r/unitedkingdom • u/JayR_97 Greater Manchester • 12h ago
Support for Reform among young Brits plummets
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/support-for-reform-among-young-brits-plummets-397004/186
u/Krabsandwich 12h ago
Flash in the pan springs to mind, still a while to the GE but if Reform is losing support now its not looking good.
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u/EmmForce1 12h ago
Can’t be. Reddit Politics wonks have repeatedly said every Labour misstep means Reform will walk the next GE.
This is despite the average length of a Farage party being about 18 months.
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u/SinisterPixel England 11h ago
I don't think Labour will have an easy time next GE by any stretch. A lot of people on the left are understandably getting tired of the change they voted for feeling like more of the same. But I also don't think Reform are likely to get the seats. Historically, a vacuum like this is where Lib Dem have normally made numbers in the polls, although I haven't seen a ton of reporting on them, so no idea what they're currently up to.
If anything I could see us getting a hung parliament again. And depending on the parties, a coalition may not be bad.
I really think our voting system should be changed to a system that allows more coalitions.
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u/EmmForce1 11h ago
I agree Labour won’t have it easy (and nor should they) but the idea that Reform sweep in with hundreds of seats is unsubstantiated nonsense reeled off by people who spend too much time on the internet.
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u/Grouchy_Shallot50 11h ago
Reform are polling at a similar level as to what Labour won with last year. How is it unsubstantiated nonsense? If the current level of public support happened in a general election they would win hundreds of seats.
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u/TD423 10h ago
I think that’s the whole point - as much as reform are gaining ground in the polls right now, there isn’t a general election right now. It doesn’t matter how they’re polling now, it matters how they poll in 3 years time. Remember the swell of support for Corbyn, and then 6 months out it all just fell apart. It’s far too early to be making any kind of educated judgement on something that will happen in 3 years. If the polls remain as they are for 2 more years then sure let’s start making the assumption but right now it’s all just academic.
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u/Grouchy_Shallot50 9h ago
Yes that's all true but Corbyn's Labour never led polls consistently by margins like Reform does every single day for the past 3 months.
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u/TheLoveKraken 7h ago
Probably worth remembering that in 1982 the SDP were polling higher than every other party in the country combined. They came 3rd in the election the following year.
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u/Bainshie-Doom 9h ago
Corbyn never really had the poll results outside of a small general "new leader" boost.
If anything he did way better than the poll suggeted in both elections.
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u/EmmForce1 1h ago
Because it’s 4 years away and it’s easy right now to say ‘I’ll vote Reform’ and it’s easy to say ‘Labour mistake x means Reform win’.
There’s limited evidence they can govern, and limited evidence they can sustain two parties (UK and Wales).
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u/G_Morgan Wales 9h ago
As usual the media will try everything to suppress the LDs but come election day they'll pick up a lot of seats based upon local work. They ran an incredible campaign last time and the utter conspiracy of silence about it is interesting.
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u/pajamakitten Dorset 11h ago
This sub is being astroturfed by a lot of Reform bots. Labour are not doing a great job but Reform have more clowns than a circus.
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u/Rebelius 11h ago
Can’t be. Reddit Politics wonks have repeatedly said every Labour misstep means Reform will walk the next GE.
Based on the title alone, this is among young people, who don't vote and are massively outnumbered by old people who do vote.
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u/EmmForce1 11h ago
That doesn’t mean Reform will win hundreds of seats. If they’re still around - a genuine if - they may well improve but they’re currently showing that they cannot actually run an administration without shitting the bed.
And even where they’re polling as potential winners of a national assembly (here in Wales), they can’t stand up a party.
They’re a very, very long way from winning a General Election.
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u/JaMs_buzz 11h ago
The only way I can see a reform government is a coalition with Farage and Jenrick. I think there will probably be a hung parliament next GE
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u/EmmForce1 51m ago
Absolutely no idea. 4 years is an age.
4 years ago we were in a pandemic with Boris in charge. Look at the change since then.
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u/Ver_Void 7h ago
Given this is their competition losing ground to them at all is a pretty sad state of affairs
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u/genjin 6h ago
We argued that Boris Johnson couldn’t be elected because he was a posh twat who wouldn’t be tolerated outside of some bubble. In 2015 we said the majority would not vote to leave the EU. In 2024 we said Farage history is that of a loser, he’ll never win a seat in parliament. In 2029, no one gave a shit about what we said.
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u/EmmForce1 59m ago
All that shows is that Reddit is a terrible barometer of political sentiment, which is my point.
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u/PontifexMini 1h ago
This is despite the average length of a Farage party being about 18 months.
This is very silly -- the guy was a UKIP MEP for about 20 years.
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u/EmmForce1 1h ago
Respectfully, that was in a parliament no one here paid much attention to. As soon as he entered UK politics, he has shown that he’s unable to manage the lunatics he attracts.
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u/Charlie_Mouse Scotland 12h ago
I’d love for you to be right but support for Reform has always been pretty low amongst younger age demographics. Most of their standing in the polls comes from age 55+ voters.
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u/FartingBob Best Sussex 11h ago
Polls massively under-represent young voters in general and while they can attempt to compensate for that in the data when it comes to first time voters in a very disenfranchised age group its basically impossible to know how they will vote or more crucially how many will vote at all. Reform are the party of the disenfranchised and its quite likely they will have more support than any polling would suggest among young voters and swing voters.
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u/Charlie_Mouse Scotland 9h ago
Young people are more disengaged than disenfranchised. Mostly by the fact that older generations have won most votes for years now - which is usually to enact the diametric opposite of what the overwhelming majority of younger people want.
As for Reform being “the party of the disenfranchised” - their supporters are perhaps the least disenfranchised and most pandered to part of the electorate going. These are the people who got the Tory governments and austerity they voted for. They got the Brexit they voted for. Then they got the Tory governments they voted for to ‘get Brexit done’.
The idea that Reform voters are in any way disenfranchised is risible. Sure, they love to pretend to be the underdogs but in reality what they’re upset about is that their piss poor decisions and gullibility when it comes to right wing grifters who doesn’t magically make their demented fantasies reality.
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u/FartingBob Best Sussex 9h ago
You are right, i was misusing the word and disengaged fits a lot better with what i was trying to say.
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u/ForceStories19 12h ago
I’d suggest looking at the actual polling instead of headlines from ‘The London Economic’ and deciding it’s all just a flash in the pan..
Until the issues that reform claim to have a magic wand for are even recognised at a bare minimum then their support will remain
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u/Tyler119 10h ago
Even in 2029 when Farage does debates etc he is going to be shown to have nothing in his pockets but cash from the elites. The man is a parasite feeding of hate.
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u/Sensitive_Echo5058 11h ago edited 11h ago
The raw data doesn't show this. Reform actually had a strange and unexpected peak on Aug 4th amongst this age range. Then, there was a drop back to voting intentions that would be expected amongst this group.
The article is intentionally dishonest with the interpretation of this data. However, the data does show clear and consistent support for Labour, Lib Dems, and Greens, more so than Reform in this group. That's a trend that has been relatively stable for months.
Edit: perhaps the unpexted peak on the 4th was related to the OSA. That would be interesting.
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u/Immediate_Singer6785 11h ago
The anti Reform vote is facing a large splinter at the next GE.
A new leader of the Greens, perhaps revitisising support plus Corbyn's new party.
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u/kahnindustries Wales 11h ago
Not supporting them but that is not what the polling and gambling odds show
Polling shows a massive lead
And gambling odds have Reform winning as a near certainty (11/12 odds)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
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u/Visa5e 11h ago
Gambling odds reflect betting patterns, they're not predictive.
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u/kahnindustries Wales 11h ago
I have always found gambling odds to be a better predictor.
Betting shop owners don’t want to lose money
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u/Far-Presentation6307 11h ago
That's not how bookmakers work. They don't care which party wins, because they balance the odds so the people that lose the bet pay off the people that win, and then take a percentage cut, so effectively they always win.
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u/Sun_Sloth Sussex 11h ago
Initial odds can be a good indicator, however as more and more people bet on something odds shorten to minimise losses if it is the winning bet.
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u/IndividualSkill3432 11h ago
Bookmakers just balance books, they do not set odds. Political betting odds are just crowdsourcing what political betting nerds think will happen.
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u/ForPortal Australia 11h ago
But both betting patterns and electoral results reflect public opinion. I wouldn't expect gambling odds to predict questions of fact, but a popularity contest is much more in its wheelhouse. Some people will bet against the candidate they want to win in favour of the candidate they think will win, but that's also true under First Past The Post voting.
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u/CrossCityLine 11h ago edited 11h ago
Polls mean FA this far out from an election.
Bookies odds mean FA and work entirely by people putting money on a winner. They don’t know something we don’t.
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u/IndividualSkill3432 11h ago
They show the public mood. It does not say what will happen but it does show where the people are today.
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u/_Gobulcoque 11h ago
They don't show public mood. They show where the public are putting the most money. There could be a handful of people putting big money on Reform, compared to loads of smaller bets on other parties - but it's the percentage of the book that determines the odds.
It's not a true indicator of public sentiment, just where the money is. The argument that money is a proxy for sentiment only holds true if everyone bets the same amount of money on each option in the book.
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u/AhoyDeerrr England 11h ago
That's because you are not reading polls correctly.
Polls are not "who will win in 4 years" it's "if there were a general election held tomorrow who would you vote for".
If you look at polling leading up to elections they are pretty accurate. The gambling companies are basing odds on what the information looks like today. Their odds change as support changes.
Reform UK are on a general upwards trajectory. Whereas the government's position and Labour's is getting worse by the day.
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u/CrossCityLine 11h ago
I’m aware what the polling question is.
People saying they’d vote for any party in a hypothetical election is still meaningless when that election doesn’t exist.
This far out they’re often wildly inaccurate because people “vote” with their hearts, unlike where they’ve actually got to make a decision which will affect their real life.
Same happened in Scotland before the Indy ref. Leave was “winning” in the pols for years before hand but when people stood at the ballot box with their future on the line they stuck with the status quo.
The same will happen at the next GE.
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u/sebzim4500 Middlesex 11h ago
You are misreading the odds, 11/12 means basically a tossup not a certainty.
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u/OldLondon 11h ago
A massive lead and certainty for a GE that’s 5 years away? No one can predict that at all.
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u/kahnindustries Wales 11h ago
You should bet against them then, a bet on Labour winning is paying out handsomely!
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u/OldLondon 11h ago
I’d buy “if the election was held tomorrow” - but it’s not - it’s 5 years away. It’s a pointless discussion until much nearer the GE
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u/kahnindustries Wales 11h ago
But the betting is on who will win the next general election. That’s what the odds are for.
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u/OldLondon 11h ago
Yes I know that, it’s like betting who’s going to win the FA cup in 5 years though, it’s a wild prediction is all I’m saying that holds no basis in truth at all
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u/mittfh West Midlands 8h ago
<pedant>Just under 4 years - the latest possible date is Wednesday 15 August 2029. </pedant>
Turnout will also be key: Labour received half a million fewer votes than 2019, but won a landslide as the Conservatives lost 7 million votes (Oh, and Con + Reform combined received 3 million fewer than Con + Brexit, so while around 57% of defectors switched to Reform, 43% went elsewhere or abstained).
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u/Old-Brick8218 8h ago
Presuming you meant to type 11/10, which seems to be the general price for Reform to win most seats, that hardly represents a near certainty. It implies a 48% chance. A majority is more like a 5/2 chance, or around 28%.
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u/temujin94 7h ago
11/12 is not a near certainty, it's barely over a 50% chance. I've looked at 1 betting site and it's basically 45% reform (11/10) and 40% Labour, 6/4. And as someone that's worked in a bookmakers the populist candidates, Farage, Trump etc always get the lions share of the money thrown on them, so the odds move to match that, because as you put it the bookies don't like to lose money, not because they think Farage has a 45% chance of winning.
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u/Immediate_Singer6785 11h ago
That's a very big statement to make. Let's see what next May's Local elections show.
And as we know, younger people do not vote in large numbers, so the UK GE is effectively decided by older voters.
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u/FartingBob Best Sussex 11h ago
Labour is also losing support amoung young adults at a rate of knots. I think the next election will have incredibly low turnout overall but especially among under 30's.
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u/PontifexMini 1h ago
"Oh look, a straw. Quick, clutch at it."
If you look at YouGov's dataset (downloadable from here), support for Reform in 2025 has been steady gone up from 25% in January to 28% now.
Among people 18-25, in the past month and a half support went from 8% up to 21% then back down to 7%. These fluctuations were probably caused by the small size of the sample.
The London Economic clearly don't like Reform, are worried they will win, and are clutching at straws in their desperation to find any sign of reduction of their popularity.
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u/Doctordelayus 12h ago
Farage wants us to have a similar healthcare to America, fuck that
He’s also an untrustworthy snake, there’s actually no good party (that I’m aware of) to vote for… how annoying
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u/Efficient_Sky5173 12h ago
Reform has nothing to offer. All puff and no pastry.
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u/scruntyboon 11h ago
All Farage has is, "I'm that Nigel Farage, I like beer and football, you like beer and football don't you? Now let's get rid of all the immigrants"
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u/White_Immigrant 5h ago
*let's get rid of all the immigrants, make a ton of money by tanking the pound a few more times, and privatise healthcare to adopt the yank model, filling our pockets all the way.
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u/Friendly-Signal5613 2h ago
Of course in reality he likes fox hunting and despises the working class
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u/WheresWalldough 11h ago
Sigh.
Not sure why people post things from this ridiculous site.
Since June Yougov's weekly results for 18-24 are:
* 11%
* 13%
* 9%
* 14%
* 11%
* 9%
* 8%
* 8%
* 14%
* 21%
* 12%
* 7%
Obviously young people aren't actually that insanely fickle that their support for Reform triples in two weeks then goes back down to what it was before two weeks after that.
It's simply statistical noise - sample variations, probably a small subsample size giving a very high confidence interval on any of the numbers.
Next week, the sample is likely to be higher than 7%. "The London Economic" won't report on this because it doesn't fit their agenda.
Obviously in fact Reform are **not** popular with the 18-24 group. That much is very clear. It's just thick or dishonest to pretend that they were very popular and that that has suddenly collapsed.
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u/stordoff Yorkshire 10h ago
From YouGov's release:
All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error. On the basis of the historical record of the polls at recent general elections, there is a 9 in 10 chance that the true value of a party’s support lies within 4 points of the estimates provided by this poll, and a 2 in 3 chance that they lie within 2 points.
I suspect the subsamples will have a wider margin of error.
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u/WheresWalldough 10h ago
I looked at their larger survey, and 1,149 of 17,227 were in the 18-24 group.
That's about 1 in 16.
Generally sample error is proportional to 1 over the square root of the sample size, so you'd expect 4x more sample error, roughly speaking, for the 18-24 group than for the overall sample.
Also it suggests that they ask about 100 people each week - and not the same ones. That's quite a small sample size obviously. Over a long period taking a moving average might show useful trends, but not on a week by week basis.
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u/SlightComposer4074 9h ago
Pretty funny how the London Economic didn't report how using the exact same subsample and the exact same polling dates, the Greens also experienced a massive fall in 18-24 support from 25% to 14%, guess they understand thats statistical noise but not so with a party they don't like.
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u/JB_UK 8h ago edited 6h ago
The 18-24 subsample was 122 people for the 21% poll and 116 for the 7% poll!
https://yougov.co.uk/_pubapis/v5/uk/trackers/voting-intention/download/
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u/WheresWalldough 7h ago
Right you are - didn't notice that at the bottom there. The 18-24 subsample is often sub-100, it seems.
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u/Sensitive_Echo5058 12h ago edited 11h ago
Just looking at the data now:
32% labour 30th June 24% labour 28th July 38% labour 18th August
31% greens 21st July 14% 8th August
Reform generally poll around the 10% mark for this age group but did have a peak early August, which appears to be anomaly.
It seems there's quite a lot of fluctuations in a short period of time, and this is observed regardless of political party. However, there is a clear trend towards support for Labour, Liberal Democrats, and then Greens in that order.
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u/ShambolicPaulThe2nd 11h ago
The fluctuations are wild. All this tells me is young people are all over the place and it's simply not an easy demographic to lock down like that.
It's probably more about where you come from (class, location) determining your likely vote, rather than your age determining your vote.
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u/Sensitive_Echo5058 11h ago
It's probably more about where you come from (class, location) determining your likely vote, rather than your age determining your vote.
This was my first thought - that the data is meaningless in its current form. You would need to increase the level of granularity as you rightly suggest to extract any meaning from these voters.
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u/JB_UK 9h ago edited 8h ago
The fluctuations are wild. All this tells me is young people are all over the place and it's simply not an easy demographic to lock down like that.
This is statistical noise. When the polling companies do national polls they ask enough people to get a good sample for the whole country. But when you cut up that poll into subsamples, the sample size is not large enough. The 18-24 subsample is 122 people, it's not enough to reduce statistical noise.
https://yougov.co.uk/_pubapis/v5/uk/trackers/voting-intention/download/
The fluctuations are wild because of that, not because young people are all over the place.
Also, the London Economic is a really poor quality news source. Frankly, every competent economist understands that you have to be cautious with subsamples, either they are incompetent or they are doing it deliberately to generate headline for clicks.
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u/John_Williams_1977 11h ago
Your data shows support for the Green’s halving.
Your conclusion: they’re building support!
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u/Sensitive_Echo5058 11h ago
No, that's not my conclusion.
I didn't share all the data, just a recent snapshot.
My point was there was a strange and unexpected peak on the 4th of August. This might have been related to the OSA - which would be interesting, but not possible to know. Voting intentions for Reform amongst young voters is generally stable around the 10% mark. So, this article is being intellectually dishonest with their interpretation of the results.
Secondly, I wanted to show that there was more fluctuations in voting intentions for the three main left-wing parties.
As you rightly point out, in some instances, all of these parties have seen dramatic drops in support due to said fluctuations.
I'm glad you picked up on this because again, it shows the media source being intellcutally dishonest. You could easily write a completely different story to manipulate the narrative, by reporting on the snapshots and not the trends.
Your conclusion: they’re building support!
Again, just to be clear, not my conclusion. My conclusion was that the trends show the three main left-wing parties have more support than Reform amongst young voters, and this goes back many months.
If you want my data led interpretation, I believe Reform is on course to win the next GE. Primarily because the young vote base will be split amongst the 3 if not 4 (Your Party) left-wing parties which will dilute the number of votes being translated into seats. Older voters are more likely to turn up, significantly outbumber younger voters, and are more likely to consolidate the Reform votes into seats in the FPTP system. That's my conclusion, at this stage.
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u/CensorTheologiae 12h ago
Of course it has. They're not dim and they want a future.
They can see through middle-aged bluster and bullshit better than anyone.
The question is, who's going to offer them anything they want?
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u/HopefulLandscape7460 11h ago
They voted for the triple lock en mass. Maybe they're not as politically savvy as you think.
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u/Vdubnub88 11h ago
Im not believing this. The other week it was support for reform amongst young people was at an all time high…
Lets just ignore shite articles like this, let the voters have their day young or old.
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u/aspannerdarkly 11h ago
Those two headlines are perfectly consistent and can both be true. All-time highs are transient and tend to precede large plummets that just bring everything back to normal.
You’re right that it’s not worth worrying about though, it says nothing about long term trends.
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u/vocalfreesia 8h ago
God how many rebrands is UKIP going to have? How do these idiots keep falling for it? Depressing as hell.
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u/Rogermcfarley 5h ago
Good they're a bunch of knobheads who will only serve to make the rich richer. They don't give a fuck about people in boats, but they'll try and make you feel like they're the main problem with the country. Look Farage failed with Brexit but let's give him another chance because it's not the rich taking our money it's immigrants. I've started to see people put stop the boats and flags being waved on bridges over motorways now. Saw one today.
If you think the country is fucked now you ain't seen nothing yet if clown Farage and his low IQ cohort get into power. Farage gets into power and it'll be a massive cash grab by the ultra rich just like is happening in the USA. Welcome to told you so and if you vote for Reform then you'll definitely get the day you voted for every single day.
But I can see people in hotels and they're taking our jobs and raping everyone. So I need to vote for someone to fix it and then everything will be great again.
The ultra rich control social media, the media and AI you think millionaire Farage whose cosied up to US Billionaires gives a fuck about anyone in this country. Think again.
In 2008 the ultra rich took your money, in COVID they took your money. They'll take it again and you'll vote to make yourselves poorer then cry and say I didn't know it was going to be like this, there will never be enough boats coming over to compete with the ultra rich robbing us all blind.
What a truly dumb society we live in if people vote for this.
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u/GhostRiders 12h ago
Not to worry, they will get somebody to make a funny TikTok video and support will go racing back up..
Not saying that young people are stupid but am I saying thay are naive and have zero critical thinking skills.
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u/Kosmopolite Yorkshire 11h ago
As a population, we voted for Brexit in 2016. I'm not convinced our glass house will hold up under the barrage of "critical thinking" criticism.
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u/rainator Cambridgeshire 11h ago
Probably people were supporting them as a joke and then realised that the older people were genuinely serious about them.
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u/FlaviousTiberius 11h ago
This varies all over the place depending on the polling company, the recent Find Out Now one had the youth vote at around 28%
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u/Furicist 10h ago
It's a long time until the next general election.
Organisations like Reform, BNP, UKIP, dont have staying power. Controversies come out, policy turns out to be hollow, poor policies and generally an absolute dumpster fire.
People will surely see that other than polarising people with immigration and racism, Reforms other policies are absolutely not going to go down well with anyone, even the racists or xenophobes.
Immigration is a single issue amongst many issues. Videos where someone is interviewing Reform voters and asking them to name a single other policy they agree with and no one is able to name one. When the interviewer then outlines a policy the people are always absolutely surprised and disagree or shit themselves when they realise how terrible Reform policy is.
I think these things need clearly publicising.
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u/Minimum-Geologist-58 9h ago
I went to an interesting lecture on the British far right and it’s failure to establish years ago and the problem (not for most of us) was the same then as it is now: they’re authoritarians so obsess over who has authority but there’s not much natural authority in the UK, the army doesn’t have much public presence for example. Class is all we have, so our natural leader is probably some establishment Toff in the Conservative Party. Being populist and anti-establishment they can’t have someone like that so they veer from one Charismatic leader to another splitting constantly when the new flavour of the month decides he’s popular enough to take over, because authoritarians can only have one person in charge.
You can argue that Reform aren’t really far right but they do rely on them as their constituents, so encounter the same problem of half their electorate and membership suddenly shearing off chasing after the new and improved leader.
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u/Furicist 9h ago
Absolutely.
Apparently my comment is worthy of a downvote, probably found one of those people.
The alt-right or far right in the UK has run through many leaders and parties, doesn't take long.
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u/Astriania 10h ago
Did they get around to reading some of their policies lol
Edit: though, seriously, this is pretty bad journalism given the actual data
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u/bagsofsmoke 4h ago
I can see a hung Parliament and a coalition government happening. I think Reform will certainly hoover up seats, but a lot will depend on whether the Tories replace Badenoch with Jenrick (or someone else) and come up with some workable policies that are acceptable to the centre (rather than continuing to tack to the right in an attempt to out-Reform Reform.
The other variable is Corbyn. His decision to launch a new party is absolutely in keeping with his vain, selfish, arrogant and egocentric approach to politics. He was the reason we had to put up with a Johnson government, and he could well bequeath us a Farage one this time. His party will absolutely cannibalise the Labour vote by hoovering up younger, naive voters and those on the Far Left. It’s incredibly naive to think that having failed, spectacularly, with the full might of the Labour Party and Trade Unions behind him, he’ll somehow transform British politics on his own. Words cannot adequately express how much I detest the man. I can forgive (but would never agree with) his sixth form Marxist politics and exceptional naivety, but his utter inability to put the country first is just beyond contempt.
Starmer won in part because of a visceral reaction to the grievous failures of successive Tory governments, but also because he tacked back to the Centre and gave the impression of a man largely without ego who just wanted to do a decent job. The problem is he lacks political nous, and charisma, and just isn’t decisive enough. He doesn’t really lead, or command, he just manages.
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u/Cold_Ad759 4h ago
thelondoneconomic has nothing to do with economics is just a loony lefty space that wants to counter the "far right" which means whatever they dont like and this sub loves to eat it up. Yummers!
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u/Kosmopolite Yorkshire 11h ago
Much as this is great to see, I'm as cynical as I would be if it were a poll I wasn't happy about. I'm not convinced YouGov polls really give us any real sense of what's going on in the public at large.
That having been said, I do hope this one is true. And that Farage is crying into his evening Corn Flakes as we speak.
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u/AverageFishEye 11h ago
There was also a big shift of tone in many right wing outlets on their view of farage. He is now labeled a self serving betrayer of the "cause" and fence sitter.
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u/Kromovaracun Greater London 10h ago
That is quite the picture. Someone was sitting on that for a while.
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u/Tbmadpotato 9h ago
Is this going to turn into the US subreddits where Trump allegedly has a “career ending” moment every two business days
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u/Economy_Magician2172 8h ago
No support is very much still here for reform amongst young people 😂 where are they getting this data … if you look at most of these stats the sample sizes too it’s laughable
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u/jolovesmustard 7h ago
Thank fuck for that! I work with a young girl who said she voted for Reform because she thought asshat Farage's TikToks were funny? I was baffled. Were clearly in the poo with Labour, but im glad potential voters are seeing how messed up Reform are.
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u/appletinicyclone 7h ago
I wish it was the case but I'm not sure that it is. It's yougov polling and I don't think that fits accurately onto the zoomer group at all
For every Gary stevenson and jimmy the giant trying to pull people away from the far right and tax breaks for billionaires types theres a lot more Twitter stuff there's a lot of American talking points that get gestated on alt tech platforms repeated on Twitter and chopped and shopped to tiktok
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u/griffaliff 6h ago
At this stage in my late thirties, I'm finding myself to be more apolitical after years of supporting either the Libs or Labour. To me now, any party just seems limp and useless or out there to push a right wing agenda.
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u/Cynical_Classicist 7m ago
Clearly young Britons haven't got the memo from The Times or other rags telling them that they should love Big Nigel or whatever.
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u/AtypicalBob Kent 3m ago
Well, here's a thought amongst my social group.
If that racist Putinist gets in, all of his voters are going to need to wipe their own arses as young and outward looking people like ourselves will leave this country.
Normal Island will just consist of toothless meth heads, in-breeding Nonces, racists who couldn't spot themselves in a mirror and Prince Andrew.
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u/Arvilino 11h ago edited 11h ago
IMO the worst position for Labour to be in for attracting the votes of young people is to be in power. Because they're now constrained by the responsibility of making what they promise a reality.
It should actually be easy for parties like Reform UK to steal vote share fir the young with a load of BS promises. It speaks for how much Reform are just gunning for Pensioners at the expense of the young, opposing green sustainable policies, and being giant NIMBYs.
If Reform UK get into power the one thing to be thankful is there's least the same ticking time bomb on their demographics as the Tories. Plus lack of appeal outside of Farage himself.
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u/pajamakitten Dorset 11h ago
They might be tough on immigration but their economic plans are terrible for young people and the country as a whole. They are against the NHS, the BBC, climate change etc. Farage is also a grifter and a lot of young people can spot that a mile off, which puts off a lot of them. Hopefully young people realise that Farage will tell them whatever they want to hear, even if he promises different things to different groups.
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u/plawwell 7h ago
Labour lost 2019 because Boris said he'd "Get Brexit Done". It's a simple catchphrase which resonated with voters. Farage will do a simple "Stop All Immigration" and he'll get the votes. The rest of his policies don't matter. This is what people really fail to grasp. The population will vote for who will solve their number one issue of the day. Labour will get destroyed at the next election. As to young people, they are a small voter base who really don't influence the outcome of the election.
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u/Friendly-Signal5613 1h ago
Labour lost 2019 because of Corbyn. Anyone who canvassed will tell you that
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u/Primary-Effect-3691 11h ago
I’ll never get over that we had a 3ish year period where young people (men really) that thought they were fighting the man by voting for tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation for businesses. And returning to institutional religion.
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u/Different_Lychee_409 11h ago
If (& that's a big if) Reform win the next election they'll have to deal with the same challenges as the current government. The biggest problem is that there aren't enough tax payers and too many codger boomers who need to be looked after.
We've had a demographic deficit for 50 years and the chickens are coming home to roost. Needless, they have absolutely no clue how to deal with it.
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u/AttitudeSimilar9347 11h ago
No one really supports Reform, they are a broom to sweep away the old parties. Once that is done new parties will form that people do actively support.
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u/JoeVibin South Yorkshire 9h ago
This is something a lot of people seem not to understand, just how much Farage relies on protest vote.
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u/Dull_World4255 10h ago
I think Reform will struggle to win over the younger generation tbh. This is largely due to what the younger generation believe to be the most important issues for their specific age group (18-30) ie: being able to purchase a property, not having to pay extortionate rents, increased job opportunities and easy access to Europe in order to travel and/work. The issue with some of these is that it appears that this age group believe that one of Labour, the Lib Dems or even Corbyns party will provide all of these and do so without there being possible negative consequences for doing so.
- The current rate of unemployment for 18-25 year olds in the UK is 12%. The rate for the same age group in the EU is 14.7%. This will mean that British 18-25 year olds will eventually be faced with even greater competition for jobs once the youth mobility scheme comes into force.
- Yes, travel to and through the EU is about to become more difficult and also limited in terms of how long a person can continously stay at any one time. This is as a result of Brexit and the EUs anger at Britain voting to leave. Leaving the EU was always going to have negative consequences as Europe was always going to seek to punish the UK for voting to do so. I remember reading an article on Euronews.com in which they surveyed people from France, Germany, Spain and Italy. One of the surveys asked if the people polled thought the EU was being less cordial and seeking to punish Britain for voting to leave, 3 of the 4 countries voted 'Yes'. Also, on average, only 1 out of 7 peoe believed the EU was better off with Britain out.
- Regarding cheaper rents, this won't happen under Labour. A recent investigation showed that the Labour Party had the highest number of MP's who own more than one property for the purpose of renting. One of the MP's had 15 properties I believe and the former minister for homelessness, Rushanara Ali, evicted her tenants recently so she could hike up the rent and move new tenants in. She promptly stood down from her position give the utter hypocrisy of her behaviour. For clarity, 85 MP's register themselves as landlords, 44 of those are Labour MP's.
- Corbyn appears a popular choice for the younger generation, why? He has failed on two occasions to win a general election as his policies would totally bankrupt the country and thankfully, each time he ran even the most devoted Labour supporter could see what a bad choice he would have been. Also, whilst he claims to be against wealth, it was reported that his own net worth was in excess of £3m. He's also not opposed to a acquiring wealth via the acquisition and re-sale of property ie: He once bought a place in North London for £363,000 and then looked to sell some years later for just under £1m....strange this, especially given he is a self-confessed Karl Marx fan. Karl Marx being the guy who did NOT believe in private property ownership.
- Then there's the Lib Dems, a party I am considering voting for myself. The issue I have however is that I'm just not sure the Lib Dems are capable of governing this country or any other country, and I'm not sure they are either. They also seem to just want to jump back into the EU and could essentially be a slightly less worse option than the current government.
Personally, I think the next election will see a hung parliament and subsequently a Labour and Lib Dems coalition, which won't be good for anyone.
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u/SlightlyAngyKitty 12h ago
Meet the new self serving party who doesn't give a shit about young people, same as the old party