I have never felt so bleak

@Alanis126 Thank you. I think you are on the right track with the idea of helping immigrants. It's what I'd like to do in France if they will let me stay. Politics there is not dissimilar to what you say about Ireland: the left has collapsed and the ruling "centrist" party is indistinguishable from the centre right. It's rubbish.

Brexit is shit, it will likely damage the economy and make the poorest even worse off. There could be food price increases. Boris is an untrustworthy liar. Divide and rule propaganda is poisoning political debate. There has been an increase in hate crime. However, you can sit in a pit of despair or be the change you want to see in the world. I was deflated Friday, but have found hope in connecting with charities in the area and plan on helping food banks and other charities which help needy people locally. And also tree planting and environmental stuff. I’m also thinking about joining a political party for the first time.

Hang on - you are in a "pit of despair" and "cannot function" yet don't live in the UK? I think you need to work on your mental health first then get back to politics.

Most people vote Tory because they are selfish. They think only about what benefits them in the short term.

I'm a WASPI. If I was only driven by selfishness and self interest, I'd have voted Labour.

I feel the same, OP. Having read and liked your posts before, I was a little surprised that you were now in Ireland and yet still so vigorously and unhappily involved with UK politics. Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising, given the links between the two countries. Personally I feel I'd be happy to wash my hands of the UK entirely, partly for my own peace of mind (LOL) and partly because the Tory landslide wasn't an act of God, but something the population actually chose: if we add together the Tory and Lib Dem vote share plus abstainers, we see that the vast majority either chose austerity or couldn't be arsed to oppose it. I think any effective resistance to Brexit and/or the dire poverty caused by Coalition/Tory policies will have to be led from outside of England. In Ireland, perhaps you could focus on giving advice and encouragement to Brits seeking to relocate because of Brexit.

I find FB groups are a good place to vent, but they are full of people who really do just want to moan. Nothing wrong with that, but I sense that you're maybe more of an activist than a keyboard warrior. Perhaps you could join or start some kind of local grass roots political movement, and links to any future UK resistance movement might emerge organically from that.

It really is bloody depressing.

I agree with everything you said FainaSnowChild. Op, your posts are showing exactly why the Tories won. Its a shame you don't afford the northern working class the same respect as you do people like you. Maybe you should step outside London and learn about what life is like for people outside the capital.

Posts like yours are far more offensive than a Yorkshireman wanting to see more jobs and investment in communities like his. You clearly see the northern working classes as less worthy than you. I think in the left's rush to make sure every single person's feelings are validated, you've forgotten to factor in the neglected communities in the North who as FainaSnowChild says don't want free broadband etc. They want local jobs for local people, investment in infrastructure and decent schooling for their children. They're not racist and ignorant for having different priorities to you. Some of them might be. But some far left activists are showing themselves up to be just as intolerant and vile as the worst kind of far right racist.

Alanis - those northerners, you're calling racist and backward looking (based on the word of one northerner you met), voted for Boris because they want Brexit, and labour's policy on brexit was woolly and badly formulated. They also didn't like Corbyn. This has come out time and time again in polls, but Labour didn't listen.

I didn't vote for Boris, but I knew he was going to win.
If you've watched "Brexit: The Uncivil War" - it is easy to understand. Dom Cummings knows how to win stuff - he targeted the northern Labour voters - Labour didn't.

Corbyn, I think, took his core northern voters for granted, and he's paid the price.

Most people vote Tory because they are selfish. They think only about what benefits them in the short term. Not about what’s best for everyone and the environment we live in in the long term.
Conservative ideology is abusive in its essence. ‘I’ am rich and I keep ‘you’ poor because that makes me richer. Financial abuse. I vote for policies that lead to poverty and underfunding in the NHS which directly negatively affects your health and risks your life. Physical abuse. I tell everyone that your leader is anti Semitic when in fact it is the hard right who are fascists. Gaslighting, projecting, therefore emotional abuse.

Alanis
The Tory heartlands are in the shires of Southern England so by your reckoning the ignorant racists are largely a little closer to home.

Now, imagine you are the guy in the ex mining town who is struggling to get a good job. What might his voting priorities be?
Paying 12bn to cancel the debt of largely middle class privileged ex-students who studied philosophy at Durham, as outlined in the 2017 manifesto?
Paying back the pensions of waspi women, regardless of how wealthy they may be? Because they had to work to a younger age than he will have to?
Spending a fortune renationalising the train service he doesn't use?
Ensuring that people can identify as whatever sex they choose and enshiring that in law?
Getting free broadband when they choose to extend it out to Northern small towns?
A promise of better benefits, when what you really want is small businesses to open locally and take on employees, which they won't be able to afford to do if business rates rise exponentially?

Not everyone votes Tory because they are racist....

There's no one quite so intolerant as a Labour voter. So quick to judge others and yet they have zero tolorance of anyone who disagrees with them.

I'm tired of the indulgence shown to people who are racist and backward-looking just because they may pretend to be working class.
Are we talking about JC here?

At least when Brexit does go tits up that blonde prick won’t have anyone else to blame but himself.

That is what I’m holding on to. I’ll be surprised if we leave by the 31st January.

Did you have to write in a fake northern accent? Jeez

What @Chattybum said

It is depressing but it is what it is. I’m sad and angry too. Do what you can, where you are, to improve things. Despair helps nobody.

I find this song helpful. The composer wrote it about his feelings after Trump won the US presidential election. It is very apt for many of us this week...

Also literally taking the piss out of the population of the north, the way they speak and casting stereotypes on people you don't know or understand - ignorant and xenophobic much? You are a complete hypocrite.

I think you and reality may have parted company for a bit here. You and other labour supporters are not 'the nice ones' and Tory voters 'the horrible ones'. This isn't primary school, and the fact you have reached this conclusion is very worrying.

Alanis
Read that last post back, you condescending madam, especially the bit where you ape a Northern accent. Imagine if one of those ignorant yorkshiremen were imitating an Indian accent. You would be apoplectic.

Moral high ground? Don't make me laugh. Get out of your London bubble and understand that you, and people like you, are part of the reason we have a conservative landslide.

Jack Munro posted this article on their cookery blog yesterday. It echos the feelings of this thread.

The day before the election I had a number of my middle aged friends, all of whom are owner occupiers in naice suburbs, 2 cars apiece and some of whom have second homes, post a thing on Facebook that said "if your polling station is in a school tomorrow and you vote Tory, you may as well take a shit on a child's desk on your way out".

This kind of polarised thinking and this assumption of moral superiority is what has led us to the situation we find ourselves in. It is deeply unpleasant to bully and hector people this way and it does NOTHING to alter people's voting intentions; in fact it puts people off. The sooner left wingers stop working on the premise that anyone who doesn't vote Labour is literally evil and uncaring the better. I have never in my life voted conservative, but I know that people who do are just people. Maybe they are a small business owner worried about business rates or someone who finds the authoritarian streak of the Corbynite left deeply unpleasant or someone who believes in small government or free speech rather than compelled woke speech. But they are, largely, just ordinary people like you who love their family and friends, and neither bigots nor evil.

Maybe grow up a bit and stop assuming moral superiority. Incidentally, once you start seeing your position as morally superior, and the other as morally inferior, and start using collective negative judgement on a whole body of people (bigots, uncaring, racist, idiots etc) then your thinking is heading for the foothills of fascism.

Labour voters flocked to the Tories in their droves
I guess statistically speaking this isn't what happened. In terms of the popular vote, the Tory vote share only went up 1.2%, the effect was just greatly magnified by FPTP. Labour's vote share went down 7.9% but the Lib Dems were the main beneficiary with an increase in 4.2% of the popular vote. Likewise the SNP saw its vote share increase by only 0.9% but its number of seats rose from 35 to 48.

(All stats from the Wikipedia page )

So despite the catastrophic election outcome, the attitudes of British people have not shifted to anything like the same extent, which is at least one reason to be hopeful for the future.

That said, ChewChew I do agree with you. The number of good politicians, from all sides, that withdrew from politics rather than stand again and face the same levels of abuse is indicative of what is wrong with our politics. Likewise the failure to hold politicians properly to account.