To think telling people to “unfriend” you on social media because of the way you’re voting is immature?

[Retpark101]

This is kind of another election one, but I don’t want to thread to be hijacked into discussing politics, in fact I actually just want people to respect that everyone has their own minds and opinions, they have a right to vote for whoever they want to.

There’s so many political posts on Facebook right now but I’ve seen a couple of people on my friends list post things like “if you’re voting Conservative/Labour/etc tomorrow, please unfriend me” or “delete my number and don’t speak to me again”
AIBU to think this is bloody childish and if you’re a mature adult you accept that people are all different and have the right to their own thoughts? I hate how this election is making people gate each other.

Unless somebody has extreme views then is it really worth breaking friendships for the sake of someone voting the opposite of you?

[taketotheskye]

Wineiscooling I'm fascinated, how?! I can't imagine being married to someone whose fundamental ethics and beliefs differed so widely. I'd be more prepared to compromise on belief in God, than I would on things like belief in the possibility of equality. How could you raise children with someone with fundamentally different beliefs about society?

[Lily193]

we need to help schools, the NHS, homeless people etc

So beyond the simple task of putting a cross on a ballot paper, what are you personally going to do to provide more help after today for example, from a financial perspective?

[Dacquoise]

At the end of the day ballot papers are private, only the person putting the 'X' on it is privy to who voted for who. What a wonderful principle that is and no need for other people bullying with threats to withdraw friendship etc.

[MistyCloud]

@Antigonads

Couldn't agree more. The hypocrisy from SOME of far left is laughable.

They are breathtaking arrogant.

[strawberrieshortcake]

If someone votes BNP or Brexit party I would unfriendly them because while I respect other opinions there are moral values I have which I will not compromise for a friendship. I do not care if others view this as childish, I have the right to keep whoever I want on my social media.

[MistyCloud]

@CrazySpanielLover

YANBU, they are pathetic. I voted Conservative but I know a lot of people who voted Labour or LibDem who I think are massive hypocrites. Their DC go to private schools, they have villas in Majorca and like to sit round with their 12.99 Prosecco from Waitrose telling everyone how awful the Conservatives are whilst their banker husbands flip lentil burgers on the BBQ. Non of them would ever get off their arse and help out a poor person. They are just virtue signallers and are passive-dangerous.

All of this! ^

@Antigonads

I agree - this painting of Tories as evil scum really pisses me off. I am a natural Tory in my beliefs but do not agree with some of their current policies. I'm a good citizen, pay my dues, have spent all my adult life volunteering in one form or another and would not wish harm on anyone (within reason). I wish we had a strong and effective opposition. In fact I wish we had a strong and effective government. I have been saying for years that we seem to have lost all excellence in this country and I bloody despair.

Yeah I agree with this too. It's bonkers to paint everyone who votes for Tory as a horrible person!

Same with the EU referendum. Plenty of people who voted for/support Brexit, are good decent intelligent, hard-working people. Many of them are accepting of everyone of every creed and sexual orientation, they are animal lovers, they do volunteer work, (and general good deeds for the community,) and are kind and loving to their family, and would give you the shirt off their back.

But according to the far left, ALL Brexit supporters are pure scum, racist, bigoted, and thick. It's so laughingly pathetic and narrow minded.

There is a (double-barrelled) word for the far-left that I hear quite a bit, but I am afraid my post will be deleted if I say what it is. You have probably heard it.

[Puzzledandpissedoff]

I absolutely have inner thoughts about who certain friends are voting for and I may even ask why (in person, not over Facebook) but I’d never get heated about it or end the friendship

Perhaps because you're a rational person who respects others' right to a choice?

Which isn't always the case on social media ...

[PBo83]

If someone votes BNP or Brexit party

I think there is quite a significant difference between the two.

@Antigonads

Hear Hear!

[Brefugee]

I think it's odd because tbh if you want to unfriend someone, do it yourself (i also don't get all the angst around not wanting to unfriend people on social media because it's awkward. ho hum)

I post a lot of political stuff. I'm interested in politics and social movements anyway. People come onto my space and tell me to stop - i say to them that they can unfriend or hide but nobody tells me what to talk about in my own space. And usually they don't bother. But sometimes that's a heads up to me to unfriend them. I just do it, no big palaver, and that's that, usually. People worry far too much about this stuff.

[LittleSweet]

I've unfriended my family because the election and Brexit has shown that they are supporters of the far right and have been reposting racist memes and other members of my family have liked them. They also have stayed in contact with my abusive parents and my aunt told me that she knew what my mum was like and never helped me. So it's that too.

[CanIHaveADrink]

@MistyCloud but so is painted all people who are voting left as hypocrites! You just can’t paint everyone with the same brush, regardless of the sides. And I know many people who say that all the volunteering of tories is just a way to appease their conscience. Helping poorer people when you have been the one supporting the ver rules that make them poorer couod be seen as hypocritical too!! Just as example to counterbalance yours...
Basically, voting labour doesn’t make a Nice person per se. But nor is voting Tory or volunteering etc...

FWIW there is no far left in the U.K., only labour. Whereas there is a far right (UKIP and Brexit party plus the likes to Tommy Robinson).
And being for or against private school, having Nice hols etc. doesn’t mean you can’t be labour either....
So many preconceived ideas there....

[DownstairsMixUp]

Nope. The tories have got a lot of far right people on their side using the get brexit done shit, I don't wanna be their friend.

[Justaboy]

@Justaboy wow really was that a thing? Could they use it against you?

Her yer go!..

The Ballot Act 1872 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that introduced the requirement that parliamentary and local government elections in the United Kingdom be held by secret ballot.

Employers and land owners had been able to use their sway over employees and tenants to influence the vote, either by being present themselves or by sending representatives to check on the votes as they were being cast. Radicals, such as the Chartists, had long campaigned for this system to end with the introduction of a secret ballot.

The Representation of the People Act 1867 (the Second Reform Act) enfranchised the skilled working class in borough constituencies, and it was felt that, due to their economic circumstances, these voters would be particularly susceptible to bribery, intimidation, or blackmail. The radical John Bright expressed concerns that tenants would face the threat of eviction were they to vote against the wishes of their landlord. It fell to Edward Aldam Leatham, husband of John Bright's sister, to introduce the Ballot Act on leave.

Many within the establishment had opposed the introduction of a secret ballot. They felt that pressure from patrons on tenants was legitimate and that a secret ballot was simply unmanly and cowardly. Lord Russell voiced his opposition to the creation of a culture of secrecy in elections which he believed should be public affairs. He saw it as 'an obvious prelude from household to universal suffrage'.[citation needed]

Election spending at the time was unlimited, and many voters would take bribes from both sides. While the secret ballot might have had some effect in reducing corruption in British politics, the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883 formalised the position and is seen by many[who?] to have been the key legislation in the attempts to end electoral corruption.

This Act, in combination with the Municipal Elections Act 1875[8] and the Parliamentary Elections (Returning Officers) Act 1875,[9] is considered to have ushered in the electoral practices of today.[1]

[Brefugee]

Non of them would ever get off their arse and help out a poor person. They are just virtue signallers and are passive-dangerous.
Why would they? If they vote Labour they are voting for a party that has announced several interesting social programmes.

The whole thing is daft these days. There shouldn't be homeless people, for the most part the government should be espousing economic policies that help people - or at least up to now that's how the socially democratic UK has worked. The less socially democratic UK didn't work like that, and i suspect we're moving back to the no social-welfare, no NHS, no safety net type of government. The real test is how the country functions afterwards.

[Aycharow]

No point in me doing that. I disagree with so much of what every main party has to offer, I'd have no friends left at all

[akerman]

I have to admit to having been tempted. But this is because the current Conservative MPs are amongst the cruellest, most dishonest people in the land in my view, and I simply can't understand how people can continue to support them. However much one dislikes the policies of the other parties, people aren't going to die as a result of them, whereas there is abundant evidence of people dying while being assessed for being fit for work or committing suicide because of benefit cuts. I also think that a Conservative manifesto that wants to remove the democratic protections of Parliament being answerable to the courts and a manifesto that is set to slash funding for children with special needs/ autism to zero abhorrent. And if people support that, they are accomplices, and I just can't look at them in the same way. I can't think of another moment in my lifetime when things have seemed to sinister politically, and it's all of our responsibility to call it out. I haven't unfriended but I'm certainly in no rush to want to spend time with people who, in my view, are lending their support to politics that horrify me.

[taketotheskye]

I think there's difference between euro-skeptic (plenty of those in Labour, Corbyn is one), and voting for the Brexit Party. I am pro-Europe, but respect those who aren't, and accept we're leaving. If any of my 'friends' voted for the Brexit party, not only are we likely ideologically incompatible, but probably intellectually incompatible as friends. Anyone who judges Farage as the least worse option is not someone I'd like to have as a friend. No one is forcing me to stay friends with anyone, and they are free to not be friends with me, and differing politics is as good a reason as any.

[rockingchaircandle]

There's a lot of privilege in being able to have Tory views. I think you have to be able to overlook all the people who are doing worse then you.

Saying you don't think anyone but the Conservatives could run the economy is insulting to those who have suffered or died because of austerity.

[CanIHaveADrink]

For those who are saying ‘it’s stupid to unfriendly people because if they are voting’ can you tell me what I am supposed to do in this particular case

• person voting Conservatives
  
• very pro Leave
  
• is telling me they voted like this because of ‘all this immigrants’ ‘but you know ‘bad ones, not people like you’ (I’m an eu citizen)
  

Wondering if I shouod be unfriending them them for being racist/xenophobic....

[HeckyPeck]

But it is only the LABOUR/CORBYN supporters doing this, not anyone else. And to a lesser extent Lib-dem and Green supporters. In short, the far left.

It’s the complete opposite for me.

[DownstairsMixUp]

Also, I just unfriend. I don't announce and I don't engage with any questions as to why I did, I just don't want to be friends with people who have no empathy for others .

[taketotheskye]

CanIHaveADrink ouch. I wouldn't be very clear you are hurt by their xenophobia, and unfriend. It may make them think twice, and apologise.

[taketotheskye]

HeckyPeck I agree, it's coming from the Brexit Party bunch just as much. Which I like, as then I have permission to unfriend them.

[Sadik]

"I don't see Tory or Brexit Party supporters doing it. Judging and berating anyone who doesn't think like them, and personally attacking them."

I think that might just reflect your personal social media context. I've definitely had similar responses from the right. From Conservatives rather than Brexit party supporters, but again I suspect because of who I'm linked to on FB.

(Ironically they often assume I'm a Remainer, which isn't even true, I can see points on both sides but incline to being a lefty leaver)

[HeckyPeck]

If a friend of mine voted for openly racist, sexist candidates and knew the candidates views rather then I would struggle to remain friends with them.

I wouldn’t announce anything on Facebook though as I’m not an “aww hun” type.