So we have just had a few local elections here in the UK and Reform PLC have won quite a few elections and some councils are now under Reform PLC’s control. They have my sympathy; well the residents that is. Not much sympathy for the Reform PLC councillors although they might have to work harder than expected.
I don’t think Reform PLC was quite as successful as they would like to proclaim. According to the BBC, Reform PLC won 1453 councillors. Given there are 18645 councillors in the UK, Reform PLC won just a smidgen under 8% of the total. Of course not all councillors were up for election – just 5066 were up for election, so Reform PLC won around 28% of this.
Which is impressive but not quite world shaking. But look at the councils they’ve won control over – 14. Quite impressive but it’s all in the North or London. There’s nothing down south.
This is a kick in the teeth for Labour – not totally unexpectedly given the unrealistic expectations on a Labour government. The funny thing is that the Tories are also still being kicked – they’re down to controlling fewer and fewer councils. Loosing even though they’re not in government.
But enough about the election, what is the attraction of Reform PLC?
It is all too easy to categorise Reform PLC supporters as racist and thick. It is true that Reform PLC have an unusually high number of former representatives with a distinctly racist past and present. And Reform PLC supporters are well known for being somewhat lacking in educational attainment …
(Image borrowed from The Independent)
But it is all too easy to pain Reform PLC uniformly as racist thugs – there’s certainly some like that, but there’s more.
One of the things that comes up in the cesspool that is Twitter, is the “Uniparty” word. Which is a concept inherited from the US and warped to pretend there is no real difference between Conservatives and Labour.
I can certainly see their point – Labour is far too concerned with worrying the wealthy elites and the mainstream media which is one of the tools of the elites are far too willing to engage in sabotage of the current Labour government.
And if you look at where Reform PLC was strongest – the old Labour heartlands in the North, there is a significant factor – not enough has been done to mitigate the damage that Thatcher did to the old Northern industries in the 1980s. Promises have been made and broken.
So no wonder certain folk have the urge to destroy the current system – I’ve felt that way since Mad Maggie was in power in the 1980s myself. But Reform PLC is a con job.
A crafty one at that. Reform PLC takes genuine issues – housing shortage, wages not keeping up with inflation (to a small certain extent that’s the fault of the government’s freeze on tax bands), Islamic terrorism, etc. and blames it all on immigration. That is an unbelievably facile explanation for all the problems.
The problems are real – no mistake there – but the causes are a good deal more complex than just immigration whether legal, illegal , or asylum refugees.
But rather than criticise ReformPLC supporters for falling for the con, we should instead be congratulating them for recognising that something is broken, and come up with a better answer than ReformPLC’s.
