How different can your beliefs be and remain friends?

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I'm well known in my friendship group as a bleeding heart lefty, with the rest of them being (I thought) slightly right of centre.

Two of them went on the Tommy Robinson March last weekend. They didn't invite me (naturally), knew what I'd say if they did, but it was no secret with posts on FB etc.

Amoung our wider circle there's been a bit of a backlash. One man of Asian origin posted, not in direct response, but I expect it was in response iyswim, about how upsetting it was to see people he knows supprting this racist march. Now this is the most mild mannered man. Completely westernised in his daily life, supports his parents' customs for things like weddings and festivals. Professional job and a huge volunteer. If we talk about contribution he does much more than most.

I replied with something much more neutral than it might have been about how upsetting it is to see people being sucked in by the hate, even if they believe they were there for other reasons, the undertone is there and you can't support a rally like that without supporting the man and his ethos. It felt important to support this man who must be finding the general atmosphere where we live very uncomfortable currently.

As you'd expect it hasn't gone down well with the people who went on the march, who believe they went on the March in protest at illegal immigration and are not at all racist against anyone who is here legally.

I suspect on the surface, it will blow over, but....

i have friends/relatives with all sorts of views. Im more right leaning while i have some very left leaning friends but because we are all grown adults who believe that everyone is free to think the way that suits them we all get along fine!

I have and I am 68 and lived right across the UK from the south coast to the Scottish borders. I suspect that without being conscious of it, you are selecting your friendships and who you mix with so that your "sample" is scewed to people more like you than you realise.

I’m centre left I guess, and have a range of friends from across the political spectrum. We don’t discuss politics by tacit agreement. I know that they, like me, are fundamentally decent human beings and just trying to do the best they can with what they’ve got.

What I do struggle with is extremism of all political dimensions. I’m not comfortable with those who incite or support violence, those who promote oppression, those who disregard evidence that doesn’t chime with their own beliefs, or those who think they have the right to intimidate other people just because they don’t come from their community. I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone like that, but then I don’t think someone like that would want to be friends with someone like me.

Me and my husband were talking about this earlier.
I have a friend of 20 years who said something a few weeks ago that has really got to me.
We were talking about court cases and should they be public and she said…. Look at the bloke from coronation street, he’s name was dragged through the mud and then he was found not guilty because there was no evidence because the victim was lying and is a money grabbing tart.
Now that statement alone is so wrong in my eyes but to make it worse she is well aware that last year my rapist was charged (25 years after raping me) and found not guilty. I can’t help but find what she said as personal. I haven’t spoken with her since and don’t know if I want to, she hasn’t apologised.

I think the Conservative governments between 2010 and 2024 would wholeheartedly disown your comment about The Guardian and probably the BBC too!

Interesting. I am not sure where you got your figures from - if you are going to accuse others of making stuff up (whioch is against site rules btw) then you really need to evidence your own claim. Just had a google and according to the World Population Review the UK is 16th and comes after South Africa!!! https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/least-racist-countries
Rankings are somewhat subjective (as is your claim) but being less racist than somewhere else is not exactly a crowning achievement.

It's not narrow minded or bigoted to be intolerant of racists. It's normal. FFS.

You can have concerns about immigration (if you must) without going on what was essentially a BNP march.

Of course you can (and should in my view), but my friends would say they're not racist and went on the march because of one aspect but don't support all his views.

I think they were wrong to do that, and have said so.

In my experience it’s not possible.

Many of my friends have ditched me and turned pro-Hamas. Decades of friendship down the drain because I’m a Jew married to an Israeli. Some chasms are impossible to bridge. Supporting a group who wants me dead and my husband’s country destroyed is not something I can accept from a friend

It isn't about a normal political difference. I'm pretty Left and have friends I know vote Tory (a couple may even be in the party) We can talk about things, it's fine even if we don't agree.

If people going on the march last Saturday didn't look at the ideology behind it, it is very much on them. The British Asian man in the talk group can see through the "it's not about the people here legally" schtick and recognises that the element of the Far Right behind this do mean him and his family, even if it's "boats and Muslims" on the surface, as a more "acceptable" target.

I lost a good friend over this. We worked abroad together and both of us returned to our own countries- UK and USA.

We chatted over social media and I visited her in the US.

Then came the pandemic and she started posting crazy stuff, including about how dangerous all vaccines were. I sometimes gave her a counter argument but she always told me she had done her research and knew that all the doctors around the world were conspiring to convince us all that vaccines were safe when in reality they were incredibly dangerous: I used to tell her that doctors had been to university to study this stuff and had decades of experience but she was totally convinced that after a few hours of googling she had uncovered this massive conspiracy. She got fed up of me disagreeing and dumped me. Incidentally, she is incredibly bright - she has a degree in psychology and another one in law. My mind just boggles at her weirdness. She seemed totally sane in the years we worked together.

i would phase out anyone who goes on these marches as a friend. They represent the very worst of our society, the sheep that will lead us to a less tolerant and less free country.

Farage and his pals are counting on these idiots to vote for them in the hope that they will get into power. The NHS will be the first thing to go including the human rights acts.

Right. Personally I wouldn't be friends with racists or people who support them. Unfortunately that would be it for me. No need for a big drama, I would just remove myself from their lives.

I suspect your friends have ‘ditched’ you because genocide is a pretty hard line to get over. Never again means never again for everyone.

Ohh. That's an interesting one. I only have one Jewish friend, I'll admit, but even he has moved from a position of anyone who criticises Israel is antisemitic, to WTF is Israel playing at?.

I'd struggle with a friendship that didn't allow me to say that.

I nearly stopped seeing my friend re the Covid vaccination, I just about managed to sort of separate it from her and her as the person I really like.

I am sorry if they have ditched you to become "pro-Hamas". I have many Jewish friends, including many who live in Israel. In the immediate aftermath of th October we were all equally horrified by the attack on Israel, expected retaliation and could not blame anyone for their anger. Two years on we are still all united, but in opposition to what the Israeli government is doing. We are not pro-Hamas. We have never been. We are against genocide and believe that Palestinians have as much right to their homes, peace and life as Israelis do.

I also think it depends on the strength of the relationship.

for example my parents and I have very different views on Gaza and immigration. I’m able to look past that because they’re my parents.

I couldn’t, for example, look past it for a friend.

People i was brought up with SirHumphreyRocks.

This sums it up for me (attached image) and from now on it’s going to be my response to any “it wasn’t a racist march” nonsense. It was. Maybe some of those people I know who went on it or supported it weren’t racists, but the march was racist.

But you’re comparing apples and oranges. Y-L is a grifter, profiteering off racism. While people may have legitimate concerns over small boat immigrants, IMO it’s perfectly ok to dislike him for his actions without being seen as a bleeding heart liberal. I just wish people would wake up to what he’s doing.

Before Blair got in we had law and a constitution that had worked really well for hundreds (and up to a thousand years). Alot of very knowledgeable people think that he absolutely wrecked this including with the human rights act (which I'm sure coincidentally enriched his wife and all his human rights lawyer mates) - you do know we have only had that since 1997 don't you? As someone who was 28 then I can say that what we had before (and I include the Equality Act 2010) was much better as had been tried and tested over 100s of years and people for got along much better - we also didn't have hate speech laws which have led to people such as Graham linehan being arrested and alot more freedom of speech. If Farage wants to reset to pre- Blair laws I'm all for it!.

The ‘friendship’ is over for me. Two people I knew proudly posted their attendance at the protest.

They marched against my husband and children’s existence, what should I do? Like the posts?

No, they can keep their hate and their red paint.

This is the trouble, so much hysteria ( I think encouraged by social media). I can assure you that the number of people against your existence is very low, this reminds me of the trans who say that anyone who thinks they're not the opposite sex doesn't want them to exist. People of influence particularly on the left need to tone it down as that is how Charlie Kirk got assassinated (by someone who really didn't want him to exist!).