Reform candidates didn't want to win....

HarryVegas said:
Labour needs to smarten up and quick. Though I hated Alastair Campbell's involvement in the Iraq invasion and especially its whitewash, I do agree with his recent statement that it's now up to the government to take them on head-on and take their lies apart in a much more immediate and effective fashion than they've managed so far.
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Said previously, oh for an Alastair Campbell in this Govt, warts n all.
 
Frozen Horse said:
Reform technically wasn't formed until over 2 years after the referendum.
Johnson kept Farage out of the official leave campaign: this meant Farage could play the race card from the sidelines while Johnson could use him while seeming to keep his hands clean of all that.
Reform also had no say in negotiations.

Plus lots of others fools thought Brexit was a good idea.

Brexit has been a disaster and always looked like it would be, but it is not all on Reform. The performance of the councils will be on them, and them alone
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Johnson was a very significant supporter of Vote Leave, very possibly the one that gave it the credibility to tip it over the edge, but to suggest that the vacillating buffoon was ever in a position to be that instrumental in its structure, and to run some Machiavellian sidebar with Farage, is to give him too much credit.

Cummings, perhaps. Although even then I think he was the recipient of good fortune rather than elaborate plotting in this regard. But Johnson’s role in Brexit was just that of a chancer.
 
HolgateCorner said:
I know Farage and Reform are a national problem with their far right extremism but I still don’t think they will attract the Labour core vote.

I’m Labour and I would vote tactically for a moderate Tory Party to keep Reform out.

And I’ve never voted Tory in my life that’s how anti Reform I feel.
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Not only will they, they have. Reform didn’t win Durham by cornering the residual Tory vote. There basically isn’t one. They won Durham on the back of former Labour voters. Generational Labour voters who feel that the centre right urban elite party it has become offers them nothing. And who are probably right to feel that, even if they are wrong in where they have gone instead.
 
There are an awful lot of former Labour voting areas where the voters are lost to Labour for a generation or more. We all need to be seriously worried by this as it truly leaves the door open to Reform, who continuously prey upon the concerns of those voters.

Those concerns have to be addressed, and in the right way. Calling people who vote for Reform thick, uneducated, racist, all the the other insults, gets those doing the shouting nothing apart from their own self congratulations.

No idea what the answer is, but if taking the **** out of someone’s grammar is the best people have got then prepare for an utter ***show in 4 years time.
 
Subbuteo_171 said:
There are an awful lot of former Labour voting areas where the voters are lost to Labour for a generation or more. We all need to be seriously worried by this as it truly leaves the door open to Reform, who continuously prey upon the concerns of those voters.

Those concerns have to be addressed, and in the right way. Calling people who vote for Reform thick, uneducated, racist, all the the other insults, gets those doing the shouting nothing apart from their own self congratulations.

No idea what the answer is, but if taking the **** out of someone’s grammar is the best people have got then prepare for an utter ***show in 4 years time.
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The grammar isn’t the issue, the content is.
 
Subbuteo_171 said:
How do you tackle it then, a lot of what I see on here and other social media remains sneering condescension.
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I don’t know, but I’ve given up. It’s very hard to discuss complex things with simple people. Just go round and round in circles and at some point you just have to give in and accept they are just thick as **** and they can’t be educated on certain matters because their own prejudices cloud their judgement to the extent that they will completely miss what their own eyes should be seeing. It’s utterly soul destroying, especially when that pied piper Farage is leading them all off a cliff again, as if his years of lies and promises regarding Brexit never happened.

Edit - I should add that I used to argue the same thing, that labelling them as thick was counterproductive and the gentle approach with facts and information and reality was the way to go, but it’s not worked for anyone really. I used to think they were victims too, and I had sympathy for them because they were voting against their own best interests. Now I’m just angry at their stupidity because they are voting against my best interests too, and there is **** all I or anyone else can do about it, seemingly.
Hopefully the incompetence of the charlatans will be outed now they have a few councillors and Mayors, and it will make people realise these grifters are not the answer to anything at all.
 
FabioPorkpie said:
I don’t know, but I’ve given up. It’s very hard to discuss complex things with simple people. Just go round and round in circles and at some point you just have to give in and accept they are just thick as **** and they can’t be educated on certain matters because their own prejudices cloud their judgement to the extent that they will completely miss what their own eyes should be seeing. It’s utterly soul destroying, especially when that pied piper Farage is leading them all off a cliff again, as if his years of lies and promises regarding Brexit never happened.
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Therein lies the problem.

Simple
Thick as ****
Can’t be educated
Own prejudices

Maybe a different approach is needed,
 
Subbuteo_171 said:
Therein lies the problem.

Simple
Thick as ****
Can’t be educated
Own prejudices

Maybe a different approach is needed,
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While the insults aren't helpful, he's not wrong about the bottom 2 is he?

In any case I don't think Labour or Tories or any other party call reform voters thick.

Other members of the public do but that's not the problem, not really. It's just a convenient excuse when it all goes wrong for them.

"oh it's your fault I voted brexit, you called me thick". Aside from the fact that voting a certain way because you'd be called thick, is pretty much the definition of being thick. They are being called thick because they already intend to vote a certain way and have no intention of changing their mind. Chicken and egg isn't it?

No, the problem is we have a media who either by intent or ineptitude give credibility to what should be a fringe party and completely fail to hold them (particularly Farage) to account.

He should be ripped apart by any half competent journalist every time he opens his mouth. It either doesn't happen, or on the rare occasions it does it gets buried.

You're not going to talk anyone round, insults or not, if the mainstream media keep framing them as credible, serious politicians when they're anything but.
 
festa5 said:
While the insults aren't helpful, he's not wrong about the bottom 2 is he?

In any case I don't think Labour or Tories or any other party call reform voters thick.

Other members of the public do but that's not the problem, not really. It's just a convenient excuse when it all goes wrong for them.

"oh it's your fault I voted brexit, you called me thick". Aside from the fact that voting a certain way because you'd be called thick, is pretty much the definition of being thick. They are being called thick because they already intend to vote a certain way and have no intention of changing their mind. Chicken and egg isn't it?

No, the problem is we have a media who either by intent or ineptitude give credibility to what should be a fringe party and completely fail to hold them (particularly Farage) to account.

He should be ripped apart by any half competent journalist every time he opens his mouth. It either doesn't happen, or on the rare occasions it does it gets buried.

You're not going to talk anyone round, insults or not, if the mainstream media keep framing them as credible, serious politicians when they're anything but.
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The media want a right wing government, they are hedging their bets with Farage in case he can somehow manipulate his way to being leader of the Tories and beat Labour.
 
FishofContemplation said:
Not only will they, they have. Reform didn’t win Durham by cornering the residual Tory vote. There basically isn’t one. They won Durham on the back of former Labour voters. Generational Labour voters who feel that the centre right urban elite party it has become offers them nothing. And who are probably right to feel that, even if they are wrong in where they have gone instead.
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I don’t think anybody can ever be sure where the votes come from or don’t come from in any type of election and in particular nobody should assume places like Durham were unanimously Labour in the industrial past. It is a very rural place full of small towns, the mines are long gone.

Low turnout, tactical voting, abstentions, the 30% who normally don’t bother, the protest element because of a benefits cut or an inheritance tax grudge, can all play a part.

I think a lot turning to Reform just now are anti immigrant natural Tory voters.
 
Nero said:
Anyone voting Reform is frankly an idiot. No doubt the same that stupidly voted to leave the EU as well.
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I agree it’s not helpful calling the electorate idiots, but this is undoubtably true

People who have no idea how councils/businesses work voting for councillors based on them stopping the boats, stopping woke is just remarkable.
When these councils inevitably fail, reform will put the blame on central government and the voters will believe that as well.

Their first few days running councils was focused on cutting woke jobs, stopping working from home and flags. Scary that if they win the election it will be a big extension of that. Anyone voting for this is a complete idiot
 
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