Changed my mind about voting for Reform uk

Dinahmo

Why do some on here state that they do not trust Labour? If it's because of their parliamentary track record there's little that they can do because they are the minority party and their opinion makes little difference to whatever the Tories are proposing.

I’m quite tired of hearing all the opposition parties criticised for “doing nothing” Johnston got in with a big majority, very little any opposition parties can do other than vote and challenge.

Starmer is clearly a centralist left winger.

If it’s the economy and spending then I don’t think we have much to fear there either.

Dinahmo, Of course we know that Labour can do nothing at the moment, but Labour has a track record of being inclined to lurch from centre left to extreme left and back again and after every change they demonise what went before.

Look how Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and the whole New Labour project is excoriated by its successors. The fact that it got Labour into power and kept them there for 13 years is nothing, compared with having offended the Labour purists.

Then we had the Corbyn years, the less said about them the better, but Laour completely turned round on a sixpence when Starmer became leader and is now centrist again. Now it is Corbyn and his acolytes who are on the naughty step, but for how long? And how much 5th column Corbynist activity will there be when Labour does get into power?

Quite. John McDonnell still lurks. He represents what I don’t trust about Labour.

I'm still not very clear on what Corbyn's Labour, as a whole, did that was particularly wrong as far as the policies they put forward in their last manifesto are concerned.

Corbyn himself was an inadequate leader, but Labour's policies weren't particularly frightening.

Many of the people involved were frightening though, authoritarian and with a disregard for the people they supposedly fighting for that was at times breathtaking.
However I think they hold such little power now I am not worried about them, they were floating around in Blairs day and were then as now without power.

I found McDonnell’s views pretty frightening.

I think these fears are groundless. There will soon be a far left wing party, thankfully, equivalent to Reform - I’m surprised that the significance of Owen Jones leaving Labour hasn’t been picked up on more.

I was too busy ordering the champagne Casdon.

At times like this, though I miss a lot about the UK of my childhood, I’m rather glad I’m not a voter. Don’t like the look of any of ‘em but I do think not voting at all is not right, either. The Labour Party is still tainted by Tony Blair in my mind, even though I know it was a good while ago now. As for the rest, bleurggh, not a lot to choose from there. Still, on the bright side, at least it’s not Trump v Biden!

Labour under Corbyn was anti-semitic. If Corbyn had become Primem Minister this coutnry would ahve been led by a man who consirted with terrorists of all persuasions and whose inability to exercise authority would have enabled the wilder and nastier parts of the party to run roughshod over him.

M0nica

Labour under Corbyn was anti-semitic. If Corbyn had become Primem Minister this coutnry would ahve been led by a man who consirted with terrorists of all persuasions and whose inability to exercise authority would have enabled the wilder and nastier parts of the party to run roughshod over him.

Do you know, MOnica, the latter part of your concluding sentence sounds like a pretty accurate description of our current PM.

I continue to find it strange that while the anti-semitism exposed in the Labour party is rightly condemned the blatant racism in the tory party is largely ignored.

MaizieD I agree. Since I have never voted for either party, nothing I say about one party should be interpreted as being support, or exclusion, of the other.

M0nica

MaizieD I agree. Since I have never voted for either party, nothing I say about one party should be interpreted as being support, or exclusion, of the other.

😆

Curtaintwitcher

I had been planning to vote for Richard Tice's party but, now that I've read their manifesto, I've changed my mind. They support hunting, which I deplore. Killing animals for pleasure is morally wrong and I will not vote for a party which supports it.

Absolutely. Anyone who advocates hunting will not get my vote.

M0nica

How typically British, animals before humans.

The animals cannot speak for themselves.

👍🏻

whose inability to exercise authority would have enabled the wilder and nastier parts of the party to run roughshod over him

sounds familiar!

We all have our line in the sand when it comes to deciding what party to vote for, no one party will be fully 100% acceptable, to me anyway, so it is a matter of weighing up. For example, while I understand the hysteria controversy over the definition of a woman, to me this is a less important factor than funding of public services, fairer taxation, provision of decent affordable housing, keeping the ban on bloodsports. For some migration is important, and certain parties will whip up stories about immigrants, gender re-assignment etc and infer that all would be perfect if only a few thousand desperate people didn't arrive here every year, or if people just stayed with their gender as assigned at birth. Regrettably, a lot of people believe this rhetoric.

MaizieD

M0nica

Labour under Corbyn was anti-semitic. If Corbyn had become Primem Minister this coutnry would ahve been led by a man who consirted with terrorists of all persuasions and whose inability to exercise authority would have enabled the wilder and nastier parts of the party to run roughshod over him.

Do you know, MOnica, the latter part of your concluding sentence sounds like a pretty accurate description of our current PM.

I continue to find it strange that while the anti-semitism exposed in the Labour party is rightly condemned the blatant racism in the tory party is largely ignored.

Im delighted to see Owen Jones has flounced. The Labour Party will be much better without him, let’s hope other purists leave with him.

Hilarious. Telling people off for 'believing' the rhetoric whilst producing a post full of a different kind of rhetoric.

I see owen Jomes and the new movement he is with want to pull the Labour party leftwards the way Reform has pulled the Consrvative to the right.

That is going to leave a huge gaping hole in the Left-centre - Right-centre, where I suspect the majority of voters lie without anyone to vote for. The Liberal party, of which I am a member is a total washout and not up to the job. Continuing my membership is more nostalgia than anything, my 'None of the above' vote.

Where is the new party needed to fill the gap?

I’m not sure if you’ve misunderstood Monica, the pressure group is aiming to challenge Labour from the outside? I think you’ll find the majority of Labour supporters will be glad of the separation - and hoping that they will actually form their own party. Either way, it puts clear space between official Labour policy and the left, which in my opinion can only be a good thing.

PS this probably should be on a separate thread?

Good luck with his efforts to pull anything anywhere. In the last election there was some research which indicated Labour did worse in the areas where Jones was out campaigning. I am not sure his influence is as great as he thinks.

I think he has possibly confused what the non-Labour party member supporter will vote for with what left wing party members want.

I think a lot of the Conservative vote in the last election had more to do with ordinary Labour voters (not party members) being concerned by the left wing policies that would come with Corbyn, than them actively supporting Conservative policies. Now the Labour party has swung back towards the centre, the voters will return to them, regardless of whether the Conservatives have been good bad or indifferent in government.

No, the last election was almost entirely about Brexit.