Indeed, but when do people actually ever vote on local issues ? Most folk you speak to will cite wider national issues when voting, rather than whether their local library will close.
I don't think the two are exclusive, they can be a protest party and still get plenty of votes to win more MPs. They cash in on people's fears and frustrations, which is well played copybook, but it works. When you actually look at what Reform stand for, they are the enemy of the working class, but playing on fears about immigration and blaming migrants for crumbling NHS, lack of schools, GP appts, poor housing etc etc is something that always chimes with those who aren't well off.
I thought the reality of seeing how Trump is behaving would turn many voters away from Reform. It doesn’t seem to have had any noticeable effect, though. There’s not a political party that I would vote for, atm. I think they’re all shocking.
I think you only have to look at the US to see that Reform could do well. Farage is exactly the same as Trump in that he takes peoples concerns and amplifies them to fit his agenda. I saw Farage on the box this morning and the first thing he mentioned was immigration. The sad reality is that he doesn’t have a clue how to solve it. If there was this golden bullet, I’m pretty sure it would have already been implemented.
That’s not what I meant, mate. I don’t think they’re temporarily peaking anymore. It has a feeling that they’re here to stay, now.
Yeah for now they are. I think they'll implode at some point, and the chameleon that is Farage will go on to something else. He'll probs replace JD Vance when Trump eventually falls out with him or sumink
I genuinely believe that no party is fit for the modern world and would like to see a new party that actually understands the 24hr / 7 day a week world we now live in. All the dressing up for the opening of parliament might be good for tourism, but to me it shows how entrenched we are in the world of yesterday, which has no bearing on modern life. If a reform type party (not this charade that Farage wants it to be) was to form, I think it would be the party of choice in this country for the next generation.
Reform will be relevant as long as Farage wants them to be to put it bluntly. They were always going to do well against a Tory collapse in these elections. Like I said earlier, think the Liberals will do well in many Tory areas today as well
Yep. There’s never been a better time for a new party to come in and clean up. We just want a genuine centre party but I’m not sure there’s such a thing.
I agree. The Tories were starting from probably one of the strongest ever number of councillors they’ve had. They were always going to lose at least half of them. It’s the Labour areas you need to be taking over, that would show genuine breakthroughs.
The Greens are my least favourite party now. Made the choice to stop being a party about green issues with a token seat in Brighton and start being the home of all sorts of cranks with a whole range of abhorrent views to maybe one day get to double figures. She also just looks and sounds incredibly annoying and the bloke who she leads with is wetter than lettuce soup.
It has to come from outside the establishment, but harder said than done. One of the reasons I don’t mind unions going after companies for better pay and conditions is that my belief is change will only come when people are emboldened to do so. Being financially secure, makes a huge difference to people’s mindset IMHO.
