Reform UK - A symptom of all that is wrong?

[Kermit power]

Vanden Saab said:

Kermit power said:

Oilchange said:

I'm wondering if anyone on here knows the meaning of 'net zero immigration'...

It means that if Reform were to win the GE, we wouldn't be able to fill any of the 260,000 doctor and nurse vacancies the NHS are trying to fill with immigrants unless we can persuade others already here to leave for a start.

May be actually read what it means rather than making yourself look like an idiot for all to see.

ReformUK said:

Net zero immigration means that the
number legally allowed to enter to live
and work in the UK each year should
equal the number emigrating

Feel free to tell me, oh bizarrely smug one, where that disagrees with what I said?

If people leave, you can try to recruit people for the NHS up to that number. If they don't, you can't. What's difficult to grasp about that?

Of course, whether you'd be able to recruit anyone to come to a country looking to make itself so unwelcoming to immigrants is another matter!

"Yes, Doctor, we'd just about be willing to stomach your foreign presence in our country so long as you're saving our liv... sorry, what was that?? You want to bring your family with you?!?! Why on earth would we want them here???"

[Kermit power]

bad company said:

valiant said:

Like UKIP before them, they’ll drift into obscurity after the GE when Farage moves onto his next project and their subscribers will be politically homeless yet again waiting for their messiah to tell them which way amd which new company party to vote for (again!)

Surely for UKIP it was a case of job done?

I think it says quite a lot about UKIP and the people that voted for them that they'd have that mentality. It's as though they believed the very act of telling the EU we were leaving was going to magically solve all their woes.

[Kermit power]

crankedup5 said:

smn159 said:

crankedup5 said:

the current Government have fallen short delivering brexit benefits.

Have you considered that if a government with a large majority composed almost entirely of Brexit cheerleaders can't deliver these 'Brexit benefits', then maybe there aren't any?

Still, I'm sure that Tice and Farage will sort it all out for you

Yes I did consider that back in 2016, I decided that brexit was, and still is, the best pathway to prosperity in the U.K. Looking at the state of many major EU member Countries I remain content that my vote remains the correct vote.

What metrics are you using to compare the UK to other major EU countries?

[Kermit power]

heebeegeetee said:

crankedup5 said:

Yes I did consider that back in 2016, I decided that brexit was, and still is, the best pathway to prosperity in the U.K. Looking at the state of many major EU member Countries I remain content that my vote remains the correct vote.

It's interesting you say "look at the state" of many major countries.

Having become old and bought a motorhome and travelled and spent some time in those countries, what I am seeing is:

Good roads; clean streets; clearly much money spent on visible infrastructure and services; much active travel infrastructure; seemingly clean, modern and punctual public transport; police on streets; healthy retail sectors and very healthy hospitality sectors; NO charity shops; very few beggars; NO fly tipping, anywhere; very minimal litter; litter pickers; and so on.

Now obviously I haven't had in depth conversations with locals, we did have a conversation about German politics but we don't know the politicians involved, but when you say "Go and look at the state" I think you have got that 100% the wrong way round.

I mean, after 14 years of Conservative govt, I say Just *look* at the STATE of this country! It's shocking!

The idea that major EU countries look worse than ours is just farcical. Dear god, even Bulgarian retail seemed a darn sight healthier than ours.

Cranked, our media simply isn't being honest, especially the right leaning media. It is truly misleading it's followers.

I agree with most of that, but I think the state of retail, charity shops etc is a red herring.

The UK has the second highest rate of Internet shopping in the world with 36.3% of all purchases being made online, which is way, way more than any other major European country. It is, however, growing in all countries, so it's not unreasonable to assume they'll catch us up over time in terms of pressure on the High Streets.

[Kermit power]

julian987R said:

Kermit power said:

What metrics are you using to compare the UK to other major EU countries?

The UK will be Europe’s best-performing major economy in the next 15 years, narrowing the gap with Germany and extending its lead over France, according to new long-run forecasts.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research predicted that GDP growth in the UK will settle between 1.6% and 1.8% in the period up until 2038, helping it retain its position as the world’s sixth-largest economy.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-26...

Possibly, but that's potentially maybe for the future. I was looking for the metrics which support the statement that we're doing better than them now.

[Kermit power]

Vanden Saab said:

bad company said:

I disagree. A lot intending to vote Reform are disgruntled Conservatives such as myself. Reform’s success is taking votes from the Conservatives which will help Labour’s inevitable election win imo.

The tories used to say a vote for anybody else would result in a Labour win. The problem the tories now have is if the tipping point is reached where a vote for them will result in a bigger Labour win.
This might get to the unlikely point where Labour voters think a pox on both your houses and swap too and then we will get into a France type situation with both main parties being blown away by the newbies.
You can see what reform are trying to do but whether it succeeds or fails and they slip back into obscurity only time will tell.
Our system tends to favour the latter although 5 years of Labour being worse than the Tories might change some minds especially if the media give them an easy ride as they did in Scotland with the SNP. Labour do not have the advantage of the independence vote here to keep people voting for them regardless of how useless they are.
The cannot be any worse vote falls apart for Labour when they are in fact worse.

I think the best possible result for overall democracy in this country would be for the Conservatives to capture a lower share of the vote than either Reform or the LibDems but still gain a lot more seats in parliament than they do.

If that happens, I don't see how FPTP can possibly survive even until the next GE?

[Kermit power]

Crippo said:

All of the Main Parties are very liberal and very social. They all promote very high taxes and immigration. They are very big business so they love big projects and big warehouses giving lots of low paid work but they aren’t much interested in small business or on protecting the rural environment. They are all big Wind farms and have no aesthetic appreciation of the beauty of our Country. They are pro house building, pro inflating GDP while no worrying about per Capita growth which is the only one that matters. They are all poor on defence just when we need to have a strong defence and they all get off up by collecting data on us. I want a culture of policing that does stop and search based on evidence, the Main political establishment have tied the Police up in so much Political bureaucracy that most Cops are unable to do their jobs properly. If you do get a custodial sentence then you’ll be out in half the time and if you do t want to work then the state will pay you lots of money not to have to whilst importing loads of immigrants to do the job that you should be doing. Then the narrative is how the NHS will fall over if we don’t have huge immigration…of course it will us Brits are too thick to train to be Dcotors and Nurses…it’s a deliberate deception and I can’t believe people believe that crap. I just think everything is broken, the roads are st but they want to put speed cameras and ULEZ zones everywhere…completely backwards thinking. I can’t think of a single area where we are well governed and things are as they should be.

That’s why I have given up on the main parties….they are all fkin st and should all be shot to misquote Hester what’s his name.

How do you square that view with the fact that the average prison sentence in England & Wales increased from 11.4 months in 2000 to 22.6 months in 2022?

[Kermit power]

bad company said:

Vanden Saab said:

smn159 said:

Vanden Saab said:

The work was done on this, the two groups planning to vote Reform are disillusioned tories and those who defected from Labour in the last few years. I would add to that those who do not normally vote but voted for Brexit but have no evidence of this past personal anecdote.

Well the Blackpool South by-election is considered to be the best chance for Reform to gain an MP, with it being said that if they can't win there they probably can't win anywhere.

The constituency is described as having an unusually high proportion of white, male, poorly educated over 60's.

Aka voters

Sanctimonious, conceited garbage.

I hope the Reform candidate is elected. At least it’ll a few pompous t***s here & elsewhere something to think about.

White, working class males being able to think for themselves. Who’d have thought it?

Why is it sanctimonious, conceited garbage?

In analysis of Brexit voting patterns there, the biggest single motivator for voting Leave was low educational attainment...

1. With all other things being equal, people who left school with GCSEs or below were 30% more likely to vote Leave than those with A levels or above.

2. Age was the second highest factor, with those aged over 65 20% more likely to vote Leave than those aged 25.

3. Oddly, income was only third, with households on less than £20k only 10% more likely to vote leave than those on £60k or more.

4. In addition to the individual motivators, in low-skilled areas all demographics were more likely to vote Leave than their peers in high-skilled areas.

5. Gender is less of an issue, but even so, the Leave vote was 55/45 for men and 49/51 for women.

There's nothing sanctimonious, conceited or judgemental in any of that. Those are just observed facts, and I don't think there's anything sanctimonious or conceited in saying that they are likely good indicators of how satisfied someone is likely to be with their lot in life. It's certainly not sanctimonious or conceited to suggest that people are more likely to vote for any sort of change if they're less satisfied with their lives than those who are more satisfied?

Of course not everyone who votes Reform will fit precisely the same demographics as people who voted Leave, but I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest there will be a reasonably close correlation? As such, if Blackpool South does have an unusually high proportion of older, poorer, less educated men, then it's reasonable to suggest that it's more likely to vote Reform, surely?

[Kermit power]

Vanden Saab said:

smn159 said:

bad company said:

Vanden Saab said:

smn159 said:

Vanden Saab said:

The work was done on this, the two groups planning to vote Reform are disillusioned tories and those who defected from Labour in the last few years. I would add to that those who do not normally vote but voted for Brexit but have no evidence of this past personal anecdote.

Well the Blackpool South by-election is considered to be the best chance for Reform to gain an MP, with it being said that if they can't win there they probably can't win anywhere.

The constituency is described as having an unusually high proportion of white, male, poorly educated over 60's.

Aka voters

Sanctimonious, conceited garbage.

Not sure why a description of the demographic that Reform appeals to offends you

Because your description of them as poorly educated is bks. You know that but keep repeating it. Put a 60 year old up against a 21 year old in a basic education test and the 60 year old will piss all over your university student. Only 10% of people went to university in the 70s compared to today it is a really poor marker of education level.

Even if that's true, it's not relevant.

In the census and elsewhere, educational attainment is recorded based on GCSE or below, A level, bachelors degree and postgraduate qualifications.

A 60yr old who left school with a handful of CSEs may well have more common sense than a 25yr old PhD, but when it comes to analysis based on population demographics, they're still going to be viewed as a person with GCSE or below qualifications.

That may not be fair, but what else do you expect people to use instead? There are of course metrics for age, wealth, marital status, property ownership and a host of others besides, but educational attainment will always be one of them.

[Kermit power]

Dagnir said:

Kermit power said:

How do you square that view with the fact that the average prison sentence in England & Wales increased from 11.4 months in 2000 to 22.6 months in 2022?

Could be many reasons.

Less space for petty criminals.

They're being lenient as they know we're over crowded.

Perhaps there's been sudden a change in the types of crimes being committed.



Seems a strange and fairly empty point to make, as there's simply too much we don't know.

You're reading it the wrong way around.

In a world where lots of people on the populist end of politics love to moan about the fact that the courts have gone soft and nobody gets a proper jail sentence anymore, average sentences have nearly doubled over the past two decades.

[Kermit power]

Vanden Saab said:

Kermit power said:

Why is it sanctimonious, conceited garbage?

In analysis of Brexit voting patterns there, the biggest single motivator for voting Leave was low educational attainment...

1. With all other things being equal, people who left school with GCSEs or below were 30% more likely to vote Leave than those with A levels or above.

2. Age was the second highest factor, with those aged over 65 20% more likely to vote Leave than those aged 25.

3. Oddly, income was only third, with households on less than £20k only 10% more likely to vote leave than those on £60k or more.

4. In addition to the individual motivators, in low-skilled areas all demographics were more likely to vote Leave than their peers in high-skilled areas.

5. Gender is less of an issue, but even so, the Leave vote was 55/45 for men and 49/51 for women.

There's nothing sanctimonious, conceited or judgemental in any of that. Those are just observed facts, and I don't think there's anything sanctimonious or conceited in saying that they are likely good indicators of how satisfied someone is likely to be with their lot in life. It's certainly not sanctimonious or conceited to suggest that people are more likely to vote for any sort of change if they're less satisfied with their lives than those who are more satisfied?

Of course not everyone who votes Reform will fit precisely the same demographics as people who voted Leave, but I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest there will be a reasonably close correlation? As such, if Blackpool South does have an unusually high proportion of older, poorer, less educated men, then it's reasonable to suggest that it's more likely to vote Reform, surely?

90% of the country left school with GCEs or lower in the 70s. Not sure why with your higher educational attainment you cannot understand this.. a degree in modern dance does not mean you are better educated.
Many people went to tech colleges and passed vocational qualifications which were of at least the level that would be university standard now and yet are ignored in your assumption of educational standards.
Amusingly you think it is odd that older people without a modern degree actually earn good money. May be have a little think about why this is in relation to what I have pointed out about education.

That's a rather strange reaction? Let's remember that this whole line of discussion started from a simple observation that Reform were most likely to win in a constituency with a higher than average proportion of poorly educated older white men.

1. Do you agree that the demographic most likely to have voted Leave in the Brexit referendum was (regardless of any judgment people might or might not make at the definitions) older, less educated white men?

2. Do you agree that it is reasonable to assume that support for Reform - formerly the Brexit Party - is likely to come from the more committed end of the Leave spectrum?

If you've said No to either of the above I'd be interested to hear your reasoning. If you've said Yes to both, then surely it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw that the original statement was correct?

You can argue all you want about whether or not it is fair to treat school leavers without A Levels in the Seventies in the same light as you would those who left in the 90s or today without them and I would be in full agreement with you, but that still doesn't change the fact that that is the way they were recorded, and that people recorded in that way were more likely to have voted Leave.

[Kermit power]

Dagnir said:

Kermit power said:

You're reading it the wrong way around.

In a world where lots of people on the populist end of politics love to moan about the fact that the courts have gone soft and nobody gets a proper jail sentence anymore, average sentences have nearly doubled over the past two decades.

Unless you're comparing similar crimes and sentences this isnt particularly useful information.....

That is comparing all sentences for all crimes. Do you think the makeup of crime in the country has changed that significantly over the past two decades?

[Kermit power]

turbobloke said:

Kermit power said:

In a world where lots of people on the populist end of politics love to moan about the fact that the courts have gone soft and nobody gets a proper jail sentence anymore, average sentences have nearly doubled over the past two decades.

Just checking...

Populist, does that refer to politics more likely to be voted for, i.e. democracy in action?

As opposed to the unpopular politics espoused by some politicians who think they know best and therefore what should be forced on the people, i.e. arrogance and not democracy?

Politicians don't know better, not by a long expenses claim form.

The sort of politics where politicians whip the electorate with popular trigger-point slogans and promises without substance. The sort governed by soundbites which generally work through telling people someone else is to blame for their problems.

I know it's generally viewed as right wing, but to my mind the first I ever saw of it was from the likes of the Socialist Workers at Uni, so I'm not sure why it does get pigeonholed that way. Maybe because most Western nations now have both in and out of work benefit schemes which suffice to placate those who might otherwise fall under the spell of far left populists?

[Kermit power]

Pan Pan Pan said:

heebeegeetee said:

swisstoni said:

Have more Britons died at the hands of Islamists or Russians in the last, say, 20 years?

As tragic as any death is, you're in the science of very low numbers there. Certainly a lot more Muslims have dies at the hands of the British Army, and they weren't exactly defending their homeland, so I'm not sure who poses the biggest threat to who.

More Muslims have died at the hands of other Muslims, than at the hands of any other nation.

Not that I can see how it's relevant to this post, firstly "Muslim" isn't a nation, it's around 25% of the global population, and as many of them live close to each other, it's hardly any great surprise that they've frequently been to war with each other over the centuries, just like us Europeans.

I would imagine the only global religion who haven't killed more of their own than anyone else are the Jews?

[Kermit power]

Timothy Bucktu said:

Fair point. How would you describe yourself?
Google recons...
Generally, the left wing is characterized by an emphasis on "ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism" while the right wing is characterized by an emphasis on "notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism".
I must say I think they have 'ideas such as freedom' and 'notions such as authority' around the wrong way? Seems 'reform' is a left wing ideology too...figures
Along with that quick Google...I also did the first (US centric) quiz that appeared https://www.politicalpersonality.org/test/
Apparently I'm a...

'Freedom Steward
You are an independent spirit who champions individual autonomy.
Freedom Stewards value privacy, autonomy, and are generally distrustful of the political order. You feel that the world would be better off if people just took care of themselves and didn’t rely on government institutions. You prefer to keep to yourself, rather than engage in public political campaigns. Generally a hard worker, you pave your own way and just want the government to stay out of it.'

So there you are. Quite accurate actually.

That American test is barking mad!

Despite strongly disagreeing with "I do everything I can to protect traditional religious values." and "Abortion should be illegal in the US.", by providing my best Trumpite answers elsewhere, I managed to get it to say that my single most important priority was "Religious Fundamentals - promoting and protecting religious values"!

[Kermit power]

Olivera said:

Indeed. With regard to the statement "The Tories are far right immigrant bashing xenophobes"

For:

A vacuous and ineffective Rwanda policy

Against:

Record high net immigration figures that are unprecedented in modern British history
A huge number of Ukrainian refugees fleeing war
A huge number of Hong Kong refugees fleeing persecution
A record number of non EU migrants
Vast numbers of students bringing in dependents
A complete collapse in deportation figures
An exceedingly liberal points based immigration system that doesn't require the job to be advertised in the UK, nor pay anything more than almost the minimum wage

On the whole the Tories have presided over an incredibly liberal immigration system, the complete opposite to vacuous Rwanda policy rhetoric.

I'd suggest this showcases the difference between Reform ideology - WE don't want dodgy foreigners coming here - and cynical Tory attempts to manipulate their core base into believing that they share that ideology.

In truth, the Conservatives aren't stupid. They know full well that the country will collapse without mass immigration, but they cannot really do anything to change that fact.

Fair play to Bojo, he has at least done his level best to singlehandedly solve the ageing population problem by impregnating as many different women as he can as often as he can, but it's just not a battle he can win on his own! The number of working age adults per pensioner has more than halved since 1950, and a further million more people will reach State retirement age in the next 15 years than there will be children entering the workforce to replace them.

That problem is compounded by people's massive opposition to being told they're going to have to work for longer. Just look at the WASPI women whining about the fact that they're now only being paid a state pension for an average of 3.5 years more than men rather than the 8.5 years they previously had, and imagine what would happen at the next GE to the government telling everyone they have to work for 5 more years?

On top of that, whilst we're all living longer and refusing to retire later, one of the reasons for that - the fact that we're generally not living healthily for longer - just compounds the problem further by further increasing the per capita demands on the NHS and the care sector.

So, if you're a Conservative government, how do you attempt to square away the fact that on the one hand you'll be voted out of office if you keep bringing in immigrants whilst on the other hand you'll be voted out of office if you stop bringing immigrants in?

Simples! You just do everything you can to demonise one particular small subset of immigrants so that you can address your first problem by publicly putting them through hell to showcase how hard you are on immigration whilst at the same time quietly bringing in loads of legal immigrants to make sure you don't get voted out because the wheels have fallen off the country.

All those millions spent on housing asylum seekers in 4 star hotels whilst we valiantly try to clear the backlog of processing their claims? We could just process their claims instead as there really aren't all that many of them, but that wouldn't make for good coverage when you do eventually start shipping a tiny fraction of them off to an African sthole. We could also let them work whilst they're having their claims processed, but same reason applies.

Unfortunately for them, the best they could come up with was their batst crazy Rwanda plan which has quite rightly not gone anywhere. They're not really being punished for not being xenophobic enough, they're being punished for being so supremely incompetent at appearing to be xenophobic that they've completely failed to persuade people not to look at the stream of completely necessary legal migration!

As a final aside, you've also touched on one of the other issues where they've somehow managed to fail supremely, which is in allowing the value of an immigrant to be based on their income rather than their output.

If you bring in an immigrant to work as a nursery nurse or a care home assistant, for example, why on earth would you measure their value to society by the minimum wage salary they earn rather than by the opportunity value of the half dozen parents who can go back to work because they've now managed to secure some affordable childcare, or those who can do likewise because they're not having to give up work to care for an elderly parent?

[Kermit power]

Elysium said:

This is such a weird discussion.

Those on the left seem to be the most agitated about people voting Reform, when they should actually be delighted.

By splitting the Conservative vote Reform are guaranteeing a Labour victory. But somehow people still can’t cope with their existence.

The weird thing to me is the way in which the supposed dividing line of left vs right seems to have morphed.

Reform are almost the polar opposite of my own views. I'm economically right wing and socially very liberal, which is something the Tory party used to do very well until they were dragged into this self-anihillating death spiral by Reform.

Their approach to immigration certainly isn't right wing! That sort of "we don't want foreigners coming over here taking our jobs" rhetoric is classic left wing populism. Traditional right wing economic doctrine would be all in favour of cheap labour coming in to help grow the economy, and the typical traditional Tory middle class voter would've often been more socially liberal too.

I think you can make a strong argument for placing the beginnings of this schism squarely at the feet of Baroness Thatcher. Her economic policies - with Right To Buy firmly front and centre - causes whole swathes of the traditionally Labour-voting Essex Man demographic to swing over to the Conservatives, and tribalism, combined with a complete lack of even the most fundamental interest in actual politics and policy (see that Ashtead poll last week showing that 18% of people couldn't name a single political news item from that week) has kept them there ever since, even though it is not their spiritual home.

We all know that the rise of Reform has come about as a result of a sense of complete disaffectation and disenfranchisement in the current political landscape, and I'd argue that this is why. Thatcher did such a good job of converting large numbers of traditional Labour voters in the South East in particular that Labour had to not only shift their economic policy to the centre, but also had to start targeting the more middle class, socially liberal voter to regain power.

As a result of this, I'd suggest that traditional supporters of both Labour and the Conservatives have seen their true spiritual homes taken from them, and Reform is largely the modern day incarnation of where the Labour Party would be had it not been for the conversion of Essex Man.