Struggling with a friendship over values and politics

shallow, don't think so. Look where being your way has got you.
Can't you talk about hobbies, TV , music, family, anything apart from religion and politics.
Shared history if you've known each other along time, funny stories, your way doesn't work you have proved it.

It sounds like she's being authentic and sharing details of her life with you and you are secretly judging everything about her. I don't think you like her very much. It would be best for both of you if you step back from the friendship and you find other friends you admire and have more in common with.

I couldn’t be friends with a benefit cheat. This is why the whole system needs to be reviewed.

I just don't get this point of view. Political decisions affects all of us and our daily lives. The idea that you can't get 'heavy' with friends, what is even the point of friends if you have to keep your friendship on such a shallow level?

If she is claiming help she is not entitled to report her.

as for politics just either don’t talk about it or discuss. I was brought up in a household with three adults all voting for different parties so there was a lot of debating.

the one good thing i could say was at least she is bothering to vote as so many people don’t. Also I’ve voted Labour, libs, conservative, reform and spoilt my paper over the years so just depends on who has the most policies I agree with if any. Currently I would spoil my paper again.

You don’t seem to like her. Why bother?

My friends and me don’t talk politics at all. No idea of their voting choices.
There are lots of subjects we do discuss and debate.
Politics in personal imho.

The real decisions are in the same populated rooms ...Davos and all that

@Firmoo So she's scamming disability for herself and her son while her dh gets paid in hand so they prob get UC top ups as well. And she thinks benefits Britain is just foreigners coming over getting benefits? Lovely.

Why are you not able to respect that other people have political views that are different from yours?

Confusing politics with party politics. Almost everything is political.

why are you having such heavy conversations. I never talk about politics with friends Just keep it light . Tell a joke. Funny story.Honestly how do people get bogged down by all this .

Since when did having different opinions mean you can’t be friends with someone. My Mum and Dad spent fifty happy years with completely different political views. Many of my friends are through and through SNP supporters, I mean cut them open like a stick of rock and it would say SNP!! That’s there choice not mine. We live in a democracy that’s the whole point people can have completely different political view. Since when can you only be friends with people if they are in your own political tribe. If you said this about colour or religion then you would be called a bigot!! Very narrow minded!!

Yet you chose to post in AIBU, with a remarkably stereotypical story.

I couldn’t be friends with a scammer no matter who they voted for. For me that’s the issue.

I remember a time when politics was for older, retired men who debated it over chess and whiskey. We were all glad they had something to talk about while we lived in the real world.

I miss those days.

I don’t know, but I sympathise.

I have a very dear friend who is 14/15 years older than me, so 80. She has always lived in the same part of London and increasingly talks about the number of black families there. I hate this. She says that she doesn’t like the way her town has changed.

This is so foreign to me that I’m completely nonplussed. There is no way I’m giving up this friendship and there is no way I’m going to agree with her. Nor do I seek to persuade her, because that’s her view based on what she sees and she’s sticking to it. She knows that society is changing and she doesn’t like it.

Nevertheless, each time she says this my stomach twist inside. I’m very fond of her children, especially her son, who has had a lot of problems in his life. I was absolutely horrified, to see recently that a few years ago he stood as a Reform candidate for his local council. This was just after we’ve had a very pleasant lunch together and had I gone home and was curious about his business interests, which are very respectable and which he works hard at. Perhaps my horror was an overreaction, I don’t know.

That family has opinions about some things that different from mine, but they are part of my life, have supported me at difficult times, and I try to find a line between not agreeing and outright arguing. She knows my views are the opposite of hers.

Turkey voting for Christmas springs to mind. What does she think Farage thinks about people in her situation?? She sounds very stupid.

(I’m not saying every Reform voter is stupid, before anyone shouts at me. But a Reform voter who doesn’t work, and who has a child on DLA with what sounds like an invisible disability of the kind openly sneered at by people like Tice?)

I don't understand this at all
There's 1 million things to talk about that aren't politics

And if you're going to get to know somebody on a really deep level, politics might not even come into it

Some people don't even vote

Actually, that's quite a high number thinking about it

i've known my closest friend for 25 years and it's vanishingly rare for us to discuss politics

Sounds like she would be happier without a friend like you sneering at her.

This. I wonder if those people receiving benefits, and voting reform, will be happy with the overhaul of benefits, that will no doubt happen under their watch, and will not be in their favour.

I suppose it depends what you mean by political? I don’t generally discuss much to do with political parties with anyone except a couple of very close friends, but I would see discussions of science and technology issues such as AI and climate change as being political, just ‘small p political’. Ditto problems with social care, SEN provision, CoL crisis, changing weather patterns affecting crops around the world and making things we like to eat more expensive, the local traffic issues, what’s happening with local schools, the anti-social behaviour in the local park - it’s all political!

See, that is a strange viewpoint to me. Yes, all those things you listed and many more (A.I, physics and the new Harry Potter series mainly at work at the moment as an example).

There are so many things to talk about that aren't politics?

It must be boring to link your identity and revolve your conversations around a political party.