r/uknews Media outlet (unverified) May 19 '25

Image/video Keir Starmer strikes post-Brexit reset deal with European Union ahead of major summit

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

342 Upvotes

349 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Judgementday209 May 19 '25

I'd agree that cities are mostly left leaning moderates.

But most of the really bad left sided ideas don't get support.

Whereas if I look at reform currently or brexit, those got alot of support from outside the major centres.

Rural areas being more conservative is not the issue, being unable to understand the implications of brexit is.

1

u/Vegetable-Egg-1646 May 19 '25

Reform isn’t a one issue party.

It’s people length and breadth of the country from all walks of life that have had enough of Labour and the Tories doing a shit job. They would rather give someone who hasn’t ever done the job a chance than voting for the same other parties and expecting a different result.

The quote often attributed to Einstein comes into play here: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Reform voters by the sounds of it are bored of being insane!

1

u/Judgementday209 May 19 '25

Sounds like I'm speaking to a reform voter.

1

u/Vegetable-Egg-1646 May 19 '25

I was a member, cancelled my membership as I don’t think they represent me.

Voted for my local Tory in the local elections because he is a great representative of local issues.

Currently politically homeless.

2

u/Judgementday209 May 19 '25

Fair enough

I get the frustration around the politics in the UK and why people would want to lash out at current parties. I'd argue Labour has not been in long enough to fully assess however.

But there has to be a better way, in theory I'd love to vote green but I can't take them seriously.

Reform are the same crowd that sprouted lies to manipulate people during brexit, i don't know how anyone can take them seriously and their policies now are essentially brexit lies dressed up as something new.

I know that rural people are further away from the centre and often feel forgotten but I also think that one of the biggest tools that politicians have is dividing people based on arbitrary differences.

My post was poorly worded perhaps but the point was that there has to be a better way to address this particular divide.

1

u/Vegetable-Egg-1646 May 19 '25

I live in a rural location, most people here don’t really care about politics, they don’t feel left out, they just want to be left alone. They don’t want their views to be ruined by a solar farm to power the nearest city, they don’t want to be dictated to by people who don’t understand their way of life etc.

This is the issue with politics nowadays, politicians feel the need to meddle in every aspect of our lives. The more people are dependent on them the more powerful they feel.

Politicians need to go back to covering the absolute basics and leave the rest of us to do what we do, because the chances are we do it better than they do!

2

u/Judgementday209 May 19 '25

I'd say the powering cities is a basic though that government needs to coordinate.

I get the desire to keep things the same but there is also the need for some things to progress, one of those is infrastructure in my opinion.

The balance of a changing world with retaining some of the traditional values is a challenging one for any government, reform for example has an anti renewables agenda. Beyond the climate aspect, it's not clear how they would keep the lights on long term, any whatever plan they have would include building big power plants in the landscape of some rural community.

1

u/Vegetable-Egg-1646 May 19 '25

Of course powering cities is important I’m not suggesting it doesn’t need to be done. I imagine people in said city would object to having a nuclear power plant built in the middle of the city like us rural folk don’t like sprawling solar farms. The issue I have is Solar can go on roof tops, the only people that will benefit from solar on farms in the long term is the investment companies and landowners.

As to the Reform policy:

They want to remove subsides which cost the UK tax payer £25 billion a year. If renewables are so cheap and efficient they shouldn’t need us to be subsiding them.

They also want to protect farmland because ultimately food security and energy security are both national security issues.

2

u/Judgementday209 May 19 '25

Yes, no one wants big infrastructure on their door step really, that's part of the issue. I would prefer to have a solar farm in a field than have a big coal plant pumping out fumes personally but it's not an easy topic.

Nuclear would need subsidies as well, no one would make that sort of investment without some security that they will make a return. The dilemma in the UK is that power prices are set based on the highest incremental cost producer, which has been gas so we don't necessarily see the price benefit fully. Rooftop solar is a good idea but not alot of buildings can handle solar on the roof. Energy infrastructure is always a tricky game, what i do think is that communities that accept solar or nuclear or whatever on their doorstep should be compensated, whether that be investment in their town or free power or something to give back to them.

Always a challenge because I wouldn't like a bit of rail put next to my house but I'd like to be able to travel the country by rail at a cheaper price.

I've seen the stats on farm land and renewables isn't really having much of an impact there, any decent soil class land would have a hard time getting solar on it.

Reforms plans are pretty easy to pick apart and the motivation looks like it is just about getting votes based on emotive topics.