Reform is on the rise. Led by the garrulous Farage, it is hoovering up votes across the country by doing one simple thing: articulating the grievances of the working classes.
While it is generally recognised that populism rarely leads to stable government, there is a growing realisation that Reform has a point. It’s not easy, but if we look beyond their abhorrent views on race, religion and equality, they are articulating an economic critique.
Okay, characterising it as a ‘critique’ is a bit of a stretch – it lacks intellectual rigour or depth – but Farage’s economic cri de coeur resonates with the working classes because it speaks to their lived experience.
Reform can make the running on this because they are the only ones singing the song.
Although GDP in Western countries has grown hugely since the 1990s, median wages have remained largely static. That’s the kind of dry economic statistic that is almost guaranteed to put half your audience to sleep while inciting the other half to argue vehemently over its causes. However, the reality of what that means is clear to see. The rich have got richer – much richer – while the poor squeak by.
We shouldn’t be surprised to see that this leads to political unrest, but some people try to dismiss this as the politics of envy. After all, the reasoning goes, many people may be poor in relative terms, but in absolute terms, they are much richer than previous generations. So what are they complaining about?
We also live in an unprecedented era of social mobility, in which numerous people have ascended the economic ladder, with some of them becoming fabulously wealthy. It’s self-evident, is it not, that people who don’t get ahead only have themselves to blame.
Where the politics of envy narrative fails is in ignoring a fundamental facet of human nature, the sense of fairness. Fairness is intrinsic to human psychology – it even appears to be inherent to the psychology of other social animals such as wolves and other animals. We ignore this primal instinct at our peril.
Is it fair that some people can afford to own several nice homes when many others cannot afford to own even one basic one? If the purpose of an economy is to allocate resources to the members of society, is it fair that some people spend lavishly on luxuries while many others watch every penny? Can we say that we live in a fair society when the poorest among us struggle to put food on the table for their families, or – that awful phrase – have to choose between eating and heating?
In complaining about immigrants being prioritised for council housing, what Reform supporters are really saying is, why aren’t you taking care of my needs?
We live in a democracy, and they have a right to say this. What’s more, if their representatives are elected in sufficient numbers, they have the right to restructure the economy. We can argue that their economic prescriptions are disastrous – like destroying the global trade system with punitive tariffs – but let’s be honest with ourselves: what alternatives are we proposing?
Societies are governed by the elites. In every stable society, even dictatorships, the organised elite classes only govern with the consent of the disorganised classes. And the foundation of consent is an economic settlement with the working classes.
When that economic settlement unravels – as it has in the past few decades in the UK and the US – economic grievances manifest themselves in political unrest. What’s surprising about the rise of Reform (and UKIP before it) is that it didn’t happen sooner.
You cannot defeat populism by arguing against them. However abhorrent their views, at heart is an economic truth that can only be answered by action. If we don’t answer it, we risk the institutions of democracy, as we are seeing in the US.
It is incumbent on the mainstream parties in this country to create a new economic settlement for the working classes, one that takes account of their grievances and takes into account the changing nature of work, global society and the environment.
With our history of great economic and political thought and action, I believe we are well placed to do this. Let us lead the way in creating a new economic settlement to protect democracy.
* Tom Reeve is a Liberal Democrat councillor in Kingston upon Thames
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I’m certainly in favour of Lib Dems thinking more about social class, but I’m not convinced that Reform are fuelled by working-class votes. From what I have seen, it is the Conservative vote that has collapsed to Reform. Similarly, while the large Northern cities voted Remain, great swathes of comfortably off Southern England voted to Leave.
There are loads of working class Tories, but the rise of Reform has been driven largely by socially conservative Labour voters who were radicalised by Brexit. They voted for Boris Johnson’s Tories and then abandoned them for Labour in the last GE and have now moved to Reform. They are people with a grievance in search of an answer, and for the moment they think that the nationalist Reform Party has it.
The nationalist economic agenda is to restrict international trade and immigration which would be bad. Worse, it comes with a load of xenophobic baggage, but the xenophobia is not the heart of it. If people are comfortable, they tend to leave others alone. I feel we need an offer for them if we are to have any hope of stopping the nationalists from taking power at the next GE.
I don’t believe the Reform vote is about working class discontent – it is about people of all classes feeling discontent that all the mainstream parties appear to offer much the same, with only relatively minor differences, while they want radical change of direction. Case in point is the issue of illegal immigration where none of the main parties appear to have a credible plan to stop the small boats crossing the channel.
Reform finished 2nd in 89 labour seats at the last GE, in areas where it really matters – across the midlands , northwest , north & north east. With the continuing squeeze of the Tory vote and diseffectted labour support it poses a real threat to labour in those seats.
Where labour stood on Thursday it hemorrhaged votes to Reform. Towns already suffering have had a disproportionate dispersal of asylum seekers in Hotels and HMO’s. Labour ignores this threat at its peril
Mike, do you believe that the growing gulf between the rich and the rest of us, the stagnation in median wages for four decades, and the soaring cost of living/housing doesn’t have an impact on politics?
If like me you think it does, then you should absolutely not be surprised by Reform.
Income and wealth inequality is the driving force behind politics. Labour v Conservative. The New Deal. Revolutions in Russia, France, etc. even the small boats crisis is driven by income inequality.
If we’re going to challenge Reform, we need to listen carefully to what Reform voters are saying. And if you listen very closely you’ll hear them saying, it’s the economy….
We have a chance to speak to them, but they won’t listen if we just dismiss them as xenophobic bigots.
Let’s look at what happened to Conservative representation in some of the authorities where Reform got their most spectacular results:
Derbyshire: from 45 Tory councillors to 12
Kent: from 62 to 15
Lancashire: from 48 to 8
Leicestershire: from 42 to 15
Lincolnshire: 54 to 14
North Northamptonshire: from 50 to13
Staffordshire: from 56 to 10
West Northamptonshire: from 52 to 17
Worcestershire: from 45 to 12
These are largely areas of traditional Conservative strength, not Red Wall seats that Boris Johnson gained for the Conservatives four years ago. So I stand by the view in my first comment.
@ Mike Peters: “All classes. . . want radical change of direction.” Labour offered us (mildly) radical change under Jeremy Corbyn, and look where that got them. In my view the main problem is that the hostile press, financed by those doing very well out of the system as it now stands, will weaponise any radical proposals which upset the status quo (eg screaming blue murder becasue wealthy land owners are asked to pay their fair share of tax) and so the parties are far too timid to make them. Clearly we need to pay more tax, but the nearest we Liberals have got to that is a pathetic penny on income tax to finance the health service. When did we last dare to campaign for Land Value taxation? Unless and until we obtain a varied and balance press, owed by people who live in our country and effectively regulated , and a BBC not cowed for fear of cuts to its licence fee, we shall struggle to achieve any meaningful change.
@Jonathan Calder (and others)
The figures you quoted are in counties with previously strong Conservative representation and a relatively low number of Labour councillors so clearly the Conservatives had the most to lose which they did.
Labour lost 186 out of the 285 seats it was defending, ie 65%
The Conservatives lost 676 out of the 993 seats they were defending (in what was good year for them), ie 68%.
The truth of the matter is we don’t know where the Reform vote came from without polling analysis – maybe the polling companies will provide this in the next few days?
Two more points relating to the low turnout in local elections:
1. It’s possible large numbers of Conservative and/or Labour members simply stayed at home last week.
2. It’s also possible – and this doesn’t seem to have been mentioned anywhere – is that Reform gained a disproportionately high number of votes from those who never, if ever, vote.
Finally, and something that seems to have bypassed many: Reform gained Doncaster City Council, gaining 37 seats with Labour losing 28.
@Mike Peters
“Case in point is the issue of illegal immigration where none of the main parties appear to have a credible plan to stop the small boats crossing the channel.”
What is illegal about arriving on the UK Channel coast in a small boat? Yes I accept that there are crooks running the operation for money but some of their ‘clients’ might be genuine refugees.
Tom’s article is well written and his general theme about inequality is spot on, but it includes the middle class and not just the working class. Labour’s mistakes on this have added to an already swelling grievance about bad government and cost of living. Among the few people I talked with while campaigning in upper middle class areas, there were comments that politics needs to change to provide more fairly for people and they said clearly the only party with strong enough messages to shake it up is Reform, not us.
We have a chance to fill the gap left by Conservatives and Labour but we need a clearer message of change and need to develop it soon. We spend too much time on detailed policies and not enough on a radical positive vision for the future of our nation. Unfortunately we do not get enough media attention nor in so many places do we have the activists to put it out on doors and in local media of all sorts, but we must review the way we work in order to appeal to more than just the thinkers and intellectuals. On this I want to see better leadership from our policy and federal committees.
I assume JohnG’s reference to low turnout is comparing with general elections, because in many places this time the turnout was higher than normal for local elections. This is likely to be due to people voting for Reform who normally do not vote indicating we LibDems also need to appeal to those who do not spend much time thinking about politics and convincing them that we too are not happy with the establishment and have the vision and policies for a fairer society.
It may not be possible to define the Reform target demographic as “the working class” but it does seem to correspond to the section of society that has suffered relative economic decline. There are a number of very different groups that fit the bill. They include a lot of skilled people whose training and experience is no longer needed. It’s difficult to see any way to reverse that. It also includes a great body of people on low to middle incomes whose take home pay has fallen relative to both those on higher incomes and the unemployed. We can do something about that.
Reform attracts angry, sad, disillusioned people with grievances – both working-class and middle-class. They are angry that the main parties have lied to them.
The Tories said they would stop the boats, when they knew perfectly well that they couldn’t. They called a national lockdown, and then partied the night away in Downing Street.
Labour said they would end austerity. Then they scrapped the winter fuel allowance and adopted the bedroom tax, despite having pilloried the Tories for introducing it.
Reform voters intuitively feel that their disgust with the main parties gives them a kind-of licence to suspend their disbelief when “fairy godmother” Nigel comes along with comforting fairy stories. Trust Nigel, bash all the minorities, and put up statues to summon back Britain’s Imperial past triumphs. That’ll work, won’t it?
And when orthodox pundits from the main parties call Reform’s policies ludicrous, Reform voters have the perfect rejoinder. “Who the heck are you to complain?”
@Nonconformistradical
“What is illegal about arriving on the UK channel coast in a small boat.”
Basically, it is illegal to enter the UK without lawful authority. While it is legal to claim asylum in the UK, it is against the law to enter the UK illegally to claim asylum. There is a defence to the crime of illegal entry if the person is coming directly from a country where their lives were in danger, but small boats come across directly from France so this defence does not apply. A number of laws outline this position but the 1971 Immigration Act, section 24, is a good start.
@NigelJones
I was referring to low turnout in previous local elections and was unaware of the turnout last week.
I totally agree with your point which you have articulated better than me.
Jonathan Hinder Labour..
“This week’s results should be the wake-up call we need.
But Labour has morphed into a hyper-liberal party more than a socialist party, such that secure borders and low immigration are seen as ‘Right-wing’ within its ecosystem of city-based activists, think tanks and associated organisations.
This is existential for the Labour Party now. Our drift away from our working-class base has been decades in the making, and goes far deeper than the tenure of any one leader”
The big divide in British politics that was revealed in the EU referendum in 2016 was between graduates and non-graduates. Graduates mostly voted for remain and non-graduates mostly vote for Leave.
Following on from that, non-graduates are disproportionately working class. It is in the working class “Red Wall” seats that voted Tory in 2019 that enabled the Tories led by Boris Johnson to “get Brexit done”. It is why for example Dennis Skinner lost his previously safe Labour seat in Bolsover.
In metropolitan areas the Labour vote has held up because of the large graduate vote.
Great article Tom, you are saying what I have been saying some time.
The Liberal party lost the working class vote more than a century ago, it’s time to fight for it back!
Nigel Jones 7.15 pm – absolutely, Nigel, I concur with everything you write there – and hope we may canvass again together in a by-election, though preferably in England not Wales! Yes, we need ‘a radical positive vision for the future of our country’; I hope the Social Liberal Forum will get its act together and help provide it now, together with a viable economic programme.
David Allen: also well put, David, it seems to me. But Nigel Farage is less a fairy godmother than a unicorn. one of the mythical beasts that Brexit bred to frighten folk! That history, along with his liking of Trump policies such as ‘Doge’, should show him and his troops up before too long.
@Jonathan Calder – on the 1st May the Conservatives actually went down to just five councillors on Kent County Council.
@ Tom,
“………create a new economic settlement *for* the working classes, one that takes account of *their grievances* and takes into account the changing nature of work, global society ….. ”
Whilst I welcome the sentiments, it would have been better if you’d written “our grievances”.
Real change won’t be imposed from the top. Unless we are part of the ultra wealthy minority, we’re all impacted by the problems you list.
There’s certainly some truth in that working class economic grievances have helped the rise of Reform. But it can’t be the only thing: After all the LibDems have been arguing for more equality for – well, decades – and where has it got us in most working class Labour areas? Basically nowhere. Then along comes Nigel Farage with a very different proposition and hoovers up votes, very notably in council areas that have lots of poverty, and which you’d think are the very areas that would have benefitted from social-liberal ideas. If it was ONLY about equality and people wanting an economically fairer society, we’d have taken those votes long ago, but we didn’t. So you really have to look at the things Reform are saying that are unique to Reform and figure out why they are connecting with those voters in a way that we can’t. And I think a lot of the answer there is to do with cultural issues – of which immigration is an important part.
Tom’s thought-provoking article raises the question of what exactly is the ‘working class’. It is estimated that 2.8 million people are now private landlords, so although some of them also have a job, all of them have a claim on a large part of the salary of their tenants. This has been enabled by the banks, for whom the housing market a safer investment than small businesses, some of which default when they fail, whereas mortgage lending is guaranteed by the option of repossession.
Pumping money into housing has pushed up the price of both renting and buying, a major reason for the (justified) dissatisfaction of ‘workers’, whether they are in traditionally working class jobs or middle class ones.
The usual response from politicians has been that increasing the housing stock will solve the problem, but it won’t (unless a magical house tree can suddenly spirit a few million houses into existence), and the answer lies with stopping the banks from giving private landlords mortgages which allow them to opt out of working, and let others earn money for them.
@Simon “If it was ONLY about equality and people wanting an economically fairer society, we’d have taken those votes long ago, but we didn’t.” We may never know what would have happened if we had campaigned for an economically fairer society. We pass motions on it. We don’t campaign for it.
Simon. First sniff of power we had, & those principles were jettisoned pretty rapidly . All for a leather Briefcase and a ministerial Jag
Farage as fairy godmother? I immediately thought of Mavis Cruet from Willo the Wisp!
A string of statements and articles from the Blue Labour group of MPs since Thursday. No doubt they resonate with the voters in those towns.
“The engines of the liberal establishment are revving up to explain why Reform’s success is definitely not down to the one thing we know it definitely is: immigration”
No-one in our party seriously doubts that significant and radical changes need to happen in the UK, not least closing the gap between rich and poor and sorting out public services. But I do think too many people are trying to extrapolate from a low turnout set of local elections that didn’t even cover a majority of English councils.
We’ve been here before. The SDP (who they?) were going to sweep all before them. The BNP were going places in one EU election and where are they now? We’ve had the referendum party, UKIP, the National Front and various other hard right factions in my lifetime and they haven’t yet won a general election or come anywhere near. Yes Reform UK has had a good election, but one swallow doesn’t make a summer.
The right has a solid history of factionalism that rivals anything the Trots can do and almost before the results have been counted one councillor has been chucked out and another exposed as a vile person who makes Ghengis Khan look like a Liberal. Maybe some of these new and naive councillors will acvhieve something, but my guess is that there will be a slow trickle of resignations once they realise that being a councillor involves work and simplistic solutions are not available.
YouGov on “what Reform voters believe”
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49887-what-do-reform-uk-voters-believe
Which I hope helps this discussion.
Many of these new Reform councillors didn’t want to be elected. Stand by for by-elections!
@Tristan Ward – thanks for the link. Fascinating!
The thing Reform voters most agree on, even more than immigration, is “young people today do not have enough respect for traditional British values”, which they agree on even more than Tory voters, and way more than the UK average.
Since Reform voter demographics skew towards late middle age, those are people still encountering younger people in the workplace….
@Tristan Ward
That was a helpful link but, at almost a year old and with Reform having doubled its support since then, it may be well out of date.
FWIW in Kent Reform won almost all the divisions in the less wealthy areas of East Kent (from Con & some from Lab too) whereas the Tories’ few remaining seats are in West Kent, where the Lib Dems also made most of their gains. Reform vote was up everywhere but less so in the more educated and “middle class” parts of the county. In the latter the Tories suffered too, but more at the hands of the Lib Dems.
My impression is that Reform activists & members are mostly superannuated former Tory members but their voters are not just former Tories; they are predominantly white working class, reinforced by a smaller group of traditional socially conservative elderly voters of all social strata.
The interesting part is the lack of unanimity on issues where we might have a message for Reform voters. In the past year, they will have become even more diverse. Pretty much any message if presented correctly would appeal to enough of their voters to bring them back to Earth. Remember that their projected share was only 30% and it’s not just them we are fighting. Take a good look at the figures in the YouGov survey for the general public. Economically, they are well to the left of Starmer and Reeves.
Thanks Tristan for the Yougov link. In summary: On straight right-left issues, Reform voters actually tend to be fairly centrist. But when things get personal, by golly they are haters! They hate diversity, they hate minorities, and above all, they hate immigrants.
They dislike inequality, but they don’t hate the rich, or want to tax them nore heavily. I think that’s because the rich are strong. The haters who vote Reform only want to pick on the weak. They are natural bullies. They want to push weak minorities down the social pecking order, so that they can climb off the bottom.
The haters have always been with us. What’s new about Reform is that the haters now think that they can organise, come together, and win power as a pure hate Party.
Brexit was their starting point. Was Brexit a failure? No, not to the haters, who won the fight, and successfully gave all those self-satisfied Remainers a bloody nose. As far as the haters are concerned, that’s all that really mattered. The fact that Brexit has made us all poorer is irrelevant, if you’re a sufficiently obsessive hater, as core Reform voters are.
A party like the Lib Dems is never going to win the votes of the haters. Never. It’s something you recognise when canvassing. You listen to bores, because they might vote for you. But you walk away from hate ranters, because you can see that they won’t.
(Continued)
So what’s going to work against Reform, then?
Ridicule. Farage’s nailed-on sneering grin is a shield against ridicule, which frightens him. He knows he is vulnerable. Out-sneer him. There is plenty to sneer about.
Honesty. Admit that immigration does cause problems with housing and access to services. Only then, point out that stopping immigration would also cause huge problems. And admit that nobody can stop the boats. Including Farage.
Hope. Give voters an actual reason to vote for you. Declare an achievable goal, and show that you are making progress towards it. A big insulation campaign for example. Current marks (in my view) for this: Labour 1, Tories 0, Greens 4, Lib Dems 6. Could do better! Had better!
Sadly, as far as Reform supporters are concerned Farage is the new messiah; as the leader of this cult his every word is gospel and to question him about ‘HOW’ he’ll stop the boats, deport migrants to France, etc. is heresy..
If you doubt my assessment read the articles and, more tellingly, the comment sections in the Express/Mail..
Just this lunchtime I pointed out to a friend ( a new Reform convert) that last week he was parroting the Reform line about how that ‘migrants are housed in 4/5* hotels but now, when Reform councils want to remove migrants, these 4/5* have magically become run down hostels that are a blot on the area…He looked at me and said, “That just proves that the migrants have trashed their accommodation”.. Sensibly argue with that mindset if you can..
Perhaps we should move our narrative from living standards to enjoying life. People living in places with Lib Dems in control are happier. They know they are governed by people with their interests at heart and do not govern to satisfy themselves but to empower people to enjoy and get on with their lives.
@David Allen
“And admit that nobody can stop the boats, including Farage.”
Problem is, that statement is not accurate. Currently, when see a small boat leaving the French coast loaded with people, we send a ship to rescue them and bring them safely to the UK.
It is difficult to persuade Reform voters that economic migrants with no permission to come to the UK should be rescued and then taken here rather than back to France, as Farage advocates. If some on board are asylum seekers, Reform voters would point out that France is a safe country.
@Mike Peters 5th May ’25 – 5:34pm…
So your simple solution is for a British vessel to pick them up and dump them on the French beaches…If not, what is your answer?
BTW, Do you not think that such an action might receive rather more than a polite ‘Merci’ from France?
@expats
Not my solution, that is what I suspect typical Reform voters would believe should be done with those caught trying to cross the channel to the UK without legal permission.
David A. Emotive stuff David. Sadly there were plenty of poor people about all throughout our EU membership. Didn’t seem to make a difference to many communities in all honesty.
Labour will need to look at articles 3 & 8 of the ECHR, and contemplate offshore processing of those that arrive on our shores. They’ve given out soundings already on this , but they will need to do something soon instead of repeating ‘smash the gangs’ slogan. The Welsh Senedd next year with over 90 seats up for grabs. Ukip performed well there sometime back and you’d expect Reform to do well given the electoral process.
Greg,
Haters won’t vote for Hate-Lite when they can vote for Hate-Original.
Mike Peters 5th May ’25 – 6:44pm…
Mike, As you stated that it is possible to stop the boats; “How?”
@Dave: So the new strategy against Reform is to constantly refer to their voters as haters? Yeah, that’s really going to persuade them to vote for us, isn’t it…..
The haters who make up the Reform core vote are a lost cause. We need to peel off the fringe Reform voters. Not easy. Pandering to prejudice certainly won’t do it. Attack and ridicule, coupled with a credible platform for national renewal, might do it.
@ Simon R
“So the new strategy against Reform is to constantly refer to their voters as haters? Yeah, that’s really going to persuade them to vote for us, isn’t it…..”
I understand what you are saying here, but the equally, why should the votes of ‘the red wall’ for example, be of more value than a voter elsewhere? Whilst it is entirely appropriate to listen to what they say, the political class does not seem listen with the same eagerness to what those on the ‘Left’ have to say. Is the same effort being put in to persuade/woo them?
Might I suggest a better strategy is to try to understand what the concerns of their voters are and how we might address them in a way that is consistent with liberalism. I know a couple of Reform voters and I can totally assure you that they are NOT haters, nor are they particularly prejudiced people. They are, on the whole, people who are frustrated with the state the UK is in and with the existing parties and feel that things need to change. Dismissing them as haters just because you disagree (however strongly) with their views on certain issues is just going to convince them even more that liberals and progressives don’t listen and have nothing to offer.
After all, prior to 2016 many progressives spent years basically accusing anyone who didn’t like the EU/wanted lower immigration of being a racist, instead of listening to why some people didn’t like the EU. And look where that strategy got us! Do we really want to make the same mistake with Reform?
A few days ago I wrote… When reading the comments (in the right wing media) regarding Farage/Reform I often wonder if that was the atmosphere which led to “The consecration of the flags” at Weimar”..
And, lo-and-behold, it’s just started..
@ expats 5th May ’25 – 9:50pm
Sorry, there are ways to stop the boats though all would involve breaking international conventions (which I’m sure wouldn’t be an issue for Farage.) For example we could take a leaf out of the Greek playbook and merely push the boats back into French waters – this would require a callous disregard for life and rely on the French coming to the rescue of those in need of help in their waters. Or perhaps we could copy the tactics successfully used by the Australians were they previously faced a problem of boats of immigrants arriving on their shores. I’m sure Reform voters would support either.
@Mike Peters
“Or perhaps we could copy the tactics successfully used by the Australians were they previously faced a problem of boats of immigrants arriving on their shores. ”
Australia was primarily dumping unwanted immigrants on islands – Christmas Island, Papua New Guinea etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detention_facilities
The UK focus has been on sending people to Rwanda. It isn’t an island – it’s in a large continent. Much easier for people to walk away and continue their originally intended journeys.
I’m not suggesting that there are not criminal gangs taking peoples’ money in the hope of a passage to the UK (in search of a better life). But what are you going to do about genuine refugees seeking asylum in the UK (perhaps with existing connections in UK)?
The problem we in Britain face as Lib Dems is that the accepted old world order of asylum and migration, ultimately established in International law through the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1951 Refugee Convention had their foundations in times when both migration and asylum were much smaller compared to today’s numbers, and very largely made up of people willing to largely “fit in” with the prevailing western ethos and norms.
Indeed most migrants prior to WW2 were of european outlook, often very well educated and probably quite well off and consequently, it was relatively easy for Britain to cope with the effects of migration on the country while the migrants gradually merged into the mainstream population.
Clearly there were problem areas, usually based around race or religion, but over the years gradually many migrants came to be fully accepted by an ever increasing proportion of the population as both sides adopted the very liberal skill of being willing rub along with each other.
However, with the massive increase in migration over subsequent decades, the dual aspect of the assimilation process (we change a bit, you change a bit) has largely collapsed on both sides, and fundamental differences remain and indeed grow, particularly in communities that are poor and ghettoised – Indeed with hindsight this aspect applies equally to white working class areas. These result in civil unrest and on occasions riots as in 1981 (Toxteth), 2001 (Oldham), 2022 (Leicester) and most recently 2024 after the Southport Stabbings.
The questions we have to face is “Which is the most important to us as Lib Dems: the right to asylum in the UK, the right of businesses to import low paid foreign workers or the need to build a stronger consensus around the acceptance of our values which are massively under attack?”
or more simply
How do we ‘seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community?’
I strongly disagree with your remark about Reform voters being “haters”; this is false.
You can be worried about levels of immigration without being xenophobic. Just to take one example: 50% of my extended family are immigrants or second gen immigrants from Africa. Most of them voted Leave and now support Reform. I can assure you that none are “haters”.
Could I politely suggest you should actually go and talk to a wide range of Reform voters?
Btw what they are concerned about is the impact of mass immigration on limited services; also on the availability of housing.
My remark is for David Allen.
Chris, if you read Tristan’s link to last year’s Yougov analysis
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49887-what-do-reform-uk-voters-believe
you’ll see that “haters” is a pretty accurate one-word summary.
However, I’d have to admit that a more recent survey of Reform voters does paint a rather different picture, closer to yours:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/may/05/labour-voters-change-winter-fuel-allowance
So w can deduce that there are two kinds of Reform voters. There are the hard core vote, the haters, who are entrenched bigots; and then there are the newer, softer Reform voters, who can potentially be attracted back to other parties.
I still think attack and ridicule is a way to do this – But it is Farage, Tice and Jenkyns we should ridicule – Not the voters!
@David: I also read Tristan’s link in detail, and I see nothing in it that justifies labelling Reform supporters as ‘haters’. It contains a survey with lots of questions, for most of which the majority of surveyed Reform voters answered ‘Yes’. There are many questions where I would profoundly disagree with a ‘Yes’ answer, but for every single question, I can easily see why someone else might answer ‘yes’ without hating anyone. I think you’re making the mistake of just assuming that anyone who disagrees with you on certain issues must be a ‘hater’ – but that’s not the case. People have all sorts of different experiences through their lives which can lead to people having profoundly different beliefs. One of the challenges of liberalism is to be able to understand and respect different beliefs (even if you disagree with those beliefs) without just assuming that someone is morally inferior (or a ‘hater’) just because they have those different beliefs.
(Of course none of this is to deny that there are always going to be a small minority of people motivated by hatred. And in some circumstances – such as groups who’ve suffered from conflict, that may be more than a small minority)
Here’s the evidence from Yougov about Reform voters (in 2024) then:
“Of the policy statements we put to them…
They are similarly likely to think that “migrants coming to the United Kingdom across the English Channel should all be immediately removed from the United Kingdom and prevented from ever returning” (86%) and also have a very strong tendency to say “multiculturalism has made the UK worse” (78%).
When it comes to crime, 85% believe that court sentences are not harsh enough, and 77% think the death penalty should be allowed.
On LGBTQ+ issues, while two thirds support same sex marriage (65%), a similar number also say that transgender people should not be allowed to legally change their gender (69%).”
@David: Yes I did read those paragraphs from Tristan’s link. And for every one of those statements, I can see a plausible reason that has nothing whatsoever to do with hatred why someone might believe it. For example, a person might support the death penalty because they believe the deterrent effect would save many innocent people from being murdered or becoming victims of life-ruining crime. A person might say that multiculturalism has made the UK worse because they believe multiculturalism has divided communities and lead to less understanding between people of different cultural backgrounds. And so on.
I’d really urge you to try to open your mind and understand why other people – including non-liberals – believe the things they do, instead of just assuming they are motivated by hatred. Not only is doing so the liberal, tolerant, thing to do, but it will make you much better able to argue against Reform in ways that might convince their voters to change their minds (rather than just insulting their voters – which will never convince them).
@Chris Moore. The truth is that immigrants are far more likely to be providing vital services in hospitals and care homes for example, rather than using them. Already many farmers don’t have enough workers to harvest their crops since much of the labour was provided by migrants of one sort or another. [Indeed, many of those jobs are referred to by the very people now voting Reform as ‘immigrants jobs’]
Instead of becoming an echo chamber for the false claims of reform we should be supplying the facts and countering the lies.
David Allen 6th May ’25 – 3:01pm……So w can deduce that there are two kinds of Reform voters. There are the hard core vote, the haters, who are entrenched bigots; and then there are the newer, softer Reform voters, who can potentially be attracted back to other parties…
Why not call ‘softer’ reform voters ‘enablers’? After all, how many of those voters would demand that migrants have their basic accommodation/allowance removed and be forced into tents? However, they enabled Andrea Leadsom who wants to do just that..
There were 3 consequential governments in the 20th Century, 2 of which benefitted the working class.
David Lloyd George was chancellor of the exchequer in 1908 when he introduced the people’s budget that brought in the welfare state, pensions and labour exchanges.
The 1945 Labour government implemented – with some of their alterations – the (Liberal) Beveridge Report that greatly improved the welfare state. Labour also brought in the NHS, free at the point of use.
And then in 1979 Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister, broke the Keynsian consensus on economic policy, which had been under strain with the power of OPEC and the huge oil inflation of the 1970s.
With the new Thatcherite concensus between Labour and the Tories in the 1980s onwards this led to the financial crash in 2008, followed by austerity, the vote for Brexit in 2016 and the propulsion of Reform who are currently on course to forming the next government in 2029, although a lot can happen before then.
Most of the working classes have not benefitted from the Thatcherism we have had since 1979.
I have always argued that Keynes did more for the working class than Marx ever did. We need someone like him again today.
@Mick Taylor, Mick, I don’t disagree with anything you write there.
But I don’t think it’s helpful to our cause to demonise Reform voters.
Btw I am myself an immigrant (emigrant from UK). And was in another country as a child. So I’m in favour of stressing the contribution immigrants make, but against uncontrolled immigration. Net migration has been far too high post-Brexit.
We have to distinguish between “demonising Reform voters” and seeking to work out, amongst ourselves, how Reform voters tick and how their party can best be fought. If criticism of Reform is going to be dismissed as “demonising”, we will never manage to hold a rational discussion.
Sure, Simon R, it is theoretically possible to argue that an opponent of “multiculturalism” might be concerned about a lack of integration between white British and ethnic minority communities. But come on Simon R, do you really believe that people often vote Reform because they want to see better integration? Or might it be perhaps that for the vast majority who agree that “muticulturalism has made things worse”, it is a dog-whistle expression designed to convey “I don’t like foreigners”?
@David. I can think of a fair few people I’ve met who are unhappy with multiculturalism. The reasons vary from (at the more thoughtful end of the spectrum) genuine concerns along the lines I’ve outlined to (at the less informed end) a fear that the person’s own culture is being undermined. But so far as I can tell, not a single one of those people I’m thinking of had an innate dislike of foreigners. So, no ‘multiculturalism has made things worse’ is not a dog whistle: It’s an expression of a genuinely felt concern. You’re once again impugning that people who have these kinds of opinions are motivated by hatred – and that – in most cases – is just not true.
I don’t think anyone here argues that we shouldn’t criticise Reform. But let’s criticise Reform based on what they actually say and believe, not by making up stuff about them and their supporters that isn’t true, or by imagining they mean things that they haven’t actually said.
@David Allen, David, I’m entirely in favour of criticising Reform policies and politicians. I see zero mileage in calling Reform voters “haters”.
The distinction you reference between hard-core Reform and newer supporters is very interesting. btw. And suggests Reform may moderate its posture to attract more voters.
We need to think seriously about WHY the numbers of immigrants (both the illegals and the far-more-numerous legal immigrants) have increased over the past decade – as has been said, a vast proportionate increase. The cause has been little to do with whatever attraction living in Britain may hold, since those factors have hardly changed. The cause is of course the rapid growth in the unacceptable conditions in which many residents in the source countries have found themselves, leading millions to want to leave their countries of origin – and only picking on the wealthier counties in Europe or North America because those societies would allow them to have more reasonable living conditions. Growing awareness of the possibilities of an improved lifestyle have been risen dramatically by the near-universal availability of smartphones among the billions who previously had no idea of what life was like outside their own societies. The only way to reduce this flow is to ameliorate the living conditions of the majority populations in those counties of origin.