AIBU for thinking hating people for their political leanings is perfectly normal?

[VelvetChairGirl]

I have been reading a brexit thread on here and lots of brexit voters in it seem horrified that they are hated and families have stopped talking to each other, and cut each other off over it.

but its politics nothing affects us more then politics, we have people who cut off others for believing in conspiracy theories and things. Brexit is the biggest shake up in this country in my life time, its taken away our freedom of movement for work and education, needlessly introduced a tonne of red tape, made our rights and standards extremely vulnerable to being destroyed (tories dont like food standards and workers rights this is well documented and they are in charge right now), reduced our standing in the world and will very likely lead us to being the poor man of Europe again, not to mention the fact its cut off vital EU funding to science research, regeneration and education projects up and down the county.

it affects everyone, of course people are perfectly entitled to hate those who voted to hurt them financially, prospects wise etc as much as they would hate someone who physically stole from them, theres very little difference is there?

Yeah I don't think people realise how much money you earn driving trucks. Our delivery drivers have been well happy with their jobs

The shortage isn't because they don't get paid enough it's because a load of self employed people got shafted* by the change in employment law

• Subjective view

Pre driver shortage, the average salary for a HGV driver was £32,000. Entry level wages were around £22k with experienced class 1 drivers earning up to £45k. Personally I don't think that is amazing money for a stressful job that requires extended periods away from home, sleeping in lay-bys, long hours and loneliness.

Tell that to the millions who will have to choose between heating their home or feeding their children this winter. People cannot survive on NMW.

But absolutely nobody on this thread is disputing this. What people are showing is that Brexit is damaging huge numbers of people. You claim that it's good for some - who and how? Even if you are right about wages rising as a result of Brexit, which is an extremely tenuous claim, as others point out, it's contributing to a rise in inflation and much more expensive goods and services, so the wages still won't go far enough. It's not good enough to get aerated because somebody's mentioned some kid not being able to join an orchestra and it's easy to dismiss that as a remainer being self-absorbed unless you can show how, taking something like that away from that kid, has benefitted somebody else's working class kid. [And there are posters on this thread who are or who know working class people who benefitted from working abroad; I don't know why people are happy to take those rights and freedoms away from them, especially when things are so difficult here.]

£45k isn't amazing money, but very few jobs in the UK get amazing money. £45k is beyond the wildest dreams of lots of people. I'd like to see paramedics earning a wage like that. They have the hardest, most stressful job in society I think.

@DillonPanthersTexas

It’s perfectly normal to express a vote per population.

Except that it is isn't, published election results are always based on the turn out, not as a % of total population. Seriously, go and find a respectable publication that published the last general election result as a total population. Why would you include 21 million under 18 year olds who are not eligible to vote in your final figures? The only people who do this usual have an agenda.

Why on earth would you think I was referring to election results? You can express support for x or y issue as % of the total population to put it in context. Capital punishment for example.

If you want to chop off the 20 million under 18s - the Brexit vote is still only 35% of the adult population. A fraction.

Your "agenda" & "tactics" conspiracy - is tedious.

@wherethereisonethereismany

I don't hate anyone because of their political leanings but I certainly dislike them and judge them for them. I'm sorry but if someone supports and votes Tories I would just never look at them the same and judge them heavily. I could only continue the friendship if we never spoke about it. In a relationship it would be a deal breaker.

You are assuming that your friends would want to remain friends with you, or that the person who you were relationship would want to remain in a relationship, for me somebody who is so arrogant, that they beleive only their views are valid, would be a dealbreaker and i wouldnt to be friends with or in a relationship with with so narrow minded and intolerant.

When looking at the lorry driver wages you also need to consider the associated hours to get that wage. Your talking 65 hour weeks and 4 nights sleeping in your cab

Tell that to the millions who will have to choose between heating their home or feeding their children this winter. People cannot survive on NMW.

In fact I just can't get my head round how somebody who [rightly] professes concern about the millions struggling to feed their children supports Brexit, which is directly responsible for significant rises in food prices because of increased red tape and importing goods from significantly further away than the huge single market on our doorstep. It makes no sense at all. It was always the poor who were going to pay first and pay hardest.

I think also that (as pp have said) 'political leanings' can mean a lot of things beyond which party you vote for. I do, for example, come pretty close to hating people who actively oppose all precautions against Covid and especially if they not only refuse to take such precautions themselves but sneer at (or worse, threaten or deliberately spit or cough at) others who wear masks or get vaccinated. In the UK, they're fortunately a minority, but there are some places in America, and maybe elsewhere, where people have gone in disguise to get vaccinated, so that their neighbours wouldn't recognize and attack them.

I never voted Tory, however most of the voters did.

Actually most didn't. More people voted Tory than for any other party; but it was still only 45% of the voters.

**In fact I just can't get my head round how somebody who [rightly] professes concern about the millions struggling to feed their children supports Brexit, which is directly responsible for significant rises in food prices because of increased red tape and importing goods from significantly further away than the huge single market on our doorstep. It makes no sense at all. It was always the poor who were going to pay first and pay hardest.

Supply and demand, no incentive for large corporations to pay decent wages when they have access to a never ending supply of cheap labour.

I’m no economist and these are big issues that this country needs to deal with, just saying it’s not black and white and many people voted leave for perfectly legitimate reasons. Am tired of the same old racist/xenophobic/ignorant comments being thrown about.

Well, sadly, Patrick Minford is the only economist who thought that Brexit was a good idea, and he's the one who told Thatcher that the poll tax would be a good thing. He also acknowledges that Brexit will destroy farming and manufacturing. The other economists pointed out that it would damage the economy, lead to increased prices for fuel and food, and that the people who would struggle most would be the poor.

antoniawhite, I respect your right to your opinion and simply ask for respect in return.

Derision of the working class is what’s got us here sadly.

Yep Minford’s model is predicated on the destruction of U.K. manufacturing and farming, but he chirpily thinks the U.K. is strong creatively and we’ll find something to replace them. He also made some basic false assumptions about trade such that his model was completely demolished by a paper from LSE.

In fact I just can't get my head round how somebody who [rightly] professes concern about the millions struggling to feed their children supports Brexit, which is directly responsible for significant rises in food prices because of increased red tape and importing goods from significantly further away than the huge single market on our doorstep. It makes no sense at all. It was always the poor who were going to pay first and pay hardest.

It’s just basic economics.

@AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken

I’ve worked in schools where there are only 1-3 children in each class who speak English. This means that their exposure to fluent English is very limited. The teachers struggle to balance making sure the other 25 kids can understand what is going on and will usually use basic English to convey their messages to the class. I’ve seen how that, as well as the children having to speak in basic or pigeon English all day in order to make friends, impacts the English speaking children. For example, they begin saying “me, pen please” and having to be prompted and reminded to use full sentences. These children come from very poor families and face huge obstacles and difficulties due to their economic/ social background as it is. Add on to this such a limited exposure to the English language and you’ve got a group of failed children. Their parents lack the finances needed to move to an area in the city where this wouldn’t be an issue.

This is just one example I’ve witnessed where I understand how the very poor feel they are baring the brunt of being in the EU.

I totally understand why they felt Brexit was their only hope.

Yes I have seen this too. I worked in a school with a very large Czech population of pupils. They had very high levels of absenteeism. The parents didn’t care about whether their children were in school, don’t attend parents evenings etc. There were fights between rival factions at lunchtime. Because many of the children could not access the curriculum they were disruptive in class or had to be removed to be taught in smaller groups. This required bringing in extra TAs which has to be paid for from the school budget. All this made me think . It made learning for local pupils so much harder.

What's got us here is a machinery of lies spouted by Vote Leave so that some very rich people could continue to avoid tax. And since so much of the media is owned by some of these very wealthy people it was easy to spread the lies. They don't give a shit about any of the rest of us, whether or not we are working class or middle class. What they hope is that we'll do exactly what we are doing (and I hold up my hands to that), which is fight amongst ourselves so much that we won't look too closely at what they are doing and their vested interests. It's worked like a dream for them. The likes of you and I are not each other's adversaries really - I think we're both on the same page about who to worry about, even if we don't agree about how to get there - but we're being played.

The likes of you and I are not each other's adversaries really - I think we're both on the same page about who to worry about, even if we don't agree about how to get there - but we're being played.

Absolutely agree with this we are where we are. The debate needs to start and the hate needs to stop.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

Depends on the context. I thought my (Polish) friend was quite right to cut off 'friends' going on about stopping migration from Eastern Europe... so basically racism. Brexit brought out a lot of racism (or xenophobia)

But some other stuff is just difference in opinions with the same overall result.

Yeah exactly. It sounds really outlandish and combative until it's someone voting against your rights. I have family in America that have become really divided over abortion rights and I would have to agree that I would struggle if I knew one of my good friends voted against a human right I really believed in I probably wouldn't hate them though, but I would keep them at a distance.

People's voting persuasions are not personal attacks.

But where they damage the material conditions of a person or a group of people, or show contempt for those people, they are essentially attacks on those people.

Hatred is perhaps too strong, but I do despise those people and I'm very, very angry with them. I actually think that the mantra of those who voted for Brexit and/or other selfish ideologies - 'it's just politics, we're a democracy you know' - is simply an extension of the ideology itself: that wilful blindness to the needs of others, and the refusal to admit that it is born of a pathological selfishness. Just as reactionary politics generally works hard to refer to itself as 'common sense', so that no-one notices whose benefitting.

who's gah.

It's hard not to dislike, perhaps not hate, British retirees in the EU who voted for Brexit.
My dh got talking to a random guy who has lived in Greece for 12 years under the radar and not paying tax there. He voted for Brexit and is now terrified because he will almost certainly get caught and presented with a huge tax bill. And then thrown out.
In fact the only good to come from Brexit is the Brits who have lied about their status now getting found out.

Why on earth would you think I was referring to election results?

Erm, because upthread you expressly referenced 'voting', something usually associated with elections or referendums. Either way, election or referendum, the results are always presented as % of turnout, not total population.

You can express support for x or y issue as % of the total population to put it in context. Capital punishment for example.

Express support how? Are we talking surveys/polls?? Any survey that seeks to work out support for an issue will present its data as a % of those who participated in the survey.

Good surveys will capture a wide demographic and a large nationwide sample size, in which case some projection (with a margin of error) of opinion can be made on the wider populace. However, we have seen recently how wide of the mark surveys and polling can be.

If you want to chop off the 20 million under 18s - the Brexit vote is still only 35% of the adult population. A fraction.

It's not 'chopping off', they are under current legislation not allowed to vote. Not sure why you insist on trying to include teenagers and toddlers in the democratic process.

Crucially, the UK voted to leave the EU by 52% to 48%, based on those who got off their arses and voted. Personally, I wish the threshold was higher to enable a stronger mandate, but it wasn't. Unfortunately out of those who voted, fewer people opted for remain, so even if we use your dubious methods the remain vote would be even less then 25%. You can lament the fact that millions of people eligible to vote did not bother to, but you can't start lumping those people and under 18s in as 'remain' just to bolster your numbers.

Your "agenda" & "tactics" conspiracy - is tedious.

Pointing out your cynical use of statistics that seeks to cast doubt or delegitimise a democratic outcome that you disagree with is not a 'conspiracy'.

Crucially, the UK voted to leave the EU by 52% to 48%, based on those who got off their arses and voted. Personally, I wish the threshold was higher to enable a stronger mandate, but it wasn't.

use of statistics that seeks to cast doubt or delegitimise a democratic outcome

I agree with both these points.

Whatever is said about the leave figure the remain vote was lower. So the same ‘fraction of population’ should be applied to that. If used at all

@AlfonsoTheMango voting for a party that has plunged a large percentage of the population into poverty while lining their own pockets and underfunding vital services and turning a blind eye to that and voting for them anyway tells me the person is apathetic, extremely narrow minded and naïve, most Tory voters I’ve come across in my life have a very black and white worldview. Intolerable in my view.