To wonder why the massive right wing upsurge

[RocketQueenP]

Disclaimer: I am no expert on politics clearly !! But as a woman, a mother, and working class (don't like defining myself as that but I don't earn loads and will never be rich so I am) in the 21st century I class myself as fairly left wing and vote that way myself because, if I'm honest, it's in my interests and also I want a fairer society

This isn't about Donald trump as such (the man should have his own bloody talk section!) But with Donald trump now president, the Conservatives in power in the U.K. for the second time with (it seems), no hope of that changing, why has most of the world in general just gone so right wing? Or does it just seem that way?

Again I am sorry if this is a thick question 😳 Genuinely wondering

The only hope for the left, and Labour, in my view, is for it to start addressing the real experiences and concerns of working class people, rather than feeling that their role is to re-educate the wc into the correct view.

I agree

Because the left pushed liberalism too far and instead of asking for tolerance they ask for blind acceptance.

When the left push too far the right wake up.

Semipermanent, if you are saying that most young people having a degree actually devalues having a degree, then I concur.

On a general note, and in specific response to the OPs question, I think the right-wing "upsurge" is more of a reveal. A large section (the majority in fact) of UK society have revealed themselves to be right-wing in thinking. What concerns me are the factors that kept them silent for so long. I am not a fan of suppression and thought control.

I was a (reluctant) remainer. I use the word reluctant because as a recruiter at the minimum wage end of the employment sector (HR roles in hospitality and construction) I saw the direct impact of free movement on British workers. If you have a choice between a degree level educated immigrant worker who has enough gumption to leave their country with the sole aim of seeking work versus a UK worker who perhaps has no qualifications at all, then it's a no-brainer. You are not comparing like with like, the very fact that the immigrant worker has that drive in the first place knocks the UK worker out of the competition.

As I work at managerial level, free movement does not impact on me personally. However, as my area is HR, I do see the impact, and I do understand why this right-wing upsurge has occurred. As I stated, I was a reluctant remain voter, and my decision to vote to stay was largely influenced by the doom mongering stance from the remain side. I hear a lot about Brexit Regreters, but I swing the other way. If there was a second referendum, I think my vote would change to leave. Why? Not only am I appalled at what sour losers my fellow remainers have turned out to be, but the continued suppression of the majority opinion disgusts me. Accusations of rascism and ignorance, which are hilarious because the very definition of rascism is allocating a set of negative values to one particular group of people. Repeated attempts to halt a democratic process because "the wrong side" won. The arrogance astounds me!

A large section (the majority in fact) of UK society have revealed themselves to be right-wing in thinking. What concerns me are the factors that kept them silent for so long. I am not a fan of suppression and thought control.

Why assume thought control? Surely it is more likely that the majority of people are somewhat 'floating' in their political beliefs and have tended to shifted to the right in recent times.

I find this development of a paranoid style of thinking within UK politics - the people have been 'suppressed' and 'kept silent' - to be quite concerning.

How have they revealed themselves to be right wing in their thinking ?

It's still happening NotDavidTennant.

Take education for example, are children educated to believe that immigration is a bad thing? Of course not, and it would be illegal to do so. However, the stance is to highlight the enrichment to the UK of other cultures joining our society and is bent towards the positivity, with the negatives left unaddressed. Therefore the negatives of immigration become taboo. Concerns about ghettoisation and reluctance to assimilate to the host's culture are countered with accusation of rascism or of hypocrisy with the ex-pats in Spain wheeled out time and again to be sneered at. How is that anything but suppression of free thought.

Politically, I sit bang in the middle. I find I agree more or less equally with Corbyn and May. If I was a US citizen, I would have been stumped and would have had to asbtain from voting given the two choices before me. However, you cannot deny the left-leaning attitude of our education system and media, the BBC in particular. Any kind of bias is wrong.

Not sure what the bookie's odds are today Enthusiasm, but to answer your question...
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-will-be-in-power-for-the-next-15-years-say-bookies-a7016771.html

Exactly what Scaryclown said.

And the Daily mail and the Sun are extremely good at marketing, promoting and normalising their extreme right editorial stance. Lots of people consume and form their opinions based on this rubbish.

Secrets That is why over the past 5 years at least NATO has been restructuring and refocusing on the core issues, becoming leaner and more streamlined. The new U.S. Secretary of Defence supports NATO, and that helps.

The realists (of whom there are many working for NATO) see this as an opportunity to reinforce the Alliance and to ensure the nations, not just the U.S., deliver on their pledges. The same problems that NATO has with getting some Allies to cough up will still exist if the EU expands militarily. Furthermore, does the EU want to replicate the existing NATO capabilities, or does it want to stand up its own Armed Forces from scratch who would owe allegiance to the EU? I find the thought of EU Forces, as opposed to national forces being loaned as they are with NATO, alarming.

The French threw in the towel and became an active member of NATO again, as they got the ACT jobs when they came back into the fold.

There was a joint NATO/Russia council and had been for years until Putin decided to annexe Crimea, when it was suspended. There were also joint submarine rescue ops in place, and relations were quite good.

As for Putin probing the Baltic States, NATO are very aware of this and have deployed troops there. There have also been air patrols flying there as part of the RAP, and the U.S. are putting troops into Poland. The NATO planners and strategists are very aware of Putin. It would be interesting to see what the EU would do, as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are all EU Member States as well as NATO nations.

The Tories will be in power for years to come if Labour don't sort themselves out. It makes me laugh out loud when supposedly clever people say "there is a silver lining to Brexit, the Tories will be finished at the next election!"

No they won't. They will grow in popularity. Because what else is there? Corbyn? He is the weakest Labour leader ever, and he followed another wet lettuce, Miliband.

The Tories aren't in power because everyone wants the poor people to suffer. They are in power because there is NO alternative.

Until Labour find a real leader, they are finished. Once they do, they will have my vote again.

I am not sure that is down to right wing thinking more that the opposition (labour) being so pathetically poor not many would vote for them bring in a good leader and there is a chance labour could win the next election there is certainly ground for them to be taking right now

I do agree we are a more of a conservative country with a small c and always have been compared to say some Nordic countries but we have larger population and wealth distribution is less

But more right wing that say in the 80's I'm not so sure but many ideas are automatically by some labelled right wing any mention of immigration and not totally accepting of open door policy to some is considered right wing thinking

I totally agree Faithless, and this is a perfect example of my point. The Daily Fail and "Sun Readers" are widely pilloried whereas "beardy Granuiad" readers may get a ribbing, but they're rarely depicted as abhorant, stupid and, most importantly, wrong.

I agree with bookworm's point about the out-of-dateness of class labels and NotDavid's on the increasing irrelevance of left and right labels (having used both sets of labels in my post).

I use class in an economic sense only - so people's background for me is fairly irrelevant and what matters is their earning potential and wealth but it is very much shorthand and limited in usefullness I agree.

This article has some interesting points about looking at politics on both a left/right economic spectrum and a communitarian/cosmopolitan spectrum.

Interestingly the study they look at found Ukip voters to be economically to the left of Conservatives.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/politics-is-too-complex-to-be-understood-as-just-either-left-or-right/

I sensed that was where you were going with your question Enthusiasm, but didn't bite.

I am the very definition of a floating voter having voted Labour (Blair inspired), Green, Lib Dem and Conservative. In fact Liberal Democrat just about sums up in two words everything I support. Now there's a political party that needs to pull their socks up!

I think it's because there's no middle ground.

You have

Far right: get all immigrants out etc,
Far left: let all/limitless numbers of immigrants in etc,
Both sides think the other is evil/stupid.

Whereas the answer is in the middle.

You generally find conservatives elected when they are moderate right rather than far right and you generally find labour elected when they are moderate left rather than far left.

Moderation, people! Just like Birgitte Nyborg
I would vote for her.

If there was a GE called this year I have no idea who I would vote for

I feel both very sad and angry about it

I would have to find an independent to vote for

I think there is possibly a labelling issue at play here and I worry that it could become a self-fulfilling phrophecy. This is just a theory so be gentle if you think it is bollocks.

So take Leave. The narrative is that a vote to leave is essentially more right wing than a vote to stay (simplification for purposes of argument). But I don't really think it is. In the same way as someone or another (Labour MP) said - there is nothing intrinsically left wing about freedom of movement, there is nothing intrinsically right wing about wanting less immigration. In many ways, if you look at the economic political spectrum, rather than the social political spectrum, possibly the reverse.

The Brexit vote was a shock to many. People didn't do what was expected of them. This is one of the reasons for all the hideous name-calling we saw in the aftermath. So perhaps people thought for themselves rather than thinking along left/right lines, and perhaps it is wrong to interpret the leave vote as a sign the country is moving to the right.

Perhaps if this could be understood it would be easier to withstand the Tories more right wing economic plans.

In a way it is similar to the issue of fighting increased racism. I don't understand people who think they can defeat racism whilst calling everyone who voted leave a racist (as some have said and are still saying, not on this lovely thread of course). We can only defeat racism if we are clear that 37% of the electorate are not racist and that it is a minority, and unacceptable position.

TL:DR

People have been sold various narratives about why people voted leave and they are not all true.

I have moved from left - centre left - centre - to have no one left to vote for - to damage control possible tory unless they sack Corbyn/Farron. I do think the lefts short term hope is coalition but as labour can not agree on much even that hope is slim.

Macron in France will be interesting to watch. Neither Left nor right (but from the world if banking which would probably be a minus in the UK!)

Wrongtrouser is right.

There is nothing intrinsically "left wing" about freedom of movement. In fact, it was next to impossible to move from one city to another in the USSR without being assigned a job by the government, let alone move to another "country" in the republic without official sanction.

Indeed, back in the 70s and 80s, immigration was seen as a tool of the capitalist to drive down workers' wages, smash trade union power, or to uphold profit margins in a failing industrial climate.

This is why you got some old style left-wingers supporting "Labour Leave" and some firebrand trade unionists arguing against the EU. I remember left-wing arguments in the early 90s about the EU and freedom of capital and labour and how it would demolish worker's rights and the ability of governments to financially provide welfare and support to workers because they would not be able to tax capital across borders -- an argument that proved prescient with multinationals tax-hopping through the EU.

To me, what is being perceived as a "right wing upsurge" is actually a phenomenon where those who would traditionally have expected the "left" to represent their interests (in Britain, this would be "old" or "traditional" Labour voters) have thrown their lot in with those on the protectionist right because they share a common concern about the consequences upon their lives of the excesses of global capitalism.

In my eyes, this is not "right wing upsurge", but more an "anti-globalism upsurge".

You can see this clearly when you look at how the phenomenon is manifesting with Brexit and Trump. Trump basically won on a pro-American message of jobs, industry and the economy through policies that would control capital flows and the products of capital (anti-TIPP, anti-NAFTA, imposing tariffs, wanting to design laws so that the process of production and subsequent profit has to be repatriated back to the US etc). And control of capital to favour the worker historically sits at the heart of traditional left wing thinking.

I think, with what is happening, you need to separate the economic spectrum from the cultural spectrum and also consider the libertarian to authoritarian axis for both those spectra as well.

I suspect the shock has been because people in positions of influence have got too used to perceiving politics through a cultural lens, rather than an economic one. So they are reacting to Brexit and Trump as though they are solely cultural reactions to the status quo, rather than economic responses: hence all the racist, xenophobe, fruitloop, racist labels, which are all firmly in the domain of the "culture wars".

"Culture politics" seems to be where a hellova lot of people think the battle is situated, and that is why so many people are missing the point and why the situation is getting so explosive. It isn't about culture, it's about the economy.

With big shifts like this, it is always about the economy.

Except, werk, that it seems most people are happy to see Art 50 triggered even though they know it could lead to a low tax, unregulated country.
Nevermind where it comes from, Brexit is heading right and people are pleased with it.

I would have to find an independent to vote for

And be damn careful what that independent's about, or a vote for "None of the Above" could be a vote for all the things you least wanted, rolled into one.

Voting for change can be good. But it depends on the change...

I agree that there is nothing left-wing about FOM. But it was predictable that by getting rid of it, you'd end up with right-wing policies, or some sort of national socialism.

Werkz Your post is spot on and plenty of food for thought.

Children are also educated to believe and given the strong message that illness and disability are weaknesses with those stupid bloody attendance awards.

It starts early!