What can be done ....

[TheOstrich]

.... to halt the seemingly inexorable rise of Reform UK at the ballot box, and the subsequent imposition of a MAGA-style Government from 2029?

I wonder if we will start to see electoral pacts between the Tories and the LibDems in some constituencies.
Or is our best hope going to be a hung Parliament, which seems awfully like leaving it all to chance to me .....

[Workingman]

Oh my, you have to love these predictions from the pollsters...!

Reform UK Ltd are apparently going to go from 15% of the vote to 31% of the votes, but get this; they are going to go from 5 MPs to 362 MPs. As if!!!

In other predictions: I am going to win the Postcode Lottery even though I do not buy a ticket.

It's all a fantasy, but one worth watching.

[cruiser2]

Local elections are not a true picture of what will happen at a general Election.

Also we will have to wait till Starmer decides he has done enough damage and can retire on a nice pension.

All he seems to do is wander round factories and building sites and attend meetings overseas.

[Kaz]

I'm with Frank on this, but it does sadden me rather that the media give Reform so much credence

[medsec222]

I am watching Reform with interest. It is not set up like the other political Parties apparently, which they will need to do something about if they want to be taken seriously. I like Ben Habib for his straight talking on matters which concern a large proportion of the working class voters, including myself. The fact that he has fallen out with Nigal Farage regarding the set-up of the Reform Party and has now left the Party does concern me. I am fed up with both the Tories and Labour. At the moment I would not want to vote for either of them.

[cromwell]

Oh, don't worry.
In Romania the guy who was favourite to be elected President was barred from standing.
In Germany once the Afd hit the front in the polls they were declared an extremist organisation by the German security services.
In France Marine Le Pen was barred from politics for paying staff with EU funding; which many French politicians do but only she has been prosecuted for.
So I'm sure that before the next election something will be found to protect our precious democracy from errr, democracy.

[TheOstrich]

I must say, I'm not sure whether to admire or be horrified by some of the more sanguine replies in this thread.

I would have thought that the events of 2016 might have concentrated minds more - but there again, we don't tend to learn from history, do we?

Y'all seem to have much more faith than I do in the British people's ability not to shoot themselves in the foot. Time will tell, and as Crommers notes, you can always change the rules if you want to .......

If not, though, Farage awaits - and the clock is now officially ticking.

[Workingman]

OK, I'll admit to being sanguine... in this way.

Reform UK Party Limited and its CEO, St Nigel of Clacton (always absent), will not form the next government, nor will they be in a coalition with any serious party.

This far out they can promise everyone a gold ingot, free beer and free electricity, but come the GE they will need a fully costed manifesto of policies that can be delivered, and those will be scrutinised to the nth.

I'll be stocking up on popcorn - toffee, white chocolate, maple and pecan, and mixed citrus icing sugar.

[victor]

Getting rid of Reform would be easyjet have to get rid of that lying toerag in Downing St first.

Sent from my SM-A156B using Tapatalk

[Suff]

Whilst Reform results on the local elections may not be a very good bellwether for GE voting, people quite literally refuse to accept that the majority of the country are sick and tired of ALL the current political parties and want something else. We are rapidly approaching the time when ANYTHING else will be better than the shower of asshats currently in Westminster.

Think of it this way. You can like Brexit or hate Brexit but half the people voted for it and that shower of idiots in Westminster are determined to get rid of it one way or another.

So what choice do the people have? There is one way of getting rid of the shower of idiots which does not revolve around dancing around the totem pole and praying for rain. Just vote for a complete bunch of outsiders who are not associated with this shower of idiots at all. As Starmer goes on giving away the last tarnished parts of the family silver people will be in no doubt at all that they either make a bold change or be rolled over with momentum in Westminster.

Everyone, even me, thought that Brexit would fail. But I missed the literal "anything is better than this crap", feeling in the people. It took it over the line.

So Reform and Farage? Honestly, could it be much worse than Starmer and his tribe for those who absolutely do NOT want what Starmer is offering?

We have at least 3 years yet for Reform to get their act together, get a solid baseline story and build on their presence. They are in Parliament now and their voice will be heard all those years.

Anyone care to remember where the SNP started from? How they were dismissed? How it changed? Who was massively wiped out when they came through?

People say political change can't happen. I submit the SNP. Yes it can. All it needs is for those in Westminster to continue to ignore the people and do whatever they want.

I'll be watching.