We need to start asking why.

With Trump I'm honestly not sure why so many people, including women, would vote for that man🤦🏻‍♀️

With the Reform party in the UK I was genuinely shocked and disgusted with how many people voted for them and their clearly racist policies. Never have I read such a vile manifesto :|

@Shakeoffyourchains that's fine, if you only have positive experiences, I'm happy for you. However I lived and worked in an area where there were significant numbers of people from cultures where it was clear that women were 3rd class citizens. I actually worked in the public sector and dealt with many who made it plain that being a woman was problematic for them. I've seen young men harass young wo3for sex, make it plain that my professional opinion was useless because I am a woman. I wasn't the only one who found that out. Many of my colleagues became totally exhausted by the constant comment that we knew nothing. Bring a man out and, lo, the man was believed. And the number of times I was told offensive comdents by men from certain communities. Examples, ' we marry our ladies off early', ' we don't normally educate our ladies, there's no point', 'our ladies don't leave the house without a man, unlike you'. All said to explain why they needed something to be provided in their approved way. All true but I'm sure you will dismiss it.
And this, again , is the whole crux of the argument. Not actually listening to the very genuine experiences and concerns, telling people who have had bad experiences that they are racists, not even thinking that some people who come to the UK are just plain bad. Not believing that community cohesion should be striven for. And then the left wonders why some will vote for more right wing parties.

When will politicians see sense over immigration? Particularly illegal immigration. They just won't listen.

Harsh but true.

I think that’s a little harsh.

Cameron held a referendum, probably because the brexit dogs in his party forced him to - probably they’d have threatened to topple him/it was the price of their support. I remember Cameron standing up and asking us all to vote to remain. It was Bojo telling us to leave, after a big song and dance keeping his views under wraps theatrically. Corbyn didn’t suggest anything.

So although he held the referendum, Cameron was clear that he wanted to remain. And when th British people didn’t do as he suggested, he resigned. Fair enough. He should not have had to mess around sorting brexit out when he didn’t believe it was right.

Don't forget Cameron, he instigated Brexit then ran away.

Lol I saw this and wondered if the PP had been living under a Rock. Kier seems pretty popular and sensible compared to Sunak, Truss, Johnson and May.

Stop using statistics to try and justify it and spend some time in the communities/jobs that deal with this every single day! You may just change your views.

Aka stop using evidence to inform your decisions, listen to anecdata that confirms your bias instead. Pretty much sums up why we're where we are tbh.

But if that's the route we're going down so be it, here's my anecdata.

I grew up in one of the most deprived areas in the UK, at a time when migration wasn't considered a problem but, single mothers, benefit scroungers (not even slightly ironically) and 'blacks' were to blame for our ills. My family managed to improve our lot and we left that area in my late teens.

I now live somewhere with quite a bit of diversity (including two asylum hotels within 5 miles of my house). I have Ugandan, Indian, Polish, Turkish and German neighbours (that I know of). The local mosque (built only a few years ago) regularly holds community events for everyone to attend, as does the polish club, and both do a huge amount for local charities. We've an interesting selection of shops and cafés including a Polish and Asian supermarket, a Jamaican cafe (that does an unreal jerk chicken baguette), and a brilliant independent jewellery run by a lady from Kuwait.

I've never, not once, had a negative interaction with any migrant in or around my community since I moved here over 10 years ago, and they 100% improve the town and the lives of everyone who lives here.

Contrast that to where I grew up (was back there just a couple of weeks ago for a memorial of a friend who lost their life to drugs). It's still deprived, it's still 90+% white British, and it still has all the same problems, but now the scapegoats are asylum seekers and Muslims. They're the one's to blame for everything wrong with that town, not successive governments ignoring them, not big business closing down local employment, not transport companies reducing services every year and further isolating the community. Nope, it's asylum seekers and Muslims (or all brown people depending on who you ask).

I'm sure if you look at the stats (I know, I know we're not supposed to do that) you'll find that it's the people with the least amount of interaction with migrants who are most vocal in their opposition to them, not those of us who are fortunate enough to have our lives enhanced by sharing cultures with people from across the globe.

Increased movement of people, plus some identity stuff tacking on to that

Politicians ignore voters, and voters push back by shifting to the right

Trump pretty much didn't ignore that

Unless a realistic discussion happens some groups will keep being shocked by the outcomes from elections

There is a cycle and we are at a certain point in it. I remember my mother saying that to me in the 90s when I was all joyful that so many countries had finally seen sense and swung to mildly socialist governments - I felt we had put greed and selfishness behind us and evolved to a better place ( I was young ). My mum gently advised me that she had been around this cycle a few times...left wing, right wing, left wing, right wing. I didn't believe her but now I have also been around the clock a few times, I see she was right.

It will all come around again. You just have to hope it goes around peacefully.

Every trump supporter was talking about how he was going to help them be able to afford their weekly shop or fuel bills or get a job. To them Kamala was talking about nice to have things that didn’t affect their lives.

I think you might be referring to what I said on this thread about my husband?

He is culturally a Muslim, he grew up in Iran with Islamic traditions. The same way I am culturally a Christian.

However, he doesn't believe in God.

I hope you understand it better now.

There is plenty of white, Western men who treat women like cattle and rape them.

I've been sexually harassed many times in my life and the men were from all different races and backgrounds.

"Men who believe women are chattels, who believe rape is acceptable in certain circumstances, who do not recognise women’s rights or agency over their bodies, who, in recent weeks have literally silenced women’s voices, have no place in our equal society..."

@CherryBowl You mean men like Trump?

Chuckling at the “Muslim atheist.” Someone’s fibbing.

Islam does have some enlightened thinkers and not all Muslim men are misogynists.

But we do have unfettered and often unvetted immigration from incompatible cultures. And if you haven’t lived in those countries of origin or spent significant time with certain types of immigrants, you’ll assume they share the same values. And that’s a dangerous assumption.

Denmark has some interesting and surprisingly workable strategies to integrate immigrants from seemingly incompatible cultures. The women and children in particular are exposed to modern and equitable ideas and ways of living.

In the UK, however, our political classes have imported unsustainable numbers into increasingly ghettoised and economically deprived areas. Worse, they have demonised anyone who has spoken out against it. The liberal middle class have taken up the ‘thick, racist’ refrain without any real understanding of the issue and wear the ‘I know a really nice Muslim’ badge as a way of closing a debate they do not understand.

Men who believe women are chattels, who believe rape is acceptable in certain circumstances, who do not recognise women’s rights or agency over their bodies, who, in recent weeks have literally silenced women’s voices, have no place in our equal society. And to see our political class perform mental gymnastics attempting to reconcile these issues is as pathetic as it is insulting.

I am from a Marxist political family. I have also spent much of my life in the Middle East. I understand exactly why Trump was elected and why Farage will stand a good chance of getting into Downing Street in future.

There are posters on this thread whose sneering dismissal of concerns on immigration who will be directly responsible for that happening.

What a wonderfully intelligent, well considered reply. 👏 😅

Cry more!

Thank you for sharing this. It's a very interesting view, and I was unaware of the Generational Theory. Off to do some homework, cheers!

You make a valid point.
Scotland (I'm Scots) is a fine example. The SNP has always been left leaning, however during Sturgeon's tenure they shifted further and further left. Making big of issues like self ID whilst paying only lip service to issues that actually mattered. It took time, but people got wise to it (well, except for the small fringe 'independence at any cost' wallopers who still, and will always, think she's wonderful).
UK Labour will do well to learn from the SNP's mistakes.

The Liberal elite won't listen. That's why people have decided the only way is to vote them out.

Just wanted to give an example of the utter shit and lies ...

quote from upthread:

Too many people being handed money and housing after arriving here when we have people who have worked/lived here all their lives unable to get any benefits or housing

utter bollox, a bit like Trump's "they're eating the cats and they're eating the dogs. They're eating the pets", in his inimitably eloquent style.

oh well, only another 3 years and 364 days to endure ... before another one takes his place.

I'm off to hide under my duvet .

I can't get exercised over any of it, what's the point.

Any time you have issues like a lack of services or housing, and a bunch of people come from elsewhere and put pressure on housing, services, and financial support, you will have serious frictions.

My town has had huge growth over the last two years, mainly from India. There also is a significant housing shortfall. I have guys all day in my workplace just waiting around, because they live at the shelter - it's 40 beds and always full.

Of course they are pissed off that housing is like needle in a haystack and costs a third more than it did not long ago.

There is something deeply wrong with the left now, and there seems to be no one addressing the normal concerns many people have.

Cost of living and economic security
effects of globalism on the economy
Destabilization in communities due to quick demographic change
Lack of housing

All of these are very immediate, right now kinds of things.

And the left isn't addressing them in a way people find adequate. They are talking instead about things people think are secondary, or maybe important, but are unwilling to have a real discussion about effects and effectiveness of their policy proposals.

And their method for convincing the public is telling them they are stupid and evil if they don't fall in line.

This is what they are struggling - they do not understand that if they cannot address issues the public wants, and convince them of the value of their policies, they don't deserve to govern.

To me the issue is that if you have certain parts of the country or areas within particular cities where you have a large influx of people over a short space of time without any cash injection from central government to increase public services on offer then you end up with significant issues in those parts of the city/country for people to access those services. It’s how immigration seems to happen in many areas. People moving to a new country want to try and retain some sense of community so will often actively choose to live in a particular area. In cases of asylum seekers & those coming on visas to fill roles in some low paid professions (care workers in particular in my area) they have limited funds so they’ll have no choice but to move into low cost areas, they may well end up subletting and you then end up with HMOs in what were previously family or even indivisible homes and so you have overcrowding, additional demand on services etc.
All the political parties seem poor at addressing this and have no great plans for channeling funding to those areas with rapid population growth to stabilise things. It’s easy from outside the situation to be critical and say the people living in those areas who point at immigration as the issue are just racist. They actually have a point though. Immigration combined with poor investment have caused the issues in the place they live where they now struggle more than average to get a doctor/dentist/hospital appointment or to access other services. Then there will likely be some charitable endeavours that are specifically aimed at groups like asylum seekers. That’s not a bad thing and they genuinely will need help but it must be really hard if you are also low income and struggling to see certain help available to others but not to you/your kids. Then there are the issues round social housing. We don’t have anything like enough of it and the criteria for prioritising who can access it may well mean those who are immigrants end up as a higher priority to be housed than those born in the area (who will have options like remaining with family that are not open to others). Again its obviously reasonable that you prioritise based on need but it’s a pretty grim situation for the locals.

Sneering at those who are struggling on low incomes with minimal opportunities and dismissing them as stupid and racist is pretty poor behaviour but it’s what a lot of well off, well educated people comfortably away from the situation do. Others go in and look at what’s needed to fix it and try and help. I’m left leaning, an atheist and tend toward voting Labour. I volunteer a fair bit and at least in my area, which is overwhelmingly left leaning, what I’ve seen is that the people who get stuck in and try and help are actually often quite right leaning politically (a lot of churchgoers among them if that has any bearing). People on all sides of the political spectrum are good & decent and people on all sides can be total shits. We can all want the same outcomes but disagree about how to fix things it’s not black and white. I wish more people on both sides would be a bit more willing to engage in debate vs just dismissing others out of hand. Sure some people are awful but most are just trying to get on with their own lives and making what they feel are the best (or least bad) choices.

It’s simple really. Covid was nothing compared to the pandemic of stupidity that is overtaking the world.

In the 80s and 90s working in America, I was astounded at the poor levels of education generally. I guess, just like the UK, things have not improved. The UK has been happy to dumb down to show ‘better’ educational results. Ha ha, we’re not fooled. (Brexit?)

Unfortunately no level of education whatsoever is required for voting.

This. I’m from a labour supporting family and area but the left have been out of control for the past few years. The way they speak to / about or even silence those with a different point of view in the press and online is never going to influence people and is more likely to make them silent and resentful and dig their heels in which I think is what has happened here. For a self - proclaimed intelligent group of people, the left seem to find this difficult to grasp.