Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

Yes, I also feel there was an "unravelling of integration", which is a great way to put it, AutumnRose1.

It seems ludicrous now but, back in the early 90s, I remember a mixed-ethnicity group of us as teens talking about how we would be the last generation to know what racial prejudice was. We seriously thought that because we just couldn't conceive of those ideas surviving any longer.

We all went to school together, we lived next door to each other, we socialised together, we dated each other, we went to each other's life events (christenings, marriages, funerals). We knew each other's mums and dads, and stayed over at each other's houses. A huge number of us have mixed-ethnicity/heritage children, as did our parents; I myself am mixed ethnicity/heritage, as is my DH.

So to us, there was no way racism could survive because, well, we were the same people, the same community. Yes, we were all different colours, and our parents and grandparents had different accents, and we all ate slightly weird food at home, but that was no barrier at all -- even when we did take the piss out of Don because his dad had a massive collection of Desmond Dekker CDs.

It wasn't until I went to university and mixed with more privileged students that I realised not every one in Britain was like us working class Northerners. That was when I first met people who were nervous of black people and weird about people from immigrant backgrounds. And there were people who were odd with me because my boyfriend of the time had a West Indian dad; they were wary of him because he was obviously bi-racial. I never had that experience with working class people.

Now, it is those very same privileged people on my social media feeds that are calling Northerners and working class people "racist" for voting Tory or Brexit. I hold my tongue and don't respond, but it infuriates me.

There's no recognition of Northern working class lived experiences. There's no recognition that Manchester was one of the only cities in the Western world where working class promoters invited American black soul artists to perform in the 1960s and paid them a decent wage. There's no recognition that Jo Smooth was so blown away by the love he got touring in England in 1987 that he wrote Promised Land ... because he'd experienced what he thought was a post-racial paradise in British clubs. Even Kevin Sanderson says today that he couldn't believe that there were all these white people in Britain that loved black urban house music and thought he was terrific; it touched him so deeply as a black man from Michigan.

Instead, it's all just this weird false narrative that bears no relation to reality. Sometimes I think the left thinks we live in the America of the 1950s where white working class "yokels" are just itching to lynch foreigners.

Ffs, those "foreigners", those "immigrants", and those white working class "bigots"? They are our mums and dads, our grandparents, our mates, and our spouses!

It beggars belief. It really does.

Packing is right, but it is not just the north.

The town where my mum lived has lots of elderly so a big care sector, seasonal tourism, and a port with light industry and some fishing attached. There are posh golf and sailing clubs, and plenty of ostentatious wealth, but equally plenty of cheaper housing for care workers, tradesmen etc. The only difference perhaps with "the north" is that there was not the big collapse in employment so people have always had jobs, from "benefit tourists" in the 1990s effectively squeezed out by the need for accomodation for an expanding student population, albeit often low paid. Better employment prospects presumably helps aspiration so schools are good, whilst there has never been the tradition of organised labour you had in the North. The area is very traditionally Conservative, and strongly Brexit.

The community is liberal in many ways, with significant gay and Jewish communities, and well integrated immigrant communities from post WW2 Spanish to more recent East Europeans.

I found the post Brexit sneering about racism and the "white working class" (a London Trustafarian I know actually posted this on Facebook) well out of order. I so hope Boris comes good on his promise to repay those who voted for him.

I really like this thread for its willingness to share perspectives rather than ideology. That is all.

Thank you packing for putting into words what I experienced growing up. My family are from Birmingham in the trades and for them the choice of Labour to welcome Polish labourers rather than fix the qualification issues was spit in the eye.

Men with families were being undercut by men living in bed sits (it's actually a lot better now that many have their families here). When my Dad raised the issue to the Labour MP he was basically called a liar and the MP implied he was driven by racism. This from the party of unions.

I get the feeling that Labour are embarrassed about our type of working class. The ones who go into the trades because they didn't do well at school but still want to earn enough to buy a car and a house. Those who really love football and hang out England flags and have them flying from car windows during the World Cup. Those who genuinely like the military and the Queen and the opportunities for flag waving and being proud of your country.

We knew they held us in contempt before the Brexit vote, calling us thick white racists afterwards confirmed it. Half my family voted Remain, but seeing that reaction changed their mind.

My small contribution to the discussion is the observation that there has been deliberate twisting of the meaning of ordinary words for so long now that we now have two languages: one for the "identity politics" campaigners who make up much, although not all, of the Labour Woke cult.

Fascist means "anyone who doesn't love Jeremy"; bigot means "anyone who doesn't agree with me"; privileged means "anyone who has two pennies to rub together and gets by without food banks"; fake news means "any legitimate or quantifiable truth or fact that backs up your argument but dispels mine"; transphobe means...well, you know what it means.

Such words, used in those ways, apply to just about every single one of us. And there's no point in explaining the inaccuracy or indeed the inherent injustice in those labels. The response has been to shout over us and if that doesn't work, silence us.

We saw the future. And voted No.

Yes - and even though I regret having to leave, there's a part of me that does find the outrage quite amusing.

Floisme
You're right, there was an element of "how dare you!"
But a millionaire gets to vote only once, as does a part time security guard.

Yeah Packing is spot on. I'm a remainer as are many of my friends and family (not all - some voted to leave and guess what, we still rub along as we always did). I'm upset about leaving the EU and think it's a big mistake. However I've noticed from talking to remainers in London (and yes this is anecdotal), that they're not only upset, there's also a kind of outrage that their 'great city' is being dragged down by a backward country. They talk - and they're only half joking - about independence for London, ignoring the fact that several northern cities voted to remain. (In fact I believe the remain vote in Manchester was higher than in London.) The more I talk with them the more I get the sense - and no I can't quantify it - that what really rankles isn't having to leave the EU but being overruled by the people of Oldham and Mansfield and Lincolnshire.

I think as well the private school thing and getting rid of Ofsted was misjudged.

I suspect that very few people who aren't either Labour party members or parents of children at private schools could explain LP policy on private schools.

packingsoapandwater

Your post rings so many bells for me sitting in my ex-shipbuilding Clydeside town, all bar the one line.

We had high hopes for Blair, foolishly believing that we might see investment and change in post-industrial areas of recividist unemployment. We saw nothing of the sort. After devolution failed with the NW vote, nothing else happened

But here's the dirty little secret about devolution, Labour never really supported it.

I was a Labour member back in the 90s. I campaigned for a Blair government, and for devolution, which was massively popular in Scotland. People here have been agitating for autonomy for as long as we've had votes through which to do so, and Labour have let us down every bloody time.

Even with a 70% in favour vote they took the result as a desire for permanent Labour government, not autonomy from Westminster which was what the people thought we were voting for.

Even before the first Holyrood election this was apparent to those of us on the inside. Those who are old enough may remember the Dennis Canavan affair. Canavan was a popular Labour MP from Falkirk who wished to make the move to Holyrood and represent his constituents there. His local CLP wanted him to be their candidate. The powers that be in London blocked him. He wasn't a good little yes man who would do what he was told. He ended up standing as an independent and won.

Canavan wasn't the only such case though, just the only one to hit the headlines. My own CLP had a similar issue with London blocking our preferred candidate. Two thirds of local members, including me, left over it. I have never voted Labour since.

It took the wider voting public somewhat longer to realise Labour's idea of devolution was Scotland doing what the London Labour leadership wanted, but by 2007 enough had done so for Labour to lose Holyrood to the SNP.

Even now after the arse they made of the 2014 referendum and the loss of their Westminster seats in three consecutive elections they still don't understand that Scotland never asked for permanent Labour government. We asked for autonomy. For the ability to make policies the work for us with no reference to London at all. I despair of them.

I agree that Packing's post is excellent. Take one issue, social care. As the population has aged, has been a huge growth in demand for jobs in care - fairly menial jobs that require people to carry out intimate care for elderly people. And a huge proportion of those jobs are now done by immigrants. There's a kind of sneering middle-class attitude that says "British working-class people won't do those jobs, so we have to bring in immigrants to do them."

But of course the reality is that many working-class people would love to do those jobs, but they can't do them, because the demands are often so ridiculous - having to start work at 6am or finish at 9pm, or work weekends, and if you are already caring for your own family those kinds of hours are impossible. Employers could make it more feasible by being a bit more flexible in allowing people to choose their hours or work part time. But they don't.

You can see why a lot of working-class communities then feel less than thrilled when middle-class liberals tell them they should be grateful that so many immigrants are willing to come in and do these jobs.

And the difficulty then is the confusion between immigration and immigrants. I do think that immigrants who have come here have done a lot of good for the country, and have made valuable contributions. I can also see why people are resentful about immigration and the impact it has on their communities - and I think you should be able to say both those things.

Place mark so I can come back to this thread to absorb fully the great posts.

Over the last two years, so much of what I think has been turned on it’s head, because I’ve grown to realise the assumptions that I’d built my politics on need to be challenged. It’s hard work, it takes some real thinking and reflection. But it’s worth it.

I haven't read the NY Times article because I don't want to create yet another account.

However, New Jersey is a state that is unable to 'create' its own money and therefore dependent on tax receipts (in addition to federal spending), while the UK is a country with its sovereign currency and therefore not constrained in the same way because on a country wide level, government spending comes before taxation (otherwise how can the government demand people pay tax if the currency hasn't already been issued by the government? ).

modernmoneybasics.com/facts/

In the modern era, it doesn't really matter where super rich people live. Their wealth moves around the globe via offshore accounts and various tax loopholes. No one actually moves to Panama for the tax cuts! Wealthy Russians and Chinese continue live in the UK (predominantly in London) because they like the prestige and lifestyle that comes with it.
Where rich people live and where their money resides are two different things.

brilliant thread. so many great posts

because I'm a bit slow on the uptake, the first time this pinged my radar was Emily Thornbury's image of Rochester tweet. I grew up around there, and I know precisely what it's like. I couldn't believe that a Labour politician was showing such condescension towards working people. What the hell does she think the Labour movement was for ?

Apparently this time around she said to Caroline Flint 'I'm glad my constituents aren't as stupid as yours'

as my mother said, it's disgraceful. Disgraceful is precisely the word for this abject betrayal of working people and perversion of the Labour movement.

Some great points being made here, as an outsider I think that the benefits cap, 2 child benefit cap, bedroom tax etc were seen as a good thing by a lot of working class people in the UK, the Tory policies brought an odd sense of fairness to those who were struggling but still going to work every day. I think a lot of working class people see those who don't work and live off benefits as hugely prevalent in society because often you're more likely to notice them or read articles about them when in reality its a tiny percentage and people who find themselves living off benefits genuinely struggling and want to be in work.

I think as well the private school thing and getting rid of Ofsted was misjudged. It appeared to me like they were just trying to get rid of the competition so that defacto state schools were the best. I think a lot of people who would have voted Labour in the past or would have been expected to be Labour voters would have aspired for either themselves at the time or their child then or now to be able to attend a Grammar school for social mobility.

I think people also understood that a huge increase in spending while trying to tax richer people (who are generally much more easily able to move country) would result in huge tax increases and given the percentage already spent servicing debt would be another reason that the bottom could fall out with an ageing population. I kept thinking about how a single tax payer moving out of New Jersey meant that they had to redo the whole state budget because of a much diminished tax take www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/business/one-top-taxpayer-moved-and-new-jersey-shuddered.html

...Come to think of it, I'm also pretty offended that by the amount of swearing in that clip, as thought that's how the writer thinks working class people all talk - even the cashier is effing it! So tired of being spoken down to by these muppets with zero real world experience. Sucking dick for socialism T-shirts FFS, obviously worn by a woman who wasn't pimped out at 15 by a friend's mother, like someone I knew, going on to suffer mental health problems, eating disorders and making several suicide attempts. Yes, that's all just a joke isn't it, Owen? FWIW I didn't vote at all this election, for the first time. I couldn't bring myself to vote Tory, but I did consider it and understand why many did. The most pathetic thing is the way in which this crushing defeat is still being defended and excused. It just makes them even more contemptible.

Great thread. A woke acquaintance shared this clip on social media
www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1136149183233784
and whilst nothing to do with the election, for me it sums up why working class people such as myself are so turned off by middle class Corbynistas. It's from the Channel 4 program 'Home', which I haven't watched, but this clip was shared as a kind of moral lesson, with the title 'How to Deal With a Racist'. Everything about this clip is so far-fetched and cartoon like - the saintly immigrant who gives up his money to the man abusing him, the horrible rabid white working class racist man. And then we have the symbolic perfect multicultural family who swoop in as heroes - and following the narrative we've seen time and time again, this means that there is a double standard, with threats of violence to be cheered on so long as the 'right side' are doing it. I'm not saying immigrants don't have to put up with abuse, they do and they shouldn't, but I have worked directly for many years with immigrants from war torn countries, and they have unanimously told me how much more welcoming the UK is than any other country they have been in. I've also lived in other countries and have seen this to be true with my own eyes. It's not the message of this clip that's the problem, but the whole patronising tone of it, and the fact that this supposed comedy program written by a privately educated, middle class white Cambridge graduate is educating the commoners on how to behave next time they see any bad behaviour in the dole queue - and worse than that, being shared by the woke as some sort of public service announcement for the plebs. It's like the middle class far left have just discovered that brown and black people are actual humans too and so need to share this valuable insight with all of us because we're obviously all too thick and racist to realise it. The latest story of the evil and ignorant great unwashed of which I smell is bullshit has been shared by LOJ:
twitter.com/Obewankanobewh1/status/1205534123248570372
It's the exact same narrative as the Jesse Smollet scandal - I accept I could be wrong, but really, 'bumboys'?! and 'Boris, Boris, Boris'?!

Also, I think it’s important to remember there are now huge numbers of jobs attached to all this and I don’t think those people will give up easily. Though I at least I now feel like it’s not just a handful of us who are royally pissed off with this.

Needmoresleep yes, all I hear is that it’s intended to help with prejudice. When I’ve dared to say I think it makes things worse, the reaction I get is that I’m a bad person. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Those forms... I panicked a bit when
20 years ago and together with other new mums we set up a community group to protect our local park. The Labour run Local Authority would not talk to us as they felt we were insufficiently diverse. Till I remembered that one Committee member was Asian and another black. It was really just chance. New mums in our area came in all shapes, colours and sizes.

The Local Authority then decided we were too Middle Class and so not representative enough. I asked another mum in the playground, who lived on a local estate whether we were getting it wrong. No, not at all. She was glad mums like me were using our energy and experience to fight for local facilities. She was too busy dealing with the housing department, benefits etc. And anyway there was little chance if mums from her estate set up a group, that they would be listened to either.

I suspect divide and rule has been used as a tactic for a long time. It is essentially telling people they are not 'good enough' based on colour, background, sex or whatever. Merit would be a better basis.

Needmoresleep

I so relate to that. I’ve had my friend’s 18 year old, you know when you first start work and have to fill in a billion forms, being very upset because at the end of the exercise he felt horrendously “othered” by all the ethnicity questions.

My late father long refused to fill in those forms.

I’ve mentioned here that I hate wondering if I got a job because I tick a diversity box. Posters replied saying “but your application is anonymous”. Yes, but when I turn up to interview they see my skin colour!

I have been rewatching The Good Wife, Eli makes a reference to “this was meant to be a post racial society”. It was, and we were really getting there.....until some groups decided to fuck it all up.

I am so hoping that this will put us back on a good path.

Yes packing. Awesome post