People are suspicious of Farage, you only have to look at the data, people don't trust him. A general election is not going to be fought on small boats - yes, it may have an impact, but the crux of it comes down to the economy and the NHS too. Farage & Reform have obviously got a large backing of the same people who fund MAGA, but the UK is also quite culturally different to the US in some ascpetcs.. namely tradition and moral compass. You also have this weird line where Farage is not a total crankpot, but he needs the crankpots. Being able to discipline and govern a party of chancers is going to be impossible. I've no doubt if they did not implode themselves, they'd be so unpopular within a year they'd be struggling.

It's easy for Reform at the moment, bu Farage flaps under pressure. Journalists have him on toast most of the time. I understand the appeal of Farage, similarly to Trump - it's all populism at the end of the day. I can understand why people are attracted to vote for someone who says they will make their life better. Unfortunatley people are far too easily manipulated, but you can understand it when people don't feel their living conditions change.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/08/reform-uk-would-axe-any-high-speed-northern-rail-schemes-says-richard-tice

Another dimension by which Reform is actively ruining the country, making it harder for the government to operate and actually deliver change by saying that they'd axe long-term infrastructure projects, reducing confidence for businesses to sign up.

Talking the country down to gain power.

Farage really is this generations Oswald Mosley, no doubt about it, there’s so many comparisons in history!

17 hours ago, My Random Music said:

Yes the media do play their part and in the case of the EU referendum the issue was most sources were just telling you which way to vote rather than present the pros and cons of both sides. At the end of the day nobody is right or wrong to vote for any party. Yes I have my own views and opinions on things but nobody is going to tell me how to vote and I'm never going to tell anyone else how to vote and I'm certainly not going to judge somebody for voting for a party I'm not going to vote for.

This paragraph is essentially arguing for the cessation of political persuasion. There are entire shedloads of money from parties, media, and shadier sources that is dedicated to this cause in one way or another, persuading voters to vote for whoever makes those with more power to do this the most money. You cannot escape it, and the entire point of conversations like these depends upon political persuasion, otherwise what are we doing here?

Your views and opinions are not divinely conceived, they have been shaped by your thoughts and experiences, and in the realm of who you support politically, who you think is best at representing you. Reform are currently presenting themselves as that to a large number of people, though evidence that they are the best representative for people on any subject is non-existent, whether through their lack of competence or the destructive nature of their policies.

No, I'm not going to tell people what to vote for, but I'm going to continue to very strongly hint and persuade that they should not be voting for Reform politicians champing at the bit to tell you how they'd make the country worse. And I will judge if they harden their hearts against all that evidence and vote for them anyway.

I wonder @Iz 🌟 what you think about my perspective that for Reform, much like for the Republican party in America, their campaign at the minute is purely game theory based?

That is. They've got it down to brass tacks that: immigration is the most emotive issue in the UK. Immigration can be contrived to be blamed for enough ills altogether that a plurality of people will probably vote for a single-issue party that claims to curtail immigration. That plurality is enough to win a majority in first-past-the-post out of a split vote; and; there's no mechanism once they're in by which they can meaningfully be held to account for actually achieving any of what they claim to be motivated by on their way to getting a foot in the door.

Therefore, in pure terms, they've distilled the process of running for election down to: in order to win we need about X votes. How do we get X votes and no more? What single issue can we run on in order to get those X votes by hook or by crook?

Strategically, I can't knock it.

30 minutes ago, J00prstar said:

I wonder @Iz 🌟 what you think about my perspective that for Reform, much like for the Republican party in America, their campaign at the minute is purely game theory based?

That is. They've got it down to brass tacks that: immigration is the most emotive issue in the UK. Immigration can be contrived to be blamed for enough ills altogether that a plurality of people will probably vote for a single-issue party that claims to curtail immigration. That plurality is enough to win a majority in first-past-the-post out of a split vote; and; there's no mechanism once they're in by which they can meaningfully be held to account for actually achieving any of what they claim to be motivated by on their way to getting a foot in the door.

Therefore, in pure terms, they've distilled the process of running for election down to: in order to win we need about X votes. How do we get X votes and no more? What single issue can we run on in order to get those X votes by hook or by crook?

Strategically, I can't knock it.

Completely agree. The talking down of big infrastructure projects that Labour are doing or are considering, northern transport as above, or the renewable energy projects Miliband is spearheading, saying that Reform would cancel them 'when they get in government' is a perfect example of this. Now that they have apparent legitimacy through the polls, they can present themselves as the incoming government, making it harder for Labour to get long-term backing for these plans, and help their cause by stymieing the very long-term plans that Labour needs to complete and set in motion in order for voters to feel better. I called after the election when FindOutNow started showing them ahead of the average in polls and could launch each new poll with 'new Reform high' that this was the strategy.

Immigration as you say, the most emotive issue, certainly not the most salient, but the easiest to contrive to manipulate people, and very hard to solve. A wide-appealing issue too. Taps into 'the mood' of the country. Partly self-created of course, but the political strategy is good. Now where it will stumble is that their communicators are gaffe-prone incompetents, because they are. Unfortunately, as we've seen with Trumpism, at a certain point, voters are not critical enough if their emotive issue is being shouted about the loudest.

I know very well the sort of money political parties put into their campaigns to get people to vote for them at the elections and yes there are obviously external factors that help us form our opinions. The issue I had in the example of the EU referendum was that those who wanted to remain would say everything about remaining is good and everything about leaving is bad, and vice versa. I never once heard anyone in the media say what the pros and cons were for both sides.

A lot of what I'm reading on here is that Reform voters are stupid, deserve no respect, they're being conned, they don't know what they're voting for, they're racist and only want to stop immigration. I completely agree that you can't tar all immigrants with the same brush but at the same time you can't tar all Reform voters with the same brush either.

On the subject of transport infrastructure projects, if there was a proposed project that meant demolishing my home to make way for a railway line and just 1 party proposed to scrap the project then that party would almost be guaranteed my vote regardless of who they are.

Reform haven’t exactly hidden who and what they are very well. Reform voters either know the evil they’re voting for and are ok with it or they’re not intelligent enough to work it out. Whatever excuse they have, they’re not the good guys. It’s been explained why so much in here. Not our problem if you can’t see it.

9 hours ago, My Random Music said:

I know very well the sort of money political parties put into their campaigns to get people to vote for them at the elections and yes there are obviously external factors that help us form our opinions. The issue I had in the example of the EU referendum was that those who wanted to remain would say everything about remaining is good and everything about leaving is bad, and vice versa. I never once heard anyone in the media say what the pros and cons were for both sides.

A lot of what I'm reading on here is that Reform voters are stupid, deserve no respect, they're being conned, they don't know what they're voting for, they're racist and only want to stop immigration. I completely agree that you can't tar all immigrants with the same brush but at the same time you can't tar all Reform voters with the same brush either.

On the subject of transport infrastructure projects, if there was a proposed project that meant demolishing my home to make way for a railway line and just 1 party proposed to scrap the project then that party would almost be guaranteed my vote regardless of who they are.

Fair bit of blinkered experience you admit to in that post there. To quickly go through them, there were absolutely media attempting to explain a 'balanced' view at the time of the referendum, your political opinions generally show pretty clearly what type of person you are in a way your immigration status does not, and it is really curious that you would make up a person whose house is destroyed by a large infrastructure project and sympathise with them when no one ever mentioned that as an issue (plus where they exist these small amounts of people get compensation) and the amount of people who massively benefit from infrastructure projects being completed is a number of orders of magnitude larger.

There's a difference between the Reform party and a Reform voter. Like I said you generally have a choice of 5 parties to vote for and for some none of those options are appealing. If you think Reform are evil then fine, but one may think all 5 options are evil and see Reform as picking their poison. Doesn't make them evil too.

I've not once stated what my political opinions are. You're just making assumptions about me.

To quote part of your previous post "The talking down of big infrastructure projects that Labour are doing or are considering, northern transport as above", I'm saying that there are transport projects where people have their homes destroyed to build a train line and it's quite possible somebody affected would vote for Reform for that reason alone.

I mean, I implied there were evil OR stupid. Many are possibly both.

If you’ve decided none of the parties work for you and still vote reform, you’re either quite thick or genuinely a bit racist. You know what the party stands for, you endorse it, you’re just as bad.

It’s like a couple of years ago when we had the furore about Ella Henderson performing at the Tory conference and people in here whinging about ‘not all Tories are bad people!!!1!’ That might have been historically accurate but at that point in history, the party were so outwardly bad people that voting for them clearly meant that you endorsed their awful values.

You say you haven’t stated your political opinions but they’re basically screaming at us. There’s literally no way anyone would come in and defend Reform/their supporters unless they were one themselves.

As for me, I’m done being polite to the far right.

very funny to see people want us to show tolerance towards reform voters 🤣 they know what they sign up for 🙄

I don’t know, I find some of this rhetoric really unhelpful myself. First of all, it’s important to respect views.

There are loads of people who will vote Reform because they’re bigots, racists, homophobic, anti-establishment (lol), or just a general nutter. But you will have many people who will Reform who may just be mis-informed. The two things can both be correct.

The whole idea of these culture wars is to get people to pick aside. It’s why they are so dangerous, as normal people not affiliated to any major view then come on board and get forced to pick a side or view which can be heavily manipulated.

My biggest takeaway is there are millions of people who may be persuaded to vote Reform who can may not actually vote Reform. The key is to address it not from a racist or dismissive tone, but a point of understanding. I can categorically state people’s lives will be far more shitter then they realise if Reform get in to power for example.

7 hours ago, My Random Music said:

There's a difference between the Reform party and a Reform voter. Like I said you generally have a choice of 5 parties to vote for and for some none of those options are appealing. If you think Reform are evil then fine, but one may think all 5 options are evil and see Reform as picking their poison. Doesn't make them evil too.

I've not once stated what my political opinions are. You're just making assumptions about me.

To quote part of your previous post "The talking down of big infrastructure projects that Labour are doing or are considering, northern transport as above", I'm saying that there are transport projects where people have their homes destroyed to build a train line and it's quite possible somebody affected would vote for Reform for that reason alone.

For what its worth i agree with your last two pgphs

idk. I find it quite a challenge to have any level of respect for a homophobe tbh. Bigots don’t deserve respect and don’t deserve a platform to spread their hate.

the bbc has a lot to answer for. They have for years given a platform to these hateful bigots that has legitimised and normalised their hatred and backwards views.

We need to go back to bigots being scared, we were a better society back then

10 hours ago, My Random Music said:

There's a difference between the Reform party and a Reform voter. Like I said you generally have a choice of 5 parties to vote for and for some none of those options are appealing. If you think Reform are evil then fine, but one may think all 5 options are evil and see Reform as picking their poison. Doesn't make them evil too.

I've not once stated what my political opinions are. You're just making assumptions about me.

To quote part of your previous post "The talking down of big infrastructure projects that Labour are doing or are considering, northern transport as above", I'm saying that there are transport projects where people have their homes destroyed to build a train line and it's quite possible somebody affected would vote for Reform for that reason alone.

But as I was saying the literal tens (at most) of people who this affects aren't worth bringing up out of nowhere. 'Won't someone think of the landowners who are being compensated with public money' isn't a huge voting bloc worth NIMBY-ing huge public transport upgrades that affect the whole country over and Labour should rightly ignore them.

More broadly, I have no wish to villainise voters, it's the politicians who are really doing evil things, not them, but there is a certain subset of voters who know what the politicians they vote for will do and are willingly and selfishly enabling right-wing populists across the world. Sure, some don't know any better, but the ones who do are effectively lost as far as persuasion and talking to them goes - and as T Boy alludes to, they're very easy to tell apart in online conversations like this, I would be shocked if My Random Music were a supporter of any other party - though I can't quite tell if there's hope for them yet.

7 hours ago, T Boy said:

I mean, I implied there were evil OR stupid. Many are possibly both.

If you’ve decided none of the parties work for you and still vote reform, you’re either quite thick or genuinely a bit racist. You know what the party stands for, you endorse it, you’re just as bad.

It’s like a couple of years ago when we had the furore about Ella Henderson performing at the Tory conference and people in here whinging about ‘not all Tories are bad people!!!1!’ That might have been historically accurate but at that point in history, the party were so outwardly bad people that voting for them clearly meant that you endorsed their awful values.

You say you haven’t stated your political opinions but they’re basically screaming at us. There’s literally no way anyone would come in and defend Reform/their supporters unless they were one themselves.

As for me, I’m done being polite to the far right.

Let me get this straight, you think Tory voters are also evil or stupid? If so then combined with Reform voters that's 11 million voters, or nearly a quarter of all people eligible to vote.

I can't see anywhere I have defended Reform themselves. I don't see how merely stating there are Reform voters who are decent human beings means my political opinions are screaming at you.

You’re great at putting words into my mouth, aren’t you?

The evil and stupid I referred to was the reform voters. And yeah, actually, it kind of applies to anyone voting Tories at the last election too as their values and policies were damaging.

11 million people at the very least would be below average intelligence though if you think about it. It’s how averages work.

Yes you haven’t actually stated you support Reform but you’re heavily critical of posters here who have no time for bigotry. I’m not sure why me giving my opinion on reform supporters is rankling you so if you really aren’t one?

Perhaps this is your chance to put that issue to bed and declare which party it is that you’re backing?

3 hours ago, Silas said:

idk. I find it quite a challenge to have any level of respect for a homophobe tbh. Bigots don’t deserve respect and don’t deserve a platform to spread their hate.

the bbc has a lot to answer for. They have for years given a platform to these hateful bigots that has legitimised and normalised their hatred and backwards views.

We need to go back to bigots being scared, we were a better society back then

I also tend to agree, but, I think in SOME instances its a language block and we don't necessarily disagree as much as we might be talking past each other.

I still argue online about immigration. But just because I'm not racist doesn't necessarily mean I don't think there are things that can be improved in the current system. The trouble that I see is just like in Thatchers first go round: selling off or cutting services that played a necessary function to prevent something becoming an issue; for short term financial gain that would ASSUREDLY create future problems.

How is "making the streets safer for women & girls" working out?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/12/alleged-rape-sikh-woman-west-midlands-hate-crime

Detectives are hunting for two white male suspects alleged to have racially abused the woman during the assault in broad daylight.