I don’t think it’s that they’re taking things for granted as such but they’ll naturally be putting more effort into seats like Wakefield which voted Tory last time that they think they can win. I only mention Wakefield as I know Stephanie Peacock’s been campaigning there to help try & elect Jade Botterill. Reform will be having a go here as the Brexit Party finished second in 2019 in Peacock’s constituency and possibly in Jarvis’ constituency too so they’ll have identified them as winnable.
If, god forbid, Farage and his ilk got in... you'd have no chance of a second referendum. And the damage they'd do would stretch all borders on our little isle. Thankfully, it's not going to happen this time round... but. As others have also said... it's what gets normalised and what happens thereafter. Sadly, plenty of people who have no ties to Reform, dont share beliefs or values will be suckered in as a protest vote against the "all the same" mantra. Fascism doesn't rise just from pure fanatics, but those who ignorantly go along with it not realising what it is until its too late.
Fascism traditionally ends in the wide-scale slaughter of the children and grandchildren of those who just go along with it...
Steph Peacock has been door knocking in Wombwell rather than just showing up on the High Street first time in nearly 50 years thats happened on our street. Reform (well the ex Tory David Shiite) party posted a leaflet this time, never had one in all the years off theTories.
I don't know anyone as of yet that has had their door knocked on to be canvassed by a would be MP. We've not had a single flyer yet either.
We had someone from Labour - not the Parliamentary candidate but one of their people - knock on this week, asking if we'd be voting for them. When I told him it would be the first GE in my life where I wouldn't be, he practically ran off without wanting to engage or even understand why.
We've had Labour leaflet for the GE. We also got them for the local elections - I don't think any other parties bothered but no door knockers. Although at least one Labour councillor lives on the estate and posts regularly to the local FB group. I expect we'll see them knocking nearer the time. We did have a youngish tory woman a few years ago but she just got a shake of the head and left.
Unfortunately, trying to change people's minds on their doorsteps is a massive waste of limited resources compared with identifying those who intend to vote for you and then checking in with them on polling day to make sure they have/do. People who are undecided, sure, but outright noes, there's just not enough votes in it. That was what I was told when I tried my hand at it, anyway.
Shame really. You'd think first hand insight would be fed back into their machine to help shape policy and campaigns, seems an opportunity lost.
Just judging the mood. Labour would have lost easily last time if Tory/reform vote were joined. I sincerely hope reform are beaten back into the swamp they came from…. However brexit emboldened the far right and normalized there behaviour. I’m concerned.
I find it hard to fathom how so many people are so uninformed that they really don't understand that the Reform Party they are intending to support are very right wing. I have seen people being interviewed saying "haven't decided yet, Labour or Reform". What!...so you don't know whether you are centrist/left or whether you are far right. Mental. That said, until people in power start to understand that many many people are very concerned about how high the inward migration figures are, that a growth in population of 600,000 people a year doesn't seem sustainable without affecting everyone's quality of life and that having those concerns about numbers doesn't make you racist, and actually DO something about it, then I am afraid that Reform, or whatever banner or name they adopt next time, will continue to grow in support. Politics wasn't listening 8 years ago and it resulted in brexit. They still aren't listening.
A lot of people are far right but hate the tories because their dads told them to so they just vote labour by default.
I’ve always said this. Most people don’t actually vote for policies. They vote for personalities. It’s a very small group of people who actually care about left, centre, right etc & could articulate the difference between say Starmer’s Labour & Corbyn’s Labour or Cameron’s Tories & Sunak’s Tories. Loads of working class folk think Farage is this sound bloke that’s one of them & will magically get rid of immigrants. They know very little about his political views beyond Brexit & immigration.