Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

What exactly is the Reform platform?

So in fairness to them - none of the parties have announced their manifestos yet. They'll probably come in the next week or two (this is quite a long 6 week campaign and apparently the norm for manifesto launch is 3-4 weeks out of the election day). But based on their previous policies via Sky - in a bold pitch for the Jos vote, they also support moving to PR (and you can see why, on that poll, they'd have about 120 MPs):

Policies

While Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer have put the economy at the front and centre of their pitch to voters, Mr Farage has said he will fight the election on immigration.

His party has proposed a tax on businesses for employing overseas workers.

This would see firms pay a higher 20% rate of National Insurance for foreign workers, up from the current 13.8%.

But it will not apply to health and social care, a major sector for migrant labour, which raises doubts about how much of a dent the policy would make to net migration figures.

Reform is also opposed to Labour's plans to end private school tax exemptions. Mr Tice, who attended the Uppingham independent school, has told The Telegraph he is prepared to escalate a legal challenge up to the European Court of Human Rights - despite his personal opposition to its powers.

In fact, Reform actually wants the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which the Strasbourg court oversees, in order to use offshore processing centres for illegal immigrants and prevent them from claiming asylum.

On energy, the party wants to scrap net zero plans and instead increase drilling for gas and oil.

Other policies include offering vouchers to go private if you can't see a GP in three days, scrapping interest on student loans, increasing police numbers, keeping "woke ideologies out of the classroom", abolishing the TV licence fee, reforming the Lords and reducing "wasteful spending".

Practically they are the successor to UKIP and the Brexit Party. They are not a democratic party in any normal sense, like Geert Wilders' PVV the only voting member is Nigel Farage.

[Valmy]

So in fairness to them - none of the parties have announced their manifestos yet.

Well they are a brand new party, I think most of us can kind of guess what the others want.

Just no immigrants plus a grab bag of random right wing nonsense.

[Sheilbh]

Well they are a brand new party, I think most of us can kind of guess what the others want.

Just no immigrants plus a grab bag of random right wing nonsense.

Well they've been around since 2018 and are the inheritor of the Brexit Party which was in turn made out of UKIP. So there's not much new about them - it's basically a 30 year old party (or more accurately political party skin suit for Nigel Farage to wear).

[Valmy]

Ah I didn't realize. I thought the UKIP/Brexit Party went away once their single issue was resolved.

The complete failure of the Tories is kind of fascinating. So many huge problems facing the UK and their policies always seemed to be...um...just sort of hoping they would go away.

[Jacob]

Ah I didn't realize. I thought the UKIP/Brexit Party went away once their single issue was resolved.

The complete failure of the Tories is kind of fascinating. So many huge problems facing the UK and their policies always seemed to be...um...just sort of hoping they would go away.

If only

[Valmy]

Ah I didn't realize. I thought the UKIP/Brexit Party went away once their single issue was resolved.

The complete failure of the Tories is kind of fascinating. So many huge problems facing the UK and their policies always seemed to be...um...just sort of hoping they would go away.

If only

The one thing the Tories seemed to be sure about was "Brexit means Brexit" which I presumed would appeal enough to the UKIP set to get them back onside. I guess not.

[Tamas]

What exactly is the Reform platform?

You'd struggle to identify what's the difference between them and the Tories, except for the latter still pretending they are a conservative party.

[Sheilbh]

The complete failure of the Tories is kind of fascinating. So many huge problems facing the UK and their policies always seemed to be...um...just sort of hoping they would go away.

Yes. In 2019 they ran on a really big spending, big state manifesto that is the most left manifesto a Tory party has run on since the 60s or the 70s. After Brexit - as I said at the time - they re-framed their agenda as leveling up. Johnson could do that, while bringing the right of the party along. But his policies and the way he framed was really not a million miles away from what Starmer is promising now - just pitched very differently. Of course it did rely on Johnson's trademark attention to detail to deliver.

It is far easier for the Tories and right wing press to say we failed on the right-wing stuff. It's their comfort zone. They can blame broken promises on immigration (which is true). But the big story for the Tories is less reform than one third of their 2019 voters going to Labour, another 10% or go going to the Lib Dems. They are being squeezed everywhere. The Blue Wall seats the Lib Dems might win because middle class professionals are a little uncomfortable with the culture war stuff. It's Labour areas that voted for Johnson swinging back. It's not just the broken promises on immigration but the broken promises on leveling up etc. The party and the Tory media are entirely in their comfort zone and not challenging themselves - but the votes the Tories need to win to get even to a hung parliament are the ones they've been losing to Labour and the Lib Dems.

And none of this is novel - I remember in 2019 on election night Andrew Neil challenging every Tory guest by saying: "you've won loads of ex-Labour seats in the North by promising big spending, you've won loads of traditional Tory seats who don't like spending and want tax cuts. How's that going to work?" What's kind of amazing is that instead of choosing and losing one bit of that victory - they look at risk of losing both. The Red Wall swinging back to Labour, the Blue Wall swinging Lib Dem and Farage/Reform making both worse.

(I don't want to say this was the inevitable monkey's paw of choosing Boris Johnson as leader in order to deliver a big election victory: dealing with the consequences of elevating Boris Johnson to Prime Minister. But...)

The one thing the Tories seemed to be sure about was "Brexit means Brexit" which I presumed would appeal enough to the UKIP set to get them back onside. I guess not.

Yeah but even for voters who like Brexit and are happy about that - there is no voter in the world anywhere who votes on the basis of gratitude. I just don't think politics works like that. Voters aren't ever grateful - and I think a significant proportion of Leave voters (and definitely of UKIP voters) are people who have low trust in politics in general so are particularly unlikely to have any sense of gratitude.

You'd struggle to identify what's the difference between them and the Tories, except for the latter still pretending they are a conservative party.

As I say, the Tories want to conscript the young. Reform are promising to abolish interest on tuition fees.

There's a clear difference for young people

[Sheilbh]

Lib Dem Party Election Broadcast. Obviously very well produced and it's for an election etc etc - but I found this quite moving:

I think it's interesting because their campaign has been to do a daft stunt while talking about an issue to get covered (and there's a very grand tradition of Liberal leaders doing stupid stunts). But this is obviously very earnest and sincere and not a daft stunt - and I think very effective.

But also I didn't know about Ed Davey's background or about his family. He has, rightly and understandably, spent a lot of the last week talking about care as one of their big campaign topics - which I'm really glad is happening because I think it's one of the biggest issues in the country and doesn't ever get enough attention.

[Sheilbh]

Incredible from the Mail (which basically hasn't had anything about the election on their frontpage for the last week).

They've got a set of polls showing a 24 point lead for Labour, Starmer leading on every characteristic of a PM and being about 20 points ahead of Sunak on best PM:


The Mail's headline: "Blow for Starmer as poll finds majority of public oppose lowering the voting age to 16 - in damning verdict on Labour's flagship policy"

(Worth noting it also shows a majority against Sunak's national service idea.)

[HVC]

As I say, the Tories want to conscript the young. Reform are promising to abolish interest on tuition fees.

There's a clear difference for young people

Merge the two, abolish interest for those that join up.

[Sheilbh]

Merge the two, abolish interest for those that join up.

If you sign up for the forces (and need a degree) then they cover the cost of tuition fees

Same with the NHS.

[HVC]

Merge the two, abolish interest for those that join up.

If you sign up for the forces (and need a degree) then they cover the cost of tuition fees

Same with the NHS.

There you go, state offers incentives already. No need to use coercive means

[Sheilbh]

Libertarians

[HVC]

Libertarians

Just put up more fliers advertising the fact. With enough advertising you can trick some more kids.Yvan Eht Nioj

And your threshold for libertarianism might be a bit skewed