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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think that people who denounce their friends for voting differently to them are pathetic?

95 replies

kinkytoes · 08/05/2015 10:09

Should they also live in the same type of house as you, drive the same type car as you and do the same type of job as you too?

I've seen lots of people saying they'd disown their friends, even their partners for voting differently. It flies in the face of democracy and makes me very angry.

People are much much more than just their voting preferences.

OP posts:

ilovesooty · 08/05/2015 10:12

In my view your voting preferences tend to express your values. They're rather different from your choice of house and car.

There are certain values I wouldn't want to associate with in friends and partners.

Kuriusoranj · 08/05/2015 10:15

I agree entirely with ilovesooty - couldn't have put it better.

CrystalHaze · 08/05/2015 10:15

It's irritating me a lot today. I didn't vote Tory, but I've seen a lot of people exhorting their friends to 'unfriend' them if they did. I can't get my head round the 'only me and people who think like me are right' mentality. Everyone thinks they're right - no one actively sets out with the intention of making a 'bad' decision, do they?

I'm staying off social media for the next fortnight because it's all too draining.

CatIshoo · 08/05/2015 10:16

I've really pissed off my parents by voting Labour, apparently nobody in our family has ever or would ever vote for them.

I am finding it rather amusing though.

Eigg · 08/05/2015 10:18

Cat I've upset mine by not voting Labour...

Original poster

kinkytoes · 08/05/2015 10:22

But surely if you are close to these people, you know if they are essentially worth spending time with. Voting preferences are just a small part of who they are in the big scheme of things.

OP posts:

PtolemysNeedle · 08/05/2015 10:23

YANBU. It's very small minded.

I understand people's objections to UKIP, but common sense tells me that as long as we are part of the EU, there is a very valid place for a party that opposes that in a fair democracy.

ilovesooty · 08/05/2015 10:25

If someone votes ukip and expresses fundamentally racist views they aren't someone I want to spend time with. I don't regard that as "a small part of who they are"

CrystalHaze · 08/05/2015 10:27

And presumably you'd also already have a vague idea of their values and preferences. I know that my family are Tory voters, and I know and accept the reasons why. I don't share these particular values, but that doesn't make me incontrovertibly and them incontrovertibly wrong.

Although if I sudddenly found out they'd voted UKIP I'd have to rethink things ASAP

YouMakeMyHeartSmile · 08/05/2015 10:28

My friends have no idea how I voted. I generally have no idea how they voted (apart from the few that feel the need to shove it down my throat via social media!). They're my friends because I've already decided that they are decent people, and that we have shared values and outlooks on life. Finding out that they voted differently to me yesterday wouldn't all of a sudden change that.

madreloco · 08/05/2015 10:28

I don't generally care where my friends live, what they work at etc.
However, I have a basic requirement for friendship in that said friend needs not to be a total asshole. If you voted UKIP, for example, you're deep into asshole territory.

What is it to you how people choose their friends? It has nothing to do with democracy, I don't need to take votes on who I spend time with.

Original poster

kinkytoes · 08/05/2015 10:30

But sooty there are two parts of your 'if' there, which changes things considerably.

OP posts:

DinkyDye · 08/05/2015 10:31

A lot of people vote the way their parents did and their parents did etc so I don't think it necessary reflects their true values.

But yes I agree it's pathetic to defriend those that didn't vote the way you did.

But it does seem to be a real case of (on MN) Labour voters thinking everyone who didn't vote Labour wants to fuck them over instead of perhaps not agreeing with the other shit Labour stand for/agree with another party's policy.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 08/05/2015 10:31

I'll be friends with whom I want thanks, and I will think and say what I want. Who made you the friend police OP?

mountainofdreams · 08/05/2015 10:31

YANBU it is absolutely mind boggling and a bit worrying how extreme people are towards those who have voted differently to them.
Dp and I both voted conservative. Dp brother voted green, we're all still friends!
If I want to know how people voted I will watch the BBC election coverage (as I am right now).
I'm not interested in an individual witch hunt of all my friends and family and who they privately and democratically voted for.

MoominKoalaAndMiniMoom · 08/05/2015 10:31

I'd rather be pathetic than have friends who vote UKIP.

ilovesooty · 08/05/2015 10:32

I have one or two friends who vote Tory and as I liked them before I was aware of their voting preferences I'm still friends with them. I think they're generally decent people and their voting doesn't alter that.

I would be reconsidering my friendship with them if they were demonstrating lack of empathy with disadvantaged people, or benefit bashing.
I would be withdrawing from anyone racist, homophobic, disablist in any case. If they're UKIP voters in my opinion they're likely to espouse values I can't tolerate in my life.

IKnowIAmButWhatAreYou · 08/05/2015 10:35

LOL, it's like being in the playground isn't it!!

Luckily my friends and I are mature enough to celebrate our differences and enjoy each others company for more reasons than political allegiances....

CactusAnnie · 08/05/2015 10:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

fiveacres · 08/05/2015 10:35

YANBU

My friends are people with the right to express themselves through the ballot. their voting preferences have nothing to do with their relationship with me.

I have always supporter labour but Labour do not stand a chance where I live and I like the tories policy on social care and a fair wage for those impacted by this and my local MP has a excellent track record. I chose to vote tory this time for those reasons - does that make me someone no longer worth considering as a nice person?
Would that make me go from being a nice person to suddenly being a horrible person who was a 'cunt' according to some on here?

But I think that if someone disregards every value a friend has and every act of kindness or friendship or support out of the window because they disagree with their mainstream political choice then I think that they probably have few friends!

CrystalHaze · 08/05/2015 10:36

But moomin, you'd have noticed UKIP tendencies in any friends or associates long before May 7th, and already have not been friends with them on account of that, surely? Unless they were deliberately passing themselves off as a liberal to reel you in?

ClashCityRocker · 08/05/2015 10:36

Ha bj.

In my immediate family we have labour voters, Tory voters, liberal democrats...actually, a lot of our values are similar, we just disagree on how best to acheive them. And the labour/Tory voters aren't neccessarily the ones you would expect.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 08/05/2015 10:36

YANBU.

I also hate when they call voters they don't agree with 'scum'. I fundamentally disagree with pretty much everything in UKIP's agenda and I think their voters are wrong, wrong, wrong, but they're not 'scum'.

I also think it's an own goal. It makes people less likely to admit they're going to vote for whichever party will get you unfriended but I suspect it makes people even more likely to vote for it. The horrible Daily Mail 'vote Conservative' issue the day before the election carried a story about vandals painting 'Tory scum' on the cars of a Conservative MP and her parents. Of all the dirt they managed to dig that for me was the one that would have swayed me most against Labour, had I been inclined to be swayed.

madreloco · 08/05/2015 10:36

If you're saying it totally ridiculous to judge people based on the way they vote, are you telling us you'd be best friends with someone who voted for the BNP or similar?
If yes, you're as bad as them. If no, you're a hypocrite, and its not the judging in general you have a problem with, but the judging of of people you agree with.
Either way, none of your business what anyone else thinks or says.

ClashCityRocker · 08/05/2015 10:37

Ha BJ?! I meant YANBU.

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