Best friend turned nasty & aggressive

& @bellinisurge ... you too 👍🏻
My feeling is that (from discussions with friends who thought labour voters switching were "stupid") - is that, very generally - middle class voters have very very different concerns to those that are less well off and don't live in big cities. Hence the very different vote. It's not the inability to "see" something - it's just the very different life experience that people are living that affects their choice. Personally I don't agree with Tory policy and I voted remain. However, I don't live in a town that has suffered over many years, whether our government was labour OR Tory. People want to be heard, want jobs and investment, not handouts. And they believe that Brexit mighty help that. Of course thats not necessarily true - but it's not necessarily untrue either. No one really knows the long term result. Either way, the Tory party was the only one that promised to listen. That and the self righteous hectoring didn't help.

@GCAcademic - everything you say!! Fan-girling about your posts. 👏

Everyone should realise that people made a judgment call on what they thought was the "least worst". People in old mining towns voting Tory did not do so lightly. It was heartbreaking for a lot of people to make this call. They felt so abandoned by Labour. These are communities that were utterly devastated by the effects of Thatcherism. None of them needs a lesson in what the Tories can do.
Someone having a hissy fit about a friend making a different call to them needs to grow the fuck up.

I really can't understand how anyone can bring themselves to vote for the current Conservative party, who have no moral compass.

I have to question the moral compass of someone willing to overlook all that and actively go out and still vote for them.

Are you both happy that Corbyn and McDonnell were in bed with the IRA? Or do you pretend not to notice?

Get some moderates in charge of the Labour Party, rather than Leftist extremists, and the majority of the electorate might listen to them.

I really can't understand how anyone can bring themselves to vote for the current Conservative party who have no moral compass and are scarily untrustworthy.

This is the crux of it for me. I have to question the moral compass of someone willing to overlook all that and actively go out and still vote for them. Worse, it's the message that's now been sent to these people that we don't care how dirty they are, they are bullet proof.

And I worry about the message it gives to my children and the precedent it sets for their future leaders. What example are we setting? It starts with us.

Don't assume I am Momentum. I'm not a Labour Party member (although I have voted Labour in the past), I am a tactical voter on the soft left and oscillate between Lib Dems and Labour, but never Conservative (my formative years under Thatcher has seen to that). I really can't understand how anyone can bring themselves to vote for the current Conservative party who have no moral compass and are scarily untrustworthy. I didn't have the same visceral hatred of John Major's government nor David Cameron's

I suspect a couple of my friends may be tories. We tacitly agree not to discuss politics - ever. I would struggle to be civil if the subject came up.

I know one of my friends is a Corbynista. I will not discuss politics with him as I know I would struggle to be civil. The fact that Corbyn and McDonnell enthusiastically got into bed with Irish Republican terrorists is so beyond the pale that I would cut off my right hand rather than vote for any party led by them:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/11924431/Revealed-Jeremy-Corbyn-and-John-McDonnells-close-IRA-links.html

I suspect a couple of my friends may be tories. We tacitly agree not to discuss politics - ever. I would struggle to be civil if the subject came up

Why do you think you have the right to pass judgment on anyone’s choice in a democratic election?

WTF?

Since when did we lose the right to form opinions on people, based on their actions?

Of course the OP and all the rest of us had the right to vote for whom we liked. And other people have the right to form opinions of us based on the things we say and do.

I've seen a number of posters trying to police other people's thought like this, this week.

Not "How could you think that? Let me try to change your mind," but simply, "You have no right to have your own opinion."

The irony of you calling other posters authoritarian!

It's like the weirder reaches of the freespeechers, who confuse their right to say things, with a right to be agreed with or liked for saying things. Nope. Free speech means you have a legal right to say things without being arrested; other people are still free to form opinions of you based on what you say; and are even allowed to say things in return. Cos, free speech. Who knew.

And here is Johnson's first move to stifle debate and opposition by making a Brexit extension illegal

www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50818134

Best not to go out fir drinks with her.

I've lost respect for some people this week. I would never tell them, but neither would I particularly want to go for Christmas drinks with them.

IFS is it as objective as you may think!

www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/we-need-talk-about-institute-fiscal-studies/

I love discussing politics with those who disagree with me, it's eye opening to hear how many vote "against" something. My favourites are the ones who base their vote on hearsay or because they don't agree with one lay persons choices and don't want to "fund" them.

OP your friend is a brainless cow

Some of these replies are ridiculous a Tory voter is the same person they were before they voted. It just doesn't fulfill the Labour rhetoric that all Tory voters are evil and so makes them project that on people. The election has happened, just as the referendum happened. It's now time to get on with the democratic process and if you feel passionately about something then work to make a difference and influence!

Friends falling out over politics is just really sad. It actually shows your friend in a really bad light that she's unable to engage in civilised debate, the corner stone of our society, without resorting to mud slinging. Irrespective of my political motivation I would be questioning my friendship with someone who felt it was appropriate to attack me.

I think that Tory voters and Labour voters all want the same end game, they just believe in different ways to get there.

Boris Johnson closing down Parliament illegally to shut down debate went well beyond ordinary politics and was authoritarian behaviour. V worrying indeed, especially with a weak opposition.

“Kinder, gentler politics”- unless you disagree with us.

The intolerance on the left is bloody frightening at the moment.

I didn’t vote Labour, never would whilst momentum has control, am not a party member and would not ask about or harangue anyone for their voting choice.

But I have no close friends who (at least as far as I’m aware) vote Conservative. I live in an area with a large Tory majority and have lots of acquaintances who I imagine do. We clearly have very different opinions on a range of matters, perhaps is among the things meaning we’re acquaintances not friends. Many other things matter in friendships / romantic relationships too, of course.

A few family members vote Conservative. I dislike and avoid discussing politics with them because I disagree with their espoused views, eg on immigration, tax and brexit, and don’t see the point in debating as we’re unlikely to change each other’s views.

that they have enabled fascism

Get a bloody grip. Words have meanings, you know.

What has fuelled the toxic climate in this country is three years of people telling Brexit voters that they are scum and trying to block it from happening. Things had the potential to get very dangerous indeed if that situation had carried on for much longer or if the Stop Brexit crowd had got their way. I say that as someone who voted Remain.

These people don’t actually give a crap about the “less fortunate”, beyond the opportunity that these unwashed masses provide for them to spew abuse at others under the guise of moral authority. You only have to look at how quickly they turned on them calling them thick and racist, and hoping that they would suffer, when they didn’t vote as they were told. Labour are the nasty party now

GC I totally agree. It’s just dire. Don’t they realize how bigoted and authoritarian they appear? The lack of self awareness is staggering

This is all now really beginning to piss me off. All these Labour voters are attempting to command the moral high ground as being the caring party, yet willing to insult and hector anyone they perceive as thick enough to have voted differently.

^This. The party has been colonised by spoilt middle class brats, obsessed with narcissistic identity politics, who have turned it into a club that provides them with self-righteousness and an opportunity to leverage moral outrage as a means to accrue more power to themselves. These people don’t actually give a crap about the “less fortunate”, beyond the opportunity that these unwashed masses provide for them to spew abuse at others under the guise of moral authority. You only have to look at how quickly they turned on them calling them thick and racist, and hoping that they would suffer, when they didn’t vote as they were told. Labour are the nasty party now.

Oh, and I didn’t vote Tory. But, as a longtime Labour voter, if forced to choose between them, I’d sooner vote Tory than for Labour in its current state.

I too would find it hard to accept your reasons. They seem very very weak

Why do you think you have the right to pass judgment on anyone’s choice in a democratic election? Are your social groups so narrow that you never encounter anybody who doesn’t vote like you? Who disagrees with your politics? Do you inhabit an echo chamber?

I too would find it hard to accept your reasons. They seem very very weak.

I never thought of myself as particularly political. But the Tory's and what they are doing to our NHS, austerity measures etc, I can't condone.

Probably best to take a break from each other right now.

Unfortunately there is a lot of this going on at the moment and facebook is absolutely horrific with friendships of 50 years being ended because someone voted Tory.
I think it's ridiculous, if your friend doesn't want a democracy maybe she should try living somewhere without one.
If she treats you like this she isn't a friend.