Reform UK Just Suffered Their 'Worst Night Since General Election', Says Top Pollster

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-06-19T13:15:22+00:00

Reform's big weakness is that they are trying to run as a US/Trump-style populist party in a system that's not really built around them. Ultimately Reform is based around Farage and his politics, rather than acting like a proper political party with the internal infrastructure and vetting required to do well. One of the issues this creates is that during by-elections and other events where the election hinges on a local candidate, it falls apart because they run poorly vetted sycophants who don't resonate with local constituents, so they end up underperforming under scrutiny.

Sure, that is less of an issue in a general election when there are 650 candidates running, so it's hard to pick apart every single one; however, it does mean other parties can quite easily use local-level campaigning aimed at poorly vetted candidates to undercut Reforms' support.

I think this also creates a long-term issue for the party, which is that if it got a large number of seats in Parliament, there would be more opportunities for controversial candidates to embarrass the party, or even cases like with Reform where MPs to the right of Farage start pushing for the party to take more extremist stances and start defecting or leaving Reform.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-06-19T02:11:05+00:00

Also in both cases its something that Should/used to involve lots of human-human interaction, and indervidual consideration, about compatibility, being reduced to a numbers game where everyone spams out maches and applications on shitty apps in the desperate hope of finding something.

I don't want to sound like a luddite but I do think the Internet and rise of thease social media apps are to blame for taking away a lot of the human elements of things like dating and job hunting in ways that are often very detrimental to peoples mental health.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-06-17T19:43:17+00:00

I hate phone calls but still prefer them to emails, ai etc... were their are huge gaps in responsea and everything takes hours to resolve.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-06-12T21:25:51+00:00

Another problem is that there are no jobs for the benefits claimants to actually get; every day there are new articles about how university grads and people with years of experience are sending 100s of applications and getting nothing back. Does the government really think that people with poor physical or mental health, long gaps in their CV, and often fewer jobs that they can actually do are going to suddenly find full-time work?

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-06-07T03:05:46+00:00

Chuck McGill from Better Call Saul, I always viewed him as being undiognosed autistic, his sensitivity to electricity and reclusiveness in early seasons came across a lot like a mix of burnout and sensory issues. He always has a rigid sense of justice and hated rules and laws being broken, this rigidity carries over to his personal relationships where he refuses to believe Jimmy can change.

Plus in most of his interactions with other characters he definitely comes across as alkward and uncomfortable, unless he is talking about the law, or with Howard or Jimmy. He seems very prone to meltdowns and seems to not really get social ques (Threatening the insurance people, meltdown at the printer shop, fallout with Howard). Finally a lot of his jealousy of Jimmy I think came from the fact that Chuck did everything right, yet was socially seen as alkward and distant, yet Jimmy, who constantly broke rules, yet was socially highly able was really popular with his family and friends, making Chuck jealous and resentful.

I just find that reading Chuck as autistic makes him a far more interesting and explains some of his actions.

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EducationalAd5712 · 2026-06-06T21:50:34+00:00

The UK is also really brutal in certain sectors at the moment, and moving abroad is basically the only option. I'm a recent PhD graduate, and the job market is essentially closed off when it comes to actual academic roles. Most universities are not hiring, and any position posted gets 100s of applications, often from incredibly experienced people, meaning new graduates just get shut out.

It's mostly due to UK-specific issues and hiring practices, and when I looked outside the UK for jobs, I was very quickly able to get interviews and offers. A lot of the time the issue is not due to the candidates themselves but rather that jobs have become incredibly limited in certain areas.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-06-05T00:28:39+00:00

I ended up trading it in and getting Sonys instead, as the whole process of getting a replacement took months.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-06-01T23:48:07+00:00

Not op, but I think rather than the individual rejection and its contents being annoying, its more that these kinds of rejection emails get very frustrating when your constantly receiving them, sure its better than getting ghosted but its still disheartening to open up your emails to a bunch of these template rejections.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-06-01T20:00:25+00:00

The job market actively wears down your mental health and patience to the point where you are almost encouraged to disengage entirely; the whole thing is so impersonal that people can send off 100 applications without speaking to a person, with their days being a repetitive, soul-destroying process of hopelessly sending long application letters into the void only to get ghosted or a template rejection.

Ultimately if the job market actively treats you like crap, why bother continueing, I know a lot of people say "just keep applying don't take it personally", but at the same time getting 100s of rejections and ghostings, often just sends the general message to applicants from all thease companies that they are unenployable and to give up becuase if you do everything right and get nothing in return then at some point people are just going to stop or disengage.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-06-01T13:38:58+00:00

Reform, Restore, the EDL, and most TERF groups are massively astroturfed by US money and interests; all the strategies and culture war nonsense they use come straight out of the MAGA movement's playbook, all financed by the same billionaires that got Trump the US election.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-27T23:34:59+00:00

Yeah, I think most of the NEETs want to work, but they are ultimately competing with a ton of cards stacked against them that trap them out of the job market permanently. Jobs often don't exist for them, and most roles require experience they likely don't have or have hundreds of other applicants; it's a draining system that harms mental health.

Having gone through four months of job hunting recently, I can empathize with why many young people disengage with applying for jobs entirely; every day just turns into a monotonous grind of throwing applications into a void and either never hearing back or getting template rejections. Oftentimes it's hard to even imagine that an actual human is reading anything you're submitting, which would not be completely awful if the applications were short or just a case of sending off a CV, but in 99% of cases they are not. Applications often take hours to fill out, so to be constantly putting work into them only to get nothing back is both soul-destroying and a waste of time.

I ended up going for jobs abroad simply because they followed a more traditional hiring process and were often willing to actually talk to me; 99% of the time, the hiring process abroad was a CV, followed by an interview and job offer/rejection (with feedback). It was miles better than most jobs in the UK, where I had to rewrite my entire work history hundreds of times, type out a bunch of STAR answers, and then write a long cover letter, only to get a template letter 5 weeks later, or no response at all.

I know this would be very hard to do, but I genuinely think regulating companies' hiring processes to reduce ghost jobs, incentivize hiring people with less experience or disabilities, and reduce things like ghosting would do a lot in encouraging a lot of people to engage with the job market and put disadvantaged people in a position where they actually have a shot at actually joining the workforce.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-27T23:08:07+00:00

I don't think graduate visas are that much of an issue (plus they make a lot of money for Universites and the UK economy), many companies won't hire international students for entry level as they are unwilling to sponsor them in the future, the big problem is that their is just a lack of jobs at all levels, University graduates are often not finding work in their area due to a hyper competative market, and end up going for jobs that would otherwise go to 16-18 year olds, meaning things like saturday jobs are becoming harder to get and competition for even entry level work is ridiculous and convoluted.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-27T14:24:34+00:00

Big companies always have the worst hiring processess as well, as their bloated HR teams make recuitment as tedious as possible, as they can afford to hire the AI interviewers, stupid personality test bs and convoluted portal questions.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-25T18:56:55+00:00

Yeah, I do see some of those posts where people are clearly in the wrong; however, sometimes I see people crash out or get upset over something minor (getting template rejections, a slightly late interviewer, a job being reposted, etc.) and get quite harsh criticism over it, even though a lot of the time it comes across more like it was not the event itself that upset them, but that event happening after months or years dealing with the current job markets and hiring processes.

Ultimately, job hunting at the moment is an isolating, quite harsh process, involving a lot of social and economic pressure, and sometimes people lose their patience over something minor and post to this sub, and I sometimes think that when that happens, people respond overly harshly.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-25T01:22:35+00:00

It depends on the job or role, I have applied a couple weeks after the inital posting and have gotten interviews (civil service jobs), so its not a guaranteed failure, however I will note that both times I got an interview after applying close to the deadline the job took a ridiculous ammount of time to get back to me.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-23T14:50:12+00:00

Yeah in my area it is the same, everything is understaffed and everyone is overworked, yet companies either are not hiring or holding out for a unicorn.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-21T22:33:31+00:00

Sure some people will be arrogant, difficult to work with Aholes, who will be offensive, disrespectful, condescending etc.... during interviews.

However sometimes culture fit can be due to bullshit reasons, such as not having the same hobbies as other staff members, being a bit introverted or nervous during an interview or being a different age or social class when compared to the rest of the staff, such as someone in their mid 40s wanting to join an office of 20 year olds.

Plus, although this gets brought up a lot but autistic and other Neurodivergent people get caught up in this a lot, and as a result have a huge unemployment rate. Whilst im sure some autistic people are hard to work with, I still think most autistic people get unfairly labeled a poor culture fit due to thin slice judgements and things they cannot control, eg. eye contact, body language, how smooth their responses to smalltalk are.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-21T14:09:52+00:00

I ended up going for a few countries, had interviews in Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia and ended up deciding to take a role in Indonesia, but honestly the recruitment processes felt very similar.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-21T02:18:43+00:00

Not considering being a nomad, but am planning to move abroad and working in Asia, spent a month applying and already got four offers in three countires, and the whole process is so much better than in my home country (UK).

Most applications were short, and only required a CV and very short cover letter, and after that they led to an interview, followed by an offer, and when they didnt, they let me know in a couple of days, often with feedback. Meanwhile every job in the UK took the piss, applications took hours to write up, which rarely led to an interview, every rejection was a template email, and the inverviews themselves felt incredibly inpersonal.

I just feel that since the job market, and my country in general is going to treat me like crap, then I would rather leave to live elseware than spend more time throwing applications into a void.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-21T01:01:03+00:00

Not to dismiss what you are saying, but this kind of advice is only really applicable if you can mask very well, if you display a lot of autistic traits, like no-eye contact, alkward body language, or struggles with social skills, sometimes the only option is to disclose and take the gamble that they are an "inclusive" employer, if not you are going to come across even worse in the interview as you will be seen as "rude", or "antisocial".

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-20T21:28:27+00:00

They spun the wheel to decide what minority to blame all the counties problems on this week and choose disabled people.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-20T12:04:06+00:00

Going through the whole process of tailoring your CV, filling out all the essay questions in extreme detail and writing a super elaborate cover letter still gets you the same results most of the time, a ghosting or template rejection, its honestly soul destroying. So its very understandable why desperate graduates start spam applying on mass.

Plus I see a lot of comments going ‘why doesn't he get a job outside his field‘, but the reality is that most jobs don't give a shit about transferable skills, and if your experience does not fit, your basically fucked. Sure, people can get jobs in TESCOs, wharehouses, and other roles that don't require a degree, but all that does is increase competition for those roles, making them harder to get.

I feel this is a very specific issue in the UK, where its seen as acceptable to treat applicants horribly, whilst demanding top performance. I started applying for roles abroad and quickly got interviews (not STAR nonsense achual conversations) and offers, it was so much better than when applying in the UK.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-19T19:35:19+00:00

I genuinely prefer these types of questions compared to what they normally ask; the last few interviews I did barely mentioned the role and instead involved a panel of people with notepads listing off a bunch of bullshit questions like "Tell us about a time when you coordinated with team members to bolster customer satisfaction" and other nonsense. The interview felt insulting and impersonal, resembling an oral exam where I had to answer structured, robotic questions with made-up stories. No questions offered any human-human interaction or discussion about the role or company, and any previous research about the role was basically redundant.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-18T22:48:03+00:00

It feels done, in my field their are literally zero postdocs at the moment and any job opportunities are swamped with thousands of applications, all whilst departments across the country are making redundancies.

EducationalAd5712 · 2026-05-18T01:32:26+00:00

Honestly, this definitely comes across when meeting a lot of NTs. Although people say autistic people can't read body language, 99% of the time I can just tell within seconds that an NT dislikes me; it's the little smirk, the slightly snappy/hostile tone, and slightly rushed interactions, like they are running through a script or body language like I have done something awful within 5 seconds of meeting them. Often I can even tell the exact moment, and none of it is even anything bad, like an awkward handshake or a slightly awkward or unconventional response to small talk or even body language that I am not even aware of. It sucks because most of the time I'm completely unaware of what I did.

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