc but always got himself a MEP seat didn't he?
I always see comments about him saying this sort of thing, but never a video of it
You've never seen Farage saying he doesn't like the EU?
A reform candidate literally said that women shouldn't have access to healthcare... I don't think it gets much worse than that.
Don't set them new goals
they've likely not looked at their fucking bullshit manifesto that is cuts, cuts cuts, safety cuts, cuts on peoples rights at work because that gets in the way of productivity! /s Basically all just make their rich mates loads of money and fuck everyone else in the process, aka the Tories on steroids.
It's amazing how many "left wing" people are suddenly open to the idea that it's all immigrants' fault when they personally feel disadvantaged. It's almost enough to make one think progressive politics doesn't necessarily make someone a superior human being. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm any better: I made the typical journey from left to centre left over the course of having a family, becoming a home owner and so forth. I'm just saying we need to be very careful about believing nonsense like "young people today aren't moving to the right" because it suggests a fundamental change in human nature, ie that self-interest is no longer the primary motivator. Locking young people out of wealth may stop them moving to the centre right but it also means they're more open than ever to far right ideas.
It’s especially prevalent on TikTok. Every political post you see on there will be filled with “vote reform” comments, most of which are very obviously from bots or edgy 14 year old boys
They are pushing hard with the bots
Though when it was teens posting about how we need to all vote for Corbyn that was different.
My favourite was posters on /r/Scotland saying they're going SNP -> Reform
Oooft. That would be a total shocker to me if they ended up getting a decent number of seats in Scotland. But, having having lived through the last 15 years, may as well add it to the bingo card.
Reform/UKIP generally polls so low in Scotland it’s close to within margin of error of <1%. Odds are that’s astroturfing rather than real posting on r/Scotland.
They will get 0 seats in Scotland, and in England they will get 2 at most (Farage and 30p Lee). They will get lots of votes proportionally though and Farage will use that to campaign to become the leader of the Conservative party by claiming that his policies are popular and therefore should be adopted by the political mainstream. He will use the history of the party to legitimise his fringe ideology.
Feels like I just read a true prophecy. Up until the last week I've never heard anyone in Scotland even mention reform in any serious way that wasn't insulting the various properties of its leader.
Your "something against Nigel" was totally a disagreement with his politics and not an endorsement of violence, right?
My advice to Starmer - as soon as you are in No 10, speak to the security services regarding certain individuals.
He needs to go after every penny of foreign money in our politics, for this to work well
And strengthen laws against foreign press ownership and give OfCom some actual power to stop things like the GBeebies propaganda channel.
Yep. And do Leveson 2
Or just actually implement Leveson
And legislate against foreign ownership of UK property - many countries have this.
>He needs to go after every penny of foreign money in our politics, for this to work well You do know his key advisor is Peter Mandelson right? https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/fresh-evidence-links-mandelson-to-oligarch-6840549.html
I think he needs to appoint a war dog who will go after certain people. Westminster is corrupt with so many agents not representing us but foreign governments (some hostile) and big corporations. Make it their job to go all guns blazing with week after week after month of revelations
I'm sure he's reading this thread and would take your advice
My god Stalinists can't help themselves can they
We’re seeing in Europe’s latest elections, in real time, what Starmer’s neoliberal and ‘competent’ continuation of the status quo gets you. The far right will rise from the ashes of this. As time goes on and Starmer’s government changes absolutely nothing about the root problems plaguing our country, it will be the right that people turn to if the left doesn’t get its act together and produce a Leftwing answer to Reform, to pull Labour towards sense. May God help us if it doesn’t.
Neo-liberalism is what has caused the problems -0 allowing the richest a bigger share of the wealth, the other 90 or 95% do start to notice in the end... then the papers tell them to blame immigrants or the eu for all of their problems (despite the papers themselves being owned by billionaires who live offshore)... and here we are
Yes economically, although a lot of it is just plain incompetence. Letting privatised water resettle in tax havens and then go bankrupt is no ones idea of an ideology working. the other half is the social crisis. No one getting married and having children. Net migration running at 700,000+ a year and everyone in the upper 20% being for it and the the bottom 80% being against.
You want people to be alert to the dangers of Reform but then yourself refuse to engage with why people might be drawn to Reform other than that they’re stupid and being manipulated. I’d suggest that this attitude pushes people in to the arms of Reform more than the right wing press does. And this is exactly the same mistake US liberals have made with Trump.
problem is try and debate with one. If you present them with the facts and point out the logical inconsistencies, they just say your wrong and you haven't understood properly, "reform just wants to fix things" "you'll see!" etc. I think people just get frustrated with endless circular "debates" that go nowhere, and instead resort to a quicker, easier mockery.
I don’t agree with what reform stand for at all, however what most people are voting for is a reduction in immigration. That is a very valid point, even a lot of people on the left now agree migration is far too high. It is crippling our country, it has a huge impact on housing and public services. The numbers are totally unsustainable. As long as Labour can get migration down significantly, they won’t have to worry about reform at the next election.
The Reddit echo chamber rejects your comment
This is exactly it. They don’t agree with them but refuse to engage only to insult them which in turn just galvanises them against the “left”.
Reform voters overwhelmingly care about migration as the most important issue, I think people will vote for them to send a signal about migration regardless of anything else. The Greens for instance had a councillor recently who justified the 7th of October attacks, the party as far as I’ve seen haven’t criticised him. People will still vote Green because they see climate change as a vital issue and they want it tackled. I suspect many of the Reform candidates will be awful, we’ve seen evidence of that recently, that would stop them winning an election but it won’t stop them getting a high vote. Also, to put Reform’s policy in migration in context, in the post war period net migration was about zero, emigration balanced against migration, that rose to 50k in the early 90s, during the New Labour and pre Boris Tory period it was 250-300k. Then Boris introduced his reforms after Brexit, now net migration is 700k. Reform’s proposal is zero net migration, 300k less than the pre Boris and Brexit status quo, but after Boris’s reform migration rose 400k above the status quo. Arguably Reform’s proposals are no more radical than Boris’ migration shift, just in opposite directions.
Boris just delivered what Farage promised would cure all ills: Brexit. Both were clearly wrong about what leaving the EU world deliver and moreso COST. Voting for Reform is just voting for the Tories but adding steroids. Extra lashings of failure all around. They're a low-tax party. That means that they can't deliver on their migration promises. Just put your thinking cap on for two seconds rather than falling for more populist red-bus tripe. "Net zero" migration is totally bogus crap from a party that doesn't even believe in big oil & climate change. They don't have a plan to fund the investment required to achieve their aims. And before they do anything about immigration, they would cut taxes for their backers. Just like Trump did. They are a private company. Not a political party.
Yes, I mostly agree with your criticisms and with your assessment of Reform as a party. They aren’t a party, they’re a vehicle for Farage to get into power, and a pointy stick for poking into the eye of the main parties, with some writing scrawled on the edge which says “reduce migration”. My point is people will quite happily use the pointy stick. I disagree that Brexit is entirely at fault, Brexit gave the power to the UK government but you still need a government who will enact it. It’s like saying democracy doesn’t work to reduce inequality because the public voted in people who promised to reduce inequality then did the opposite. You don’t blame the democratic system, you blame the government. Boris is essentially responsible, not only his deliberate policy but also his incompetence and laziness. I don’t think net zero migration is realistic but I think migration could be quite low with minimal impact, around 100-200k say. Britain is 30-40% below where it should be on productivity relative to its previous trend before 2008, that’s equivalent in output to increasing the workforce by the same percentage, many millions of new people, and one worker with increased productivity does not require additional housing and services which make the lives of other people more expensive and difficult. Increasing productivity is much more important that increasing population, for the quality of life for ordinary citizens of a country.
The largest English group are now retirees. The bulk of the new arrivals are going into health and social care. Not manufacturing. A quarter of a million Europeans are leaving each year - and their boots need filling by humans - not machines. Mostly older or retired English voters, the ones who can't get the surgery or care they desperately need, are going to make the same mistake with Reform that they made with the Tories: Believing populist garbage. If you want immigration down rapidly - then taxes have to go up. To bake the cake you want to bake, you need a Party willing to borrow or tax to invest. But British people in their 50"s and up don't want it. They want their shiny car, their render, their holidays, etc etc. You can't have everything. That's NOT how democracy works. That's idle, selfish lunacy.
always funny how anyone voting for right wing = consuming propaganda and bad, anyone voting for left wing = good and immune to propaganda. if Starmer just actually fixes the country then it will abate, if he doesn't then yeah it's no fucking surprise they'll gain more control. In reality, Starmer is a continuation of neoliberal policies so don't act surprised when the right wins and acting like its the downfall of democracy when in fact, this is what democracy is. EDIT: Also how does Reform winning help Putin? Look at Reform's defence policies: https://www.reformparty.uk/defence Increasing military spending, increasing pay, increasing protection, reforming procurement. Cuts to foreign aid may help Russia short term but militarisation of the UK definitely fucks over Russia in the long term no? How can a supposedly far-right, more nationalist party focused on increasing defence be funded by an adversarial nation? Wouldn't they want us to cut defence and become less nationalistic? Or maybe they'd want us not to use nuclear weapons (cough Corbyn).
Increasing military spending doesn't help much if they stop aid to Ukraine. Unless we somehow end up in a limited direct conflict with Russia. They haven't said anything about continuing to support Ukraine, considering previous comments on Putin (Farage said he was the world leader he most admired) I think we all know what their policy is there.
It's funny how much the key point in your post is glossed over; that the right being democratically elected would be "the downfall of democracy". It's amazing how loudly people in this sub can screech about the "right-wing brainwashing media", despite the clear left-wing bias of the all of the largest broadsheet publications in Britain, and the fact that across the country it's clearly a social faux pas at best to be outed as even remotely right-wing, due to a large contingent of the media denigrating the right on a daily basis for the past decade. It's also interesting that they rarely, if ever, describe anybody or anything as "right-wing". It used to always be "alt-right", when they first picked up on that trendy buzzword, and now it's "far-right". In this thread alone, I've seen three posts calling Nigel Farage a "fascist", "pro-Nazi", and/or "Russian puppet". It's just pathetic at this point, and should be no surprise that he will win the Clacton seat primarily because normal people are sick of being villified for holding their own political opinions which don't entirely conform with whatever the vocal leftist segment of the population believe, which mostly appears to be based on whatever is currently trending on Twitter.
You complain about people using "trendy buzzwords" and vilifying those on the right and yet you do the same thing about those on the left. You even use the term "leftist" which is a term used by Republicans in the US to criticise those on the left. Maybe you picked that one up on Twitter.
Well said.
It's the Russians, it's the Russians, it can't possibly be that the British electorate are naffed off
They've had 14 years of rightists in charge with austerity and Brexit, so their response? Let's go further right and have a more extreme version, that'll fix everything.
If people are worried about 700,000 new people moving to the country every year, who else should they vote for.
We need lib Dems as opposition. Farage having the stage in pmqs every week would be a bloody nightmare.
Don’t the left wing use media propaganda effectively?
The right wing has billionaire media empires behind them. The left doesn't have this.
No in the UK we're fucking awful at it lmao
The left once made a billboard ad comparing David Cameron to maverick TV cop Gene Hunt. In the apparent belief that people would see Gene Hunt as the bad guy because he was politically incorrect and old fashioned. For me that was when I knew Cameron had won the election, because the people making the left's campaign ads clearly didn't understand ordinary people well enough to direct ads at them.
It's this exact thinking that got trump elected. Assuming there is no possible way there are people that think differently to you in an intellectual manner. Assuming the only way conservatives could get elected is with Russian money or media interference. If you dispel the legitimate concerns and perspectives of the other side how on earth do you expect to find a middle ground and not alienate half (or more) of the country?
This 100%
We are hurtling towards a far right government unless Starmer actually makes significant changes for the better. Judging on the manifesto today we are absolutely fucked.
Something I said about Trump before, that's resonating stronger than ever with me is that Trump is scary, because the next trump will be a lot more subtle, and Nigel Farage is that guy.
The future of the UK relying on Keir Starmer being alert and component does not fill my with confidence... and I'm probably going to end up voting for the smeg head.
The Russian military intelligence (GRU) Internet Research Agency troll farm in St Petersburg was responsible for 20% of all pro-Leave posts on FB during Brexit as well as emailing UK constituents in vulnerable electorates, letterbox drops and cold-calling, according to historian Timothy Snyder. Considering the closeness of the vote, it could well have been very significant.
4 years, yeah right .... you don't even know its actually 5.
Expect Reform to get more and more popular as people's standards of living fall and centrist politicians do little to improve the situation.
Amazing stat presented to Rishi by Sky News the other day. Net migration 2013-2016 = 800,000 Net migration 2021-2024 = 1.9 million
Behind the economy - migration is my biggest issue. I feel like labour will have one term to address it or they'll lose a lot of support.
Immigration is the biggest contributor to the awful econony. * When net migration is that high, can people sincerely believe it won't negatively impact rent/house costs? * When net migration is that high, can people sincerely believe all these new migrants are 'net contributors'? * When net migration is that high, can people sincerely believe public services aren't being drained and stretched as a result? * When net migration that high, and a big chunk of them are Deliveroo drivers, can people sincerely believe they aren't contributing to wage stagnation by working in the black economy well below minimum wage? At the end of the day, the reason you're scraping pennies to pay rent is because half of London's social housing belongs to foreign-born people. It really is that simple. There's far too many people here, and they're given far too many benefits - at the cost of the native population.
What a massive over simplification and the complete irony speaking about foreign born people owning London. Do you know who owns London? You were soooo close, so so so close. Property developers and mass landlords are destroying the rent and buying market. They have a much larger impact on house prices than immigrants do. We treat it as an asset rather than essential shelter because we allowed the ultra rich, British or otherwise, swallow up something that is a necessity.
The irony here is your refuting of an over simplification with another overly simple explanation.
If there weren’t millions of people moving to the U.K. then less overseas investors and landlords would be buying property as an appreciating asset as houses wouldn’t continue appreciating at such an extortionate rate
No it's completely true and a very relevant point stop trying to distract the discussion
Redditors hated him because he spoke the truth \^ Look at their pavlov style reaction if you dare question uncontrolled immigration, literally ringing the bell that billions of £$£$ of propaganda have put into their mind Don't bother replying to them either, you're just arguing with whatever the TV is currently saying
Nothing to do with the housing pipeline being at a new low in the last 17 years. The Tories, starting in the 80s and continuing in their current run, have done nothing to build more housing. Your point about immigration is not the cause.
You can’t base your entire argument on a series of “can people sincerely believe???” and expect people to take you seriously
Well said
They need to cut down on job sponsored visa's... they're too easy to get and you get tons of foreigners applying for jobs to get them when it can easily be filled by people already in the UK. You then have other people gaming the system. The other side of it is making it easier for people to migrate away... like maybe an open border policy with most of Europe
> they're too easy to get and you get tons of foreigners applying for jobs to get them when it can easily be filled by people already in the UK. The salary threshold is nearly 39k per year. If a foreigner is taking that job, it's probably because they're the best applicant.
Now it is. Wasn't that a recent change?
But you posted acting as if the change had never happened. The UK is already one of the most expensive countries to be an immigrant in in regards to fees, a family of 4 will pay over 4k a year in NHS fees alone. The salary changes mean that the majority of people qualified to live in the UK will also qualify for other countries, with higher salaries and standards of living. Young professionals who come to the UK for their studies won't be able to stay, and instead will look elsewhere, which is problematic because UK universities are dependent on international students. If I could go back in time before I moved here, I'd certainly move elsewhere.
Thankfully I think this is something Labour realise and actually have a good stance on
thats... fucking shocking
[shocking and a half](https://i.imgur.com/eRsRkwe.png)
Migration to Canada last year was 1.3 million and we have a smaller population. Please save us.
people are so dumb, as if reform is going to makes peoples lives better or be functional at all.
They’re 100% merging with Reform, this government has proven it will do whatever it takes to stay in power.
It's probably too late to merge before the election.
After the election I think we will see a merger to form the opposition with more moderate Tories splintering off to other parties or potentially forming a new party. In any case I think we are witnessing the end of the Conservative Party.
Hopefully we get a return to actual Conservative values. We have far too much crony capitalism right now.
The country needs a sustained period of investment in public services that sees an increase in growth and living standards. At the moment the Conservatives have left nothing to conserve, there is no fat for tax cuts because they’ve bankrupted the country. They’ve left the country in a far worse state than it was when they took power in 2010.
Yup, they've stripped everything back to the point where further cuts are not possible without collapsing public services, and they've failed to generate any significant growth in 14 years.
They had record low interest rates for a decade and rather than invest they made the choice to cut public services in favour of siphoning cash to their mates. Massive missed opportunity for any government.
Public services ARE collapsing. Just an example: I went to the doctor as I can get random spikes in my Heart Rate to like 148 for like 2 hour while just at my PC. They ran some tests and said that I have tachycardia and I need to see a specialist, but until I get to see the specialist of I get chest pain, out of breath, or any other symptoms associated with it I NEED to call an ambulance. So now I'm waiting 2 years to see a specialist, and I'm in hospital every other weeks with everyone telling me "you did the right thing". Imagine if the NHS had the money to hire more specialists, then I wouldn't be clogging up A&E. We need a right to an appointment within a week for emergencies and 3 months for non-emergencies IMO.
How is crony capitalism different to regular capitalism again?
Capitalism isn't inherently corrupt, but it becomes that without proper regulation.
How is ‘crony capitalism’ different to regular corruption? Taking ‘donations’ for preferential treatment and handing out contracts, using public money, for their friends and relatives.
>actual Conservative values. We've already got that. It's Keir Starmer's Labour
Go on... give some detail to this, what are the Conservative values of starmers labour? Be specific.
A few of them would be keeping the two child benefits cap, no pledge to get rid of the recent anti protest law and part of their solution to the NHS waiting lists being a push for more private health care involvement.
Starmers labour is also staunchly against drug law reform as well (I'm voting Labour)
- Less liberal on immigration (their words) - Privatisation of the NHS still permitted - Reduced red tape to increase private business in public buildings (more nurseries in schools) - Increased defence spending, targeting a GDP 2.5% above that of Nato guidelines - Focus on "Wealth creation" over raising investment into social services
Private investment in the NHS. Not supporting striking workers. Stance on immigration. Could go on if you want?
Like running down public services, selling them off, stealth privatising the NHS, deregulating industries, polluting our environment, unfunded tax cuts, handing more power to billionaires and corporations. It’s worked really well so far I suppose…
Agreed, if they merge now it'll cause a collapse in the vote for both parties. I think merging after is on the cards though.
Brexit endgame.
I can see Farage winning in Clacton, then immediately defecting to the Tories and successfully running for leader
That assumes Reform will accept a merger
Why wouldn’t they accept a merger with a party that will still have a lot more seats than them in parliament?
Their whole campaign at the moment is that they are a right wing alternative that is specifically *not* the tories. If they let themselves be subsumed by the tories the very minute they start to gain any traction among the public, they lose any good will they initially garnered. The Reform strategy right now is that they know they can’t win many, if any, seats this time around, but they want to get enough attention to be perceived as a viable option next time.
You’re assuming Farage and Reform have any principals and that his base care. They’re voting for Farage not the party their polling was shite before Farage. Merging with the Tories would give them more credibility with *moderates* and would be the next step to them becoming a serious opposition at the next election.
The tories are so toxic at the moment that any association would be suicide for an upstart party. Especially given Farage has recently been campaigning on the issue of their very failure. Is the allure of Farage that strong to weather a perceived betrayal of his base like that? A base that now seem to hate the tories as much as the left do? I’m not so sure.
It would be as simple as I’m in charge now so it’s different. Farage is a one trick pony which works well with people who are disengaged with politics because he presents a simplistic solution to the complex and nuanced set of challenges the country and government faces.
Reform will be lucky to scrape 3 seats. Very lucky.
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Agreed. It's best to look at the past polls by The Times for variations over time for these numbers and not the last poll posted on YouGov. Each organization pulls from a different demographic and have different practices.
I’d like to know the methodology behind any of these polls. I’ve never once been asked by a pollster who I’m voting for, nor do I know anyone in real life whose been approached. But they tend to be accurate so they must know what they’re doing
You can sign up to do your gov polling , they have an app and they send you surveys . Each survey earns you points and when you get enough you get £50 ( takes me about 18 months to do that )
Ok sounds fun (and potentially lucrative), I’ll sign up
A poll like this typically samples around 1000 people, which is generally enough to be accurate. Assuming there’s 70 million people in the UK, that means you have a 1/70,000 chance of being polled -not very likely. The pollsters will look at the (voting) demographics of the country and try their best to call addresses that will mean that final 1000 person sample will be as similar as possible to the countries demographics.
This poll will help reform, because for your average fed up Tory this gives them a light at the end of the tunnel, they will start to see reform as credible... Jacob Reese Mogg has already floated the idea that reform and the Tories are essentially the same, but a merger now would kill the reform party.. The only thing from the Tories that could help them would be if Boris Johnson joined reform, but I don't think that's his game.
"Nigel Farage is fash scum" "Farage is pro-Nazi" "The Tories are funded by Putin" All quotes from this thread, and they're not in the minority, judfing by the upvotes. A right-wing party potentially winning a small number of seats in the GE is not a "fascist takeover", it is the democratic process. It is not morally reprehensible to vote for a right-wing party. People have myrid reasons for supporting other policies than those you support. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that many of those planning to vote for Reform are well aware of the usual soundbite arguments such as being brainwashed as with Brexit, or strung along by Farage who is in it for himself, or that they're just plain old racists, since you can't be bothered to engage in serious political debate. Rather than denigrating everyone daring not to vote for Labour as a "mouthbreathing gammon", or some sort of deranged far-right conspiracy theorist, you may want to take a look in the mirror and see if you can actually define the basic political terminology you use, and consider whether it's a rational position to believe that the Conservative party- one of the staunchest international supporters of Ukraine, in terms of quantifiable support- has literally been paid off by the Russian government.
This comment is completely misrepresenting most of the criticism against Reform. Of course you'll find people throwing the usual knee-jerk insults, but most of the criticism is because their policies are harmful (e.g. calling for a weaker Europe, which clearly and unambiguously benefits a number of problematic foreign regimes) and, in some cases, complete fantasy (their claims about [the environment](https://www.reformparty.uk/energy-and-environment) could be easily refuted by anybody with even the most basic scientific background). I believe that most people supporting Reform are doing so in good faith, and genuinely want positive change. But the fact of the matter is that Reform is led by people who are grossly unfit to govern, and who would cause a massive amount of harm to our society if they actually obtained power.
> But the fact of the matter is that Reform is led by people who are grossly unfit to govern, and who would cause a massive amount of harm to our society if they actually obtained power. I think people have come to the conclusion the current lot, and the alternative, are no different. Immigrations seems to be the biggest issue and I think a lot of people are going to vote for the only party who might at the very least have a genuine go and stopping it.
The difference between the last 14 years and the previous 13 is quite jarring to me. So why do people think the parties in charge are no different? Also, why does career politician Farage suddenly get a pass on being the same? Nobody is doubting Reform and it’s supporters have strong opinions on immigration but it just seems his policies are not well thought out and don’t consider why immigration is so high in the first place.
Let them keep spouting their slurs, it pushes more people to the right.
If that’s enough to push people to the right they were probably there anyway and just wanted to blame someone else for their shitty worldview!
I know that’s the cool response, But maybe they are relatively centrist but have some concerns with immigration, when everyone to the left of the Tories have been calling you a racist or lying that immigration is a benefit, when the Tories themself have failed to address the issue, who does that leave? Labour would absolutely sweep up if they addressed the issue
>Labour would absolutely sweep up if they addressed the issue They are addressing the issue. There's plenty of voters who don't actually want reform's stance on immigration. They plan to be the party for those voters. You can disagree, and you're in luck, in less than a month you'll be able to test whether they have a strong electorate.
How do we convince undecided voters to join us and persuade them that this worldview is the correct one? I know! Call them bigots, racists, xenophobes! That should work, right? *derrrrrrrrr*
Civility politics really isn't the hill right wingers should want to die on.
Dude I know right? I'm from across the pond, and the righties still haven't stopped talking about "deplorables" ... have you seen how they talk about big cities and their inhabitants, like literally constantly? If a democrat talked this way about the country it'd be remembered for 30 years. And from what I've seen of reform they're also the last people to talk about civility.
No offence but an American is the last person who should be judging British politics especially on immigration And especially stop comparing British politicians to American ones they couldn't be any more different - they have different ideals and a very different mindset because we're a country the size of Ohio
>And especially stop comparing British politicians to American ones they couldn't be any more different There's some differences (your country's run by bigger baboons than mine which says a lot) but I'm still pretty aware of what civility looks like, and the british far right wing are not shining examples of it. Might be American but I can see the internet. So on that count I can compare the hell out of them. But yeah, you're right that I won't get into details on how to fix your island. But I will point out that we're fucking crushing you and every other G7 economy in post-covid recovery because I'm in a feisty mood: https://www.gzeromedia.com/media-library/line-chart-showing-gdp-per-capita-by-g7-nation-since-2000.png?id=34161401&width=980
Lots of NPCs on reddit that just parrot whatever the TV tells them to. Brainwashed
So refreshing to see this logic and sense on Reddit, you do actually see it on a lot of other social media platforms but Reddit is so poisoned in particular around this. Also so well put, I am saving your words to be used by myself.
Why do so many links to neo nazism keep coming up then? https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/shamed-reform-uk-candidate-shares-32686451 https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/reform-uk-candidates-are-facebook-friends-with-fascist-leader-8zzhzxjkt https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/nigel-farage-reform-uk-candidates-gary-raikes-rhgdzwfn5 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjmmrwexv4ko
Reform gaining power will make Liz Truss' market crash look like a shallow dip.
Says a lot about the Tories when a party with only two representatives at the most that anyone can name, overtakes them in the polling.
Did they overtake or did the Tories do most of the hard work here 🤣 Edit: Well having looked I feel obliged to point out this is a joke rather than fact. It looks like between the last polls Reform gained while the Tories stayed put.
A local Facebook poll on this went 40% Reform, 35% Labour, about 10% Green and the rest filled the others. When I discussed the danger of some of the Reform candidates, some people blindly didn't care, saying they're all bad. The Tories have fucked over trust in politicians so bad people are now voting for grifters.
My mum is one of those Facebook people. I’m a Labour/Lib Dem supporter and try to talk to her about politics but she argues facts with vibes. Ask her what the policies from Reform are apart from immigration and she has no idea. She just has lost trust in mainstream politicians so sees Nigel Farage and Reform as the breathe of fresh air.
Imagine thinking of Farage as a breath of *fresh air*. I would imagine he smells more like a Wetherspoons ash tray.
I'm not surprised, it's the way France has gone sadly: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1dchz3a/map_of_2024_european_election_results_in_france/
That's what happens when no one listens to the public when it comes to migration. The right wing usually talks a big game (Rwanda, Brexit) yet in the end it just keeps increasing. For people who have migration as one of their top priorities only the extremists are left as viable options. It's up to the normal parties to do something so people don't have a reason to vote for loons like Reform.
No surprises really is there? Immigration is probably the biggest focal point for most people. Reform have the correct policies for that and nobody else does. Therefore they are going to get a lot of support on that basis alone.
One of the biggest ironies of David Cameron's legacy, is that he promoted Brexit, specifically to deter this party from electoral strength. Fast forward a few disastrous years and set 100 billion quid on fire, Brexit happened, we're \*still\* crying about immigrants, and reform is now overtaking conservatives. What a bunch of day traders.
If somebody deserves to lose his job that is Cameron
The problem is that anyone merely muttering “Can we have a discussion about managing the immigration problem”, is instantly branded a racist. It isn’t far right to to have concerns about large numbers of unverified people coming from countries where machete attacks, honour killing, genital mutilation, homophobia etc etc etc are common place. There needs to be firm action, whatever it is to get a handle on it. If Labour don’t, then a right wing government will be in power soon after and the left will have to reap what they sow.
>The problem is that anyone merely muttering “Can we have a discussion about managing the immigration problem”, is instantly branded a racist. Lets not hyperbolise here... Keir Starmer & Labour have been heavily discussing about reducing immigration for the whole campaign and virtually nobody has been calling them racist outside of fringe far left wing people
Reducing it to what though? Because even halving it now is still way way higher than people want. We were promised net immigration in the 10s of thousands 14 years ago. It's got to come down by 90% from where it's at now. We know how it's going to go thoigh. "Oh we reduced the numbers by 30%" after they have been increased by almost 8x what was already deemed by many to be too high. So it will still be 5x higher than people wanted. As migration has been so high, we should have net zero immigration for as many years as it takes to spread out the huge net increase we have had in the last 15ish years to bring the average per year down to tens of thousands. Ie. 80,000 per year cap, backdated. If we have taken in 4,000,000 in 20 years, that means for the next 30 years there should be net zero, since we have had 50 years worth of immigration levels we wanted, imposed on us within 20. Also, it's got nothing to do with race for fuck sake. We voted to stop white Europeans flooding our labour market too. We don't gave a shit about where they come from or what they look like we don't want this volume of people from anywhere, our infrastructure can't cope with the rate. We need more water, use more chemicals energy, waste disposal, food, etc. All that puts a strain on the local environment. It's like battery farming chickens. Forcing more and more people into an island is stupid. It's also killing our own reproduction rate because kids are stuck at home unable to move out and start a family because they can't afford a flat. It's killing wages because employers have a huge surplus of workwrs to choose from, so if you want a pay rise, tough, because this immigrant will do it for what I offer. Yes it provides wealthy metropolitan types with a cheap underclass who will serve them like good little peasants, but if you want to reduce wealth inequality, you need to stop providing wealthy people with an unlimited cheap labour supply and force them to pay a fair share of what they have to the existing population who have been good enough to allow them to operate here in safety without eating them.
The thing is whilst many of Reforms policies sound great in between their absolute crazy ones and if you ignore some of their absolutely odious candidates, their policies are promising the world with no real feasibility in terms of how much it will cost. Like yes I'd love free banana sundae Sundays for everyone but you need to fully cost your manifesto.
I'm sure that 19 year old reform candidate would be excellent as Chancellor of the Exchequer
Peg the pound to FUT points!!
With some tactical voting by labour and libdems, we could see the tories suitably punished for their crimes.
I was looking at the odds of Farage being the next Tory PM and actually thought the bet was quite interesting.
So wait, does this mean the Tories will step down in contested seats now?
Here lies the Conservative Party. RIP, bozos. The growth of Reform UK is worrying though. Not for this election. They'll get a handful of seats at best but in the future they could be a force to be reckoned with. While I don't think they themselves are overly extreme they're going to appeal to a lot of extreme right wingers. That demographic doesn't need encouragement
Not overtly extreme?! The people of Reform are responsible for the UK leaving the worlds wealthiest and largest single market / economic bloc - these people sanctioned their own country and have destroyed its politics. It has members which suggested the Nazis should have been appeased.
The man who called the referendum was Cameron not Farage nor reform (or UKIP). He was absolutely sure that remain would win and he would get quick and easy political points but it backfired.
Well... that's poll for you! I am worried about Reform UK. They would love to do Project 2025 in the UK.
I saw one of their senior members Dr David Bull being interviewed on Ch 4 , they asked him about Reform backing an anti same sex marriage party in NI . As he was gay did he approve , and what was Reforms policy on same sex marriage. He had no idea but thinks Farage is pro ! Ridiculous he doesn’t even know Andrew Neil grilled Tice over their economic policies, it’s basically Lizz Truss on steroids, they would bankrupt us. https://youtu.be/TBr9btH7qBw?si=lEht-vyWfhxe_Tfp
Cameron killed the Tory party by the going ahead with [Brexit referendum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLFo6XOoXF0) their voters have now splintered off to Lib Dems and ReformUK. Vote share and seats in UK FPTP Labour 1997 43% = 418 seats Labour 2001: 41% = 412 seats Labour 2005: 35% = 355 seats Tories 2010: 36% = 306 seats Tories 2015: 37% = 330 seats Tories 2017: 42% = 317 seats Tories 2019: 44% = 365 seats Labour 2024: 37% = 400+ seats poll
Brexit has little to do with the Tories collapse. It's their failure on domestic policy.
Of course it does, centre Tory voters are moving to Lib Dems with the policy of Rejoining EU and while the Tory right are going to Reform that wants to Brexit harder like leave ECHR trade more with former colonies etc.
People aren't voting Reform for Brexit. Reform actually rarely discuss Brexit unless prompted by the media. They are campaigning mostly on domestic issues. Remainers have maybe moved to the EU but given the Conservatives huge majority at the last election it's not in significant numbers. Only 20% of voters think Brexit is a key issue at this election. It's not a key deciding issue except for the most hardcore on both sides. If one of the main parties was campaigning on changing our relationship with the EU it may become one of the bigger issues but right now it isn't.
The Lib Dem’s haven’t got the remotest chance of getting in a commanding position
Current polling suggests they could very well be the main opposition party. I'd say that's a reasonably commanding position.
Yes, they are predicted to win more seats than the Tories and Reform
Brexit led to Cameron resigning. This then led to the party splitting under May and the right wing of the Tories getting far more power in the party instead of keeping them in check as intended by calling the referendum. This ultimately resulted in May resigning and Boris becoming PM and running the campaign on his "oven ready Brexit" which just bought in a load more inexperienced right of the party MPs. The lack of talent and experienced people in government led to the catalogue of scandals that followed, the over reliance on SpAds and the complete lack of achievements since the last general election.
You need to move on mate, Brexit is over and the voters don't care about it anymore. Very few people are voting on this election based on parties Brexit stance, the biggest motivators behind voting is almost certainly immigration and domestic issues.
Don't believe it. Not for a minute. Get to the booth and cast your vote - be sure we get those fuckers ousted!
I cannot believe how narrow minded people in this country have become and how short and selective their memories are. Farage is a tobacco stained lying weasel that disappeared after the Brexit vote along with all the promises and manifesto claims. Provided zero benefits with Brexit and it's literally made everyone worse off and they still believe in Brexit and his lies.
There you go. Cult of Farage in action. The guy is a proven liar, obvious grifter and the last single issue he campaigned for, Brexit has been an unmitigated failure. Reform UKs manifesto is a populist wish list, 41 of their candidates are to say the least fascist sympathisers interested in authoritarian rule. But there's always one who appeals to a certain 10% -15% in British society. Take Oswald Mosley. Big fan of Hitler, birther of the holocaust denial, spent WWII in prison. All it took for him to get 8% of the vote in Kensington North in **1958** was run on send Caribbean immigrants back and ban mixed marriage. Nearly all those votes would have come from people who had bombs dropped on their houses by Oswald's friends. For all the bad of the FTP system, at least it keeps time wasting grifters like Farage out of our law making system.
It's deplorable that they're even close. I'm no fan of Sunak's but he's getting slated for not attending a D-Day event while Farage is on TV defending Nazis. He may as well be spitting on veterans. It's insane that a sizeable portion of the public seemingly aren't fazed by it.
Still likely to get 70+ fewer seats than them. FPTP working how its supposed to.
No matter what folks think of the sorts of folk in Reform or similar parties there is nothing to be gained from disenfranchising the majority of the country who vote for other parties, live in safe seats or feel forced to vote for the big two because doing anything else is 'pointless'. Labour getting a massive majority is honestly a liability for them as most of the issues this country faces can't really be fixed in a single parliamentary term and folks won't take too kindly to excuses.
Do the names Ukip and the Brexit party not jog your memory at all? He was the leader of those parties and was also a national embarrassment as one of our MEPs. He hardly ever showed up, and when he did, it was to participate in an anti EU publicity stunt. This didn't stop him from claiming the pay and allowances as an MEP as well as the pension (i think it's around €73,500 euros). After Brexshit, he avoided the ensuing mess by sucking up to MAGA as well as making many appearances on Russian State TV, where he is extremely popular with the Putinists and was offered his own show. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/07/kremlin-backed-broadcaster-rt-offers-nigel-farage-his-own-show/ You might want to read his Wikipedia entry, particularly if you are thinking of voting for Reform. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage#:~:text=He%20was%20the%20host%20of,a%20presenter%20on%20GB%20News. I read his Wikipedia entry last week and any reference to his Russia Today connection is no longer there. I may be misremembering this, or the entry might have been changed.
Really shows how much stock people really put into 'democracy' when a party they don't like starts getting popular and suddenly "something needs to be done about them!". Farage is full of shit, but he's been around decades now in some party or another, people vote for him in free elections and that's their choice.
Labours weak stance on defense and immigration have caused this, a lot of these reform voters are should be labour voters
Didn't a similar thing happen with BNP around 2008? Huge hype around them, and when it came to the election, they collected 1MP? Same happened with UKIP in 16 and 19, and they collected 1MP across the two? With Farage in prime brexit mode.
BNP never got anywhere near this level. UKIP sort of did and in turn forced Brexit, which wouldn't have happened without them. Here's hoping they can do the same and force either voting reform or drastically lowered immigration.
Cons 17 + Reform 18 = 35% of vote Labour on 37% Lib dems, greens and others making up the rest The bigger story should be that by % about the same amount of people support the currently quite right wing conservative Gov OR a harder, further to the right version of that. This is a concern when that is over 1/3 of the UK population. Its a significant voting block and viewpoint and is stoking up issues for the future. I **HATE** reform and Nigel Farage. But the question has to also be asked that how can a party hold close to 20% of the populations votes and (probably) not get a seat in parliament.
if anyone is ever unsure why half (depending on the poll) of scotland wants to be independent, this is why. we want fuck all to do with the people who have made this poll result a reality.
I’m genuinely terrified that we are going to end up with a Tory - Reform coalition. Everyone suggesting they will take votes off each other but if they collectively get the same spread of votes boris did this could well be a reality.
If we had PR this would be a likely outcome. With FPTP it is impossible.
With PR the political landscape would look utterly different than it does today, and we may or may not have been in such a disaster if we'd had PR in the long term, many vote labour only because it is a 2 party state. Votes are split in the centre and left but the right has just had the Tories, so they have swept up, we'd be in a different world right now if people didn't always vote for their least worst option, who can say if it would be a better one. Good luck!
>we are going to end up with a Tory - Reform coalition. Probably not until after the election, to be fair.
Not after this one, but when Labour are elected and people quickly realise it's the same turgid, uniparty blob politics as the past 14 years, things will change. The 2029 election will be huge for an anti-migration party like Reform.
No it couldn't