They constant make reference to US legal terms and structures. They have just cut and pasted something from a MAGA leaflet (the UK doesn’t have anything called DEI, for example).
Do I want anything like that? Have you seen the state of the US? It’s a complete FUBAR of a democracy.
Imagine Reform getting elected on the back of a bunch of policy promises they’ve no intention of/no possible way of keeping.
It would be the first time that had happened since 2024
I think DEI is just a blanket term for various policies of such across the globe. Ours is the Equality Act.
Maybe they think saying DEI is more up to date and recognisable to people?
The policy on Net Zero is entirely indicative of the way Reform work. It’s basically promising something that on the surface of it appeals to the populist mindset, but a deeper dive reveals it to be impossible to deliver. Reform are either too thick to understand this or (more likely) too disingenuous to be honest about it.
You can’t expand domestic energy production, keep bills low and be less dependent on foreign production while also kneecapping our drive to net zero. It’s just functionally impossible.
You posted that list and asked why none of them are liked. Every single one of them is bollocks. Without exception.
You pick your favourite one and I’ll explain why it’s nonsense.
And that’s a grown up response?
Well they refer to DEI quotas. Generally speaking, quotas are illegal unless it is to fill a specific need (e.g. Police needing an ethnic minority officer for community work).
They use terms like DEI and “illegals” because it is constantly pumped out by US media channels. They don’t have any meaning, or certainly not the same meaning in terms of the UK.
Most of the rest of that list seemed to be related to them wanting to remove the checks and balances that exist at the moment. Now why would they want to remove those?
Yes. I was comparing your statement to a child sticking it’s fingers in it’s ears because it doesn’t want to listen.
You have no way of knowing if they can achieve any of those policies and no evidence they don’t want to.
The fact you think they are bollocks or unachievable is irrelevant.
The question is why wouldn’t you like them, or at least an attempt to achieve them.
Why wouldn’t you like British companies given better opportunities to flourish?
Why wouldn’t you want violent criminals being given harsher sentences?
Why wouldn’t you want more visible policing?
Why wouldn’t you want our armed forces being better funded and strengthened?
Why wouldn’t you want working people taxed less?
Why wouldn’t you want less waste in the NHS and the money saved being spent on more doctors, nurses, better care etc?
Just dismissing it all as bollocks doesn’t work, it’s just more of your arrogance on display.
Going through it quickly.
Points 1 to 4 already have laws in place that deliver those things regarding immigration.
5 is a joke. Just because it’s free access does not mean that it will be privatised behind that layer. There is a place for the private sector in health care but not like this. If you think water and energy industries are doing well our NHS will follow that path. And yes Labour are already doing this, and it pisses me off.
6. No foreign court over rides UK courts.
7. I’ll believe it when I see it, given the same people cut the police in the first place.
8. Nice scam. Devil in the detail on this one. The average person on minimum wage will save say £500 a year. Those earning upward of £200k say will save thousands more. Its massively stacked towards the already wealthy.
9. Scrapping net zero is just stupid. Our energy independence lies with wind and solar as a start. It goes not rely on fuels we no longer own or have access to.
10. So we’re joining the EU again?
11. It will again suit the likes of JCB, and return profits. It won’t actually help normal people. Demand creates opportunities. Cuts like this just enhance profit.
12. No detail. Probably means deregulation. If you like Temu Dysons you’ll be fine.
13. Pretty convinced most Reform voters don’t know what DEI is. Free speech? They’re trying to take us out of the ECHR which defends that right already.
14. With what? Steam engines? More likely US equipment.
15. Aren’t these the people looking at removing women’s rights regarding maternity leave?
16. Who’s paying for the more expensive UK labour? Also Brexit did a big chunk of that already.
17. What British firms? We haven’t got any bar JCB who is a Reform donor. See answer to 11.
18. Well guess what, renewable energy is an avenue into emerging tech. but they’re scrapping that. AI? That ship has sailed unless you feel like opening the door further to Palantir. Not sure what happens when that bubble pops.
19. I wonder what the UK gets back from that foreign aid bill? Might be worth looking into that. Nice headline I guess.
20. Well we saw what happened to immigration when that department was skimmed down. Our COVID performance too. Remind me how well the private sector helped us during that time? So if they take us out if the ECHR, who is going to put together a new bill of rights? Who is going to rewrite the equalities act when they scrap that? This is basically a headline to privatise the civil service and remove hurdles to create deregulation. Like pollution in rivers for example. Chances are they lift the limits in what is considered pollution and restrict what the EA can do about it. It is a huge problem but deregulation is not the answer here.
Ultimately many policies sound workable or a good idea on the surface. Scratch just below it and it gets really sinister, really quickly. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try a Liz Truss to crash the UK market while having forewarned certain people of interest in what they’re about to do.
Take the NHS one.
Nigel Farage is on public record, on more than one occasion as saying the UK should move to a US style insurance system for the NHS. His party has backers and donors who would love to carve up the NHS and enable wealthy people to profit from it.
Reform is simply not a trustworthy voice on the NHS and the suggestion that they would act in its best interests is disingenuous nonsense.
As with all Reform Policies the intent is not to create a platform for government, it’s to persuade angry people to vote for them.
sounds MEGA… 
To an extent. There are new proposals in there. What is it you don’t like about those already in place and those proposals?
But what is wrong with reducing waste and excessive bureaucracy? Everyone I have spoken to who works in the NHS has told me the biggest problem is waste, not the amount being spent. Surely targeting waste is a good thing?
So that’s good then?
Politics is full of examples of back-tracking, going back on previous promises etc. You only have to look at recently replaced governments, within 5 minutes they’re back on tv talking about learning from their mistakes, how they’ll put things right etc. Maybe this is another example?
You don’t know this. Maybe it will be loaded in favour of lower income workers/families? Is that not possible?
I long for the day we achieve it, so we can gloat to the rest of the world about it while paying the biggest energy bills on the planet while they all laugh in our faces and continue to spew shite into the atmosphere and oceans.
Why do we have to rejoin the EU to do that?
The thing is, you’re just taking the most cynical stance you can with any policy Reform propose. You’re looking for worst-case scenarios and why in your mind they will fail rather than looking at them from a neutral perspective and considering they could be good policies if they are implemented well.
Leaving aside your clear anti-Reform viewpoint, is there really nothing in there that could be a positive for you?
Until they’ve had the chance to implement those policies you just don’t know. If after a couple of years and fuck all has been achieved you’d have every right to call them bullshit but right now you can’t dismiss them all as pie in the sky.
In theory they look good policies, we just don’t know how achievable they are.
The existing laws and procedures are fine for dealing with asylum claims. They just need proper resourcing. What no party seems to be willing to address is the fact that a full solution ultimately lies in working with France and providing safe routes. Reform will never do that.
I’m willing to bet that a big part of that waste is closely tied to the management and operation of contractors. So more contractors, more waste maybe? However, public services are broken. Procurement rules, and the constraints tied to them making efficiency near impossible. Reforms solution to this is not to address those issues, just scrap the service and let a private company do it.
Yup. There is some reach to the ECHR which has only been used about a dozen times. So the idea that we’re not in control is false.
I’ll give you that. This current government is no better on that in some areas. What Reform are great at us shouting out huge headline grabbing ideas but looking at the resources needed to deliver this it isn’t happening overnight and I’m willing to bet they will have some serious financial issues to deal with before this is even off the ground.
I’ll try and find the video I saw on it.
Yay to net zero. I’d have solar on my house tomorrow. I’m waiting for the plug in solar legislation to come in.
Brexit has created the biggest barrier to trade and market access for farmers, fishermen and do on. It’s the kind of obvious solution in increasing their market access and reducing the paperwork they need to do.
Sorry long post all. Good questions and worth the run through I feel.
Thanks for the replies. I’ll concede you are more knowledgeable than I am on this stuff, but I still can’t get my head around how every policy can just be dismissed out of hand.
As for net zero, it seems to me we are just collateral damage to those hell-bent on it’s achievement and implementation. We are a tiny island whose inhabitants are paying a very high price, I could accept that if it led to zero pollution etc but the reality is our efforts will count for fuck all. It’s like us turning up at a raging house fire with a bucket of water.
True, but…
Reform talk about Energy Security but suggest that the answer to energy independence and low bills is allowing companies to dig up all our fossil fuels (which are sold on the international markets) which it obviously isn’t. Energy independence is utterly dependent on creating a coherent and flourishing UK renewable energy and efficiency sector.
While the climate crisis needs a global response, it is surely better to develop the technologies needed and export these, rather than import them later?
No worries. I see net zero as an opportunity to build an industry which is something we desperately need. Even with nuclear energy we are essentially starting from scratch again.
I take your point on dismissing everything. The only one I can kind of get behind is the police one but then I know it’s pie in the sky with Reform. However, an ICE style force I can see happening under them. I suspect they’ll have plenty of volunteers for that.
There is never anything wrong with reducing waste and excessive bureaucracy. It just turns out that it is actually often really quite difficult. Politicians who talk about just doing it usually don’t have the first clue of how to achieve it. Waste is often a function of policy choices in some way - politicians will cut program spending, then panic at the first sign of scandal or undesired outcomes. The cure is always more bureaucracy, more control, more process. The cure for scandal is always transparency, which of course manifests as public access to information…which means more bureaucracy. The most efficient way of running a process is to throw out the ~10% or so of cases that cause problems and just do the 90% that can be done with simple rule-following. Not many public entities are actually free to do that.
Then of course, you get what in Canadian policy circles is called the ‘musical ride effect’ - try to cut the RCMP budget, the first thing they heave over the side is the ceremonial musical ride troop beloved by the public that has no real policing outputs. Maximum public outrage, minimum real loss of capacity. Almost every organization has these techniques to resist centralized control - it is the core of the comedy of ‘Yes, Minister’.
The reality is that it is ferociously hard for an elected government to implement reductions that sound easy in a policy platform, especially if the politicians in question largely have no idea how government really works. It can be done, the government I was involved with in the 90s did it, but it was extremely difficult and it would have been absolute folly to spend the savings before they had been realized by making promises of what could be done with them.
In essence very little is, and the last point, which is just an attack on an independent Civil Service, is proof of that.
It’s a popular sport amongst politicians to bash the Civil Service and it is rather telling why.
Basically, the Civil Service run everything. They take their policy from the government and will advise them back as to what that policy will mean. The only times that they won’t carry out that policy is if it is impossible (it physically can’t be carried out) or it is illegal (it is against UK or international law - the Nuremberg defence does not apply to public officials either). They will also advise ministers as to what the potential consequences are. This is to save both the country and ministers from potential disaster. If the minister wants to plough ahead with something idiotic and it is neither technically impossible or actually illegal, then they can still do it. That’s what happened to Liz Truss.
Most of what is listed is either just what every government does anyway or something that is unachievable or that would have dire consequences for the country.
Of course, what they don’t tell you is what they would actually do. For that, I think you need to see who funds them and what they are buying with their donations. In fact, that applies to any party.