Reform UK - A symptom of all that is wrong?

Reform UK - A symptom of all that is wrong?

Author
Discussion

Dave200

4,748 posts

223 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
911hope said:
Dave200 said:
turbobloke said:
As I haven't looked into the small print of Reform economics
An odd, but not entirely unexpected, position from someone who spends his day on the internet arguing in their favour. Fairly representative, I'd say.
The reform party have not considered the economics...

They are just saying what a foolish portion of the population wants to hear.

That portion won't worry about it being total nonsense.
People aren't supporting Reform for strong monetary policy.

They are supporting for one or a mix of:
- Sticking it to the Tories
- Never Labour, but fed up with the Tories
- Fed up with the Tories, but buying the anti-Labour propaganda
- Continuation of support for Brexit (and any future "taking back control")
- The cult of personality around Farage
- Reform's continuous focus on (the wrong parts of) our immigration problem
- Because they are easily led when it comes to the magic money tree

911hope

2,854 posts

29 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Dave200 said:
People aren't supporting Reform for strong monetary policy.

They are supporting for one or a mix of:
- Sticking it to the Tories
- Never Labour, but fed up with the Tories
- Fed up with the Tories, but buying the anti-Labour propaganda
- Continuation of support for Brexit (and any future "taking back control")
- The cult of personality around Farage
- Reform's continuous focus on (the wrong parts of) our immigration problem
- Because they are easily led when it comes to the magic money tree
In a nutshell..

Sadly.......Most of them won't even know what reform are actually saying.

Four Litre

2,053 posts

195 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Dave200 said:
911hope said:
Dave200 said:
turbobloke said:
As I haven't looked into the small print of Reform economics
An odd, but not entirely unexpected, position from someone who spends his day on the internet arguing in their favour. Fairly representative, I'd say.
The reform party have not considered the economics...

They are just saying what a foolish portion of the population wants to hear.

That portion won't worry about it being total nonsense.
People aren't supporting Reform for strong monetary policy.

They are supporting for one or a mix of:
- Sticking it to the Tories
- Never Labour, but fed up with the Tories
- Fed up with the Tories, but buying the anti-Labour propaganda
- Continuation of support for Brexit (and any future "taking back control")
- The cult of personality around Farage
- Reform's continuous focus on (the wrong parts of) our immigration problem
- Because they are easily led when it comes to the magic money tree
'

Please explain what you mean by 'Reform's continuous focus on (the wrong parts of) our immigration problem' I'm intrigued as to how you think 50,000 people (mostly men), coming into our country without ID is the incorrect area of focus?

911hope

2,854 posts

29 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Four Litre said:
'

Please explain what you mean by 'Reform's continuous focus on (the wrong parts of) our immigration problem' I'm intrigued as to how you think 50,000 people (mostly men), coming into our country without ID is the incorrect area of focus?
It is quite a small proportion of immigrants. Hasn't you read about this?

The small boats issue is being highlighted to hide the self-made big problem.

NerveAgent

3,404 posts

223 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Dave200 said:
People aren't supporting Reform for strong monetary policy.

They are supporting for one or a mix of:
- Sticking it to the Tories
- Never Labour, but fed up with the Tories
- Fed up with the Tories, but buying the anti-Labour propaganda
- Continuation of support for Brexit (and any future "taking back control")
- The cult of personality around Farage
- Reform's continuous focus on (the wrong parts of) our immigration problem
- Because they are easily led when it comes to the magic money tree
The cult of personality one is particularly striking.

Olivera

7,375 posts

242 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
911hope said:
It is quite a small proportion of immigrants. Hasn't you read about this?

The small boats issue is being highlighted to hide the self-made big problem.
It's a small problem in terms of numbers, but a large problem in terms of cost, to the total tune (accommodation, legal costs, health care, welfare etc) of perhaps £5-10bn. Speeding up application processing just shifts the problem from the Home Office to Local Authorities, as exemplified by many LA's declaring housing crises.

NerveAgent

3,404 posts

223 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
andymadmak said:
Reform is doing damage (mostly but not exclusively) to the Conservatives, so why are they bothered?
This seems to get brought up every couple of pages.

I imagine people are happy Reform are splitting the right leaning vote, but are happy to highlight the low rate nature of many involved in Reform. It keeps the vote split.

Xenoous

1,145 posts

61 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
I'm all for putting illegals back in a dingy and pushing them back out to sea to go try their luck somewhere else. When they're mostly young men, you have to question why. 50,000 is not a small number by any count, no matter how big or small it is in the grand scheme of our immigration failures.

President Merkin

3,800 posts

22 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Olivera said:
It's a small problem in terms of numbers, but a large problem in terms of cost, to the total tune (accommodation, legal costs, health care, welfare etc) of perhaps £5-10bn. Speeding up application processing just shifts the problem from the Home Office to Local Authorities, as exemplified by many LA's declaring housing crises.
UK GDP is 3 trillion. It's a rounding error in the scheme of things but weaponised beyond all proportion by your favourite grifters* in order to take in only too willing suckers looking for easy answers to their problems.

  • Delete as applicable.

Dave200

4,748 posts

223 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Four Litre said:
Dave200 said:
911hope said:
Dave200 said:
turbobloke said:
As I haven't looked into the small print of Reform economics
An odd, but not entirely unexpected, position from someone who spends his day on the internet arguing in their favour. Fairly representative, I'd say.
The reform party have not considered the economics...

They are just saying what a foolish portion of the population wants to hear.

That portion won't worry about it being total nonsense.
People aren't supporting Reform for strong monetary policy.

They are supporting for one or a mix of:
- Sticking it to the Tories
- Never Labour, but fed up with the Tories
- Fed up with the Tories, but buying the anti-Labour propaganda
- Continuation of support for Brexit (and any future "taking back control")
- The cult of personality around Farage
- Reform's continuous focus on (the wrong parts of) our immigration problem
- Because they are easily led when it comes to the magic money tree
'

Please explain what you mean by 'Reform's continuous focus on (the wrong parts of) our immigration problem' I'm intrigued as to how you think 50,000 people (mostly men), coming into our country without ID is the incorrect area of focus?
The total number of arrivals by "small boats" in 2023 was 29,437. I appreciate that detail isn't at the heart of the Reform voter's motivations, but let's at least try and keep it factual.

In 2023 a total of 1.2m people migrated to the UK, almost all by way of legal visa or established refugee schemes.

Your "small boat people" accounted for 2.5% of our total immigration. That's it. 2.5%.

In total, "small boat" arrivals in 2023 increased the UK population by 0.04%. (Not 4%, not 0.4%, but 0.04%).

So when I say it's not the place we should be focusing if we want to actually control immigration, the numbers make that demonstrably clear.

That is unless you're the sort of person who spends too much time listening to Nige the Liar.

Dave200

4,748 posts

223 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Xenoous said:
I'm all for putting illegals back in a dingy and pushing them back out to sea to go try their luck somewhere else. When they're mostly young men, you have to question why. 50,000 is not a small number by any count, no matter how big or small it is in the grand scheme of our immigration failures.
50,000 isn't actually the number either, but don't let that stop you.

Small boats are not a problem of immigration. They are a rounding error in terms of the number of people who come to the UK every year.

The small boat crossings are something which could (and should) be tackled by a sustained, cross-border police investigation. Sadly that would require close collaboration with the same people that Nige the Liar persuaded 51% of voters to stick two fingers up a few years back.

the-photographer

3,603 posts

179 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Olivera said:
It's a small problem in terms of numbers, but a large problem in terms of cost, to the total tune (accommodation, legal costs, health care, welfare etc) of perhaps £5-10bn. Speeding up application processing just shifts the problem from the Home Office to Local Authorities, as exemplified by many LA's declaring housing crises.
Costs were £1.5Bn in 2022

Olivera

7,375 posts

242 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
President Merkin said:
UK GDP is 3 trillion. It's a rounding error in the scheme of things but weaponised beyond all proportion by your favourite grifters* in order to take in only too willing suckers looking for easy answers to their problems.
GDP is not government spending. Very odd that you would quote GDP.

£5-10bn is the equivalent to about half of the entire policing budget in 2024 for England, or the entire budget of The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It's a significant amount given our squeezed public spending and deficit. Hence why even Starmer agrees that this number needs reduced.

Dave200

4,748 posts

223 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Olivera said:
911hope said:
It is quite a small proportion of immigrants. Hasn't you read about this?

The small boats issue is being highlighted to hide the self-made big problem.
It's a small problem in terms of numbers, but a large problem in terms of cost, to the total tune (accommodation, legal costs, health care, welfare etc) of perhaps £5-10bn. Speeding up application processing just shifts the problem from the Home Office to Local Authorities, as exemplified by many LA's declaring housing crises.
Current costing is estimated at £1.3bn a year.

An absolute waste of money, and one that could simply be avoided by a cross-border police investigation.

Sadly, since 51% of voters jovially stuck two fingers up at the people we need to work with, it's not hard to see why their motivation to collaborate isn't there.

Dave200

4,748 posts

223 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
I find it curious that there's so much (misplaced) emphasis on "small boats" from Reform supporters, but none of them seem willing to back Labour who pledge to stop them.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-opposition-lea...

Of course Labour are also planning to deal with the actual immigration problems, rather than just standing on a cliff and pointing at the boats as evidence of a broken immigration system.

President Merkin

3,800 posts

22 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Olivera said:
GDP is not government spending. Very odd that you would quote GDP.

£5-10bn is the equivalent to about half of the entire policing budget in 2024 for England, or the entire budget of The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It's a significant amount given our squeezed public spending and deficit. Hence why even Starmer agrees that this number needs reduced.
No one is saying it's a small number. Lots that it's not as big as you think it is, but you are choosing to ignore them. That's your business but if you have a bit of self awareness, you might want to consider how you got there. Otherwise, crack on.

the-photographer

3,603 posts

179 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Olivera said:
GDP is not government spending. Very odd that you would quote GDP.

£5-10bn is the equivalent to about half of the entire policing budget in 2024 for England, or the entire budget of The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It's a significant amount given our squeezed public spending and deficit. Hence why even Starmer agrees that this number needs reduced.
Spending was about £1.3 trillion in 22-23 and costs were £1.5billion

Big, but far bigger things to fix

Olivera

7,375 posts

242 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Dave200 said:
Current costing is estimated at £1.3bn a year.
It's not costing £1.3bn per year: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68613186

The National Audit Office states: "the Home Office still expects to spend £3.1bn on private accommodation in the year up to March 2024.".

That's just accommodation, so you need to add on welfare, legal, translation, health spending on top.

DeejRC

5,951 posts

85 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Labour/anti-Tory supporters delirious with glee at being able to point to another party about their “magic money tree” policies…smile
Oh how the world chortles merrily smile
Farage et al don’t need to have joined up economic policies for the same reason nobody cared much about the LD economic manifesto - everybody knows they will never be able to implement. It’s the free shot that the 3rd opposition party gets.
I’m not hugely convinced SKS will put taxes up too soon either. I suspect there will be 12months before he does. The IFS, their £35bn black hole and all those others who think their “needs” to be tax rises, “they” simply don’t understand that the country can’t really afford it atm. The SMEs etc have only just finished accommodating the 7% rise BoJo and Rishi hit us with. The employed sector has only just completed the salary rises/cost of living rises/fiscal drag cycle to rebalance their domestic economics. SKS is dull, but he is a competent manager, he has a decent grasp on what he can/can’t do at any one time and the slowly slowly approach. He and Reeves know full well they haven’t the headroom to change much, because the country hasn’t.

Mrr T

12,464 posts

268 months

Tuesday 25th June
quotequote all
Dave200 said:
Olivera said:
911hope said:
It is quite a small proportion of immigrants. Hasn't you read about this?

The small boats issue is being highlighted to hide the self-made big problem.
It's a small problem in terms of numbers, but a large problem in terms of cost, to the total tune (accommodation, legal costs, health care, welfare etc) of perhaps £5-10bn. Speeding up application processing just shifts the problem from the Home Office to Local Authorities, as exemplified by many LA's declaring housing crises.
Current costing is estimated at £1.3bn a year.

An absolute waste of money, and one that could simply be avoided by a cross-border police investigation.

Sadly, since 51% of voters jovially stuck two fingers up at the people we need to work with, it's not hard to see why their motivation to collaborate isn't there.
Most of the money spent is because the government is processing less application and deporting less.