To worry about the right wing?

[Swingstotheleftslidetotheright]

I'm politically homeless at the moment in terms of who to vote for but morally I sit firmly centre/centre left. I'm very British with that it would seem.

I've seen over the last few years a very hard push left across social media and among the "chattering" classes which has seemingly come with a desire to shut down discussion, debate and conversation if it involves even the mildest of challenge to their way of thinking. What seems to be happening as a result of this shutting down and refusal to engage in a debate is a rise in harder line opposition, whereas before the two sides would have a somewhat heated and healthy discourse about an issue and come away mindful of each others views and with a solution in sight.

I'm noticing the louder the left shout the harder the, previously moderate, right push back and vice versa. Both sides appear to be getting more vocal and more extreme. I'm seeing this a lot around migration, feminism, the economy and crime. I'm now worried that this continued closure of conversation is going to lead us down a path of extremism - from one or both sides - and lead us to a dramatic and unwelcome rise from the far right.

Are we at a point of no return? Can we ever go back to being moderate and tolerant?

@DownNative

What do you think about what JRM just said to the NatC conference today?

https://bylinetimes.com/2023/05/15/jacob-rees-mogg-says-voter-id-was-attempt-to-gerrymander-elections-for-the-conservatives/

The far left are a way bigger threat than the far right. The far right are tiny and nobody votes for the BNP anymore, groups like the BNP or PA won’t even have more than a few hundred members at most and they are excluded from any where that matters. For example you can’t be in the BNP or anything like it and join the police service.

The 2000’s was the last time the far right were a threat and there is no prospect of this country electing a government to the right of the traditionalist conservative wing of the Tory Party. Even small unelectable right wing parties like UKIP ban ex-BNP members and the former members of other far right groups from ever joining.

The same cannot be said about the far left, communists are allowed in the Labour Party and being a communist wouldn’t get you ‘cancelled’ or kicked out of public life in the way that being on the far right would.

Some sections of far left are dangerous, there are sections of the far left that are anti-Semitic. And the parts of the far left that supported groups like PIE in the 1970’s haven’t gone away either, they are just more subtle now and better at hiding. Extremism is wrong on both sides, but the real far right is absolutely tiny and pretty much banned from public life.

I'm also politically homeless.

The right wing have gone full blown Katie Hopkins. Very unpleasant views towards immigrants. Awful Tory government. Society in chaos due to austerity and wealth inequality.

Meanwhile the left seem to have lost the plot. They've got a huge problem with antisemitism and in a lot of ways have taken "woke" so far that even woke people have lost confidence.

The centre seems to have disappeared.

The far left are a way bigger threat than the far right. The far right are tiny and nobody votes for the BNP anymore,

While I agree the far left are a threat, a huge one tbf, the equivalent on the right are your Suella Bravermans and Nigel Farage-supporters. And the former has actual power! Plenty of people do, and will, vote for a populist right-winger. And a Labour Govt is likely to unite Conservatives across their so-called broad church (they are MUCH better at this than the left are when they lose power). There is real potential that Braverman or someone like her could become PM off the back of a Labour Govt. Her rhetoric is dangerous, racist and fascist.

GB News is massive because there is an appetite for populist, right (and far right) politics.

The 2000’s was the last time the far right were a threat

Don't agree at all. Right wing populism has been spreading like wildfire across Europe over the last few 10 years.

The same cannot be said about the far left, communists are allowed in the Labour Party

Are there communists in the Labour Party? No MP's that I'm aware of and the actual communists departed en-masse because they can't get over their boy losing. They absolutely despise Starmer.

Some sections of far left are dangerous, there are sections of the far left that are anti-Semitic.

Yes, absolutely.

And the parts of the far left that supported groups like PIE in the 1970’s haven’t gone away either, they are just more subtle now and better at hiding.

Paedophiles are paedophiles and will hide where they can.

So, while hopefully a Labour Govt is on the horizon, the right will strengthen during their (probably short) tenure.

Views always harden during tough times. Each side becomes more entrenched and as people start to struggle, they inevitably blame 'the other side'.

Covid was very expensive for all countries (we basically crashed our own economy) for reasons that you may or may not think valid. Now we are paying for that reduction in income & productivity, with a period of austerity, as are most countries.

When the world works through this period and things improve for most people, politics will generally shift back towards the centre. Let's hope it doesn't take too much longer. We already have two wars and I don't think that's a coincidence.

The left wing fit with more of your narrative.

Look at Big Brother for reference.

Thanks for your reply. I don’t believe for a minute that people like Ms Braverman are far right, the far right are national socialist/ethnic nationalists. It’s an evil 20th century ideology. Braverman is just a traditional social conservative and a populist. Farage is basically a 1980’s Thatcherite as far as can tell. He’d have probably gotten on well with Mrs Thatcher.

you might not like nigel Farage as prime minister but I’ve is not really a threat to people. He is certainly not a fascist or anything like that, just a 1980’s Thatcherite in 2023 which shows how far to left the country has moved since then.

I’m afraid groups like PIE tend to hide on the left because there are sections of the far left that are genuinely sympathetic towards them, just like some of them are anti-Semitic and sympathetic towards terrorists.

how do you define far left and far right?

@Rspbc1
you might not like nigel Farage as prime minister but I’ve is not really a threat to people.

Have you seen the damage he's already done to this country? There's no way Cameron would have called a referendum if he'd realised Farage was the threat he actually turned out to be. t's people like him that have given Braverman the confidence to mainstream her racist immigration rhetoric. She ain't no cuddly little "social conservative". And since you mention National Socialists - have you ever heard of the Madagascar Plan? Because Braverman's Rwanda policy smacked of it!

how do you define far left and far right?

At the moment I'd say their conspirational obsessions are so similar that the old horseshoe is near-complete.

I don’t understand this. Jeremy Corbyn was to the left of the party but Keir Starmer is to the right. IMO he is far too much to the right! There are zero left wing alternatives in the next general election, the whole political landscape has shifted to the right since Jeremy Corbyn left (wrongly IMO, as a teacher he probably would have saved schools from the current disaster but that’s another thread…)

The Left did not support Paedophiles.

Neither are the left wing anti semitic. Heavens many of them are Jewish (cf Jewish Voice for Labour), or of Jewish origin ie non practising. The extreme right wing (Nazis) have traditionally accused the Left as being either Jewish or overly supportive of Jews cf the Nazi attacks on Communists/ Bolsheviks as Jew supporters.

The Left in the UK (whether jewish or not) do not generally however support the current Israeli Government - many Jews of the Diaspora eg in the US and many in Israel don't either. There is a difference between being anti semitic and being anti the Israeli Government.

The left, Trade Unionists, Communists, Socialists etc., have a very honourable history of supporting Jews in the UK from the battle of Cable Street in 1936 (when they tried to prevent a fascist march planned to intimidate Jews in the East End) to Jeremy Corbyn.

There is a wide range of views amongst Jews re Israel and its Government. Some very traditional Jews eg are not Zionists ie do not believe there should be a return to ancestral land ( Israel) before the coming of the Messiah.

As for the extreme left not knowing what a woman is, the Communist Party definitely do. Are they not left wing?

Agreed.

Far right & far left: Far right is a socialism built around notions of ethnic or national solidarity and the far left is a socialism built around class solidarity. Examples of the far right might be the national socialists or the fascists of the 20th century. The far left are the communists and the communist international. They’re both 20th century ideas and both have had horrific consequences. The difference is being on the far right would get you sacked from any position that mattered whilst the far left are generally tolerated. You get terrible consequences whenever these groups get into power.

Populist right & populist left: That’s just when they offer overly simplistic solutions to difficult problems and sometimes talk like they’re on the far left or right fringes. It’s about getting elected. But once elected you get either left wing or right wing policies not extremism. Often you get a mess too when these get into power and their popular but overly simplistic solutions often don’t work.

Mainstream right and left wing. When they are ideological committed to one of those positions. For example Thatcher, she only ever offered right wing solutions to the problems facing the U.K. at the time. She wouldn’t take anything from the other side. You often get effective government from these if they are what’s needed and they are often very divisive. That’s how I see Mrs Thatcher, her right wing ideas were what was needed at the time but she was very divisive and made life very difficult for millions of people but I believe she left the country in a far better state than she found it and some people hated her for it. You could look at a left wing labour government creating the NHS and welfare state in the same way.

Centre left or centre right. That’s like Cameron and Blair, they come from one of those two points of view and generally think the one they come from is correct. But they believe that sometimes their opponents can be right and will adopt solutions from the other side when the think it’s better.

The Conservative Party goes from centre right to populist right and is mainly under the control of the centre right. There is no far right faction of the Tory Party as it’s beyond the pale in this country.

The Labour Party are centre left to far left as being far left doesn’t automatically get you kicked out of everything. The Labour Party is generally under the control of the Left Wing, Stammer is a left winger pretending to be Blair. Corbyn was far left.

@ElizaMulvil ”The Left did not support Paedophiles.”

Yes they did, or at least some sections of them did. Many of the intellectual founders of the ideas of post-modern progressive left in the 1960’s and onwards were advocates of that. And some sections of the left support this evil today. PIE wasn’t unique to the U.K. and similar things happen in left wing parties and movements across Europe, the German Green Party in the 1980’s are a particularly disgusting example. And it’s not an accident that these sort of evil groups always show up on the left either.

I don't get the angst actually - whilst left and right have their extreme aspects and those have certainly become quite loud in political life, the evidence is that British people do not vote for such extremes sufficiently to form governments. That is very consistent with our history.

The tone from some groups on the left and right has become shrill and extreme but this does not mean they have got much traction. The more extreme the Conservatives are becoming the lower they go in the polls (though economics plays it's part) and the same was true when the Labour Party had Corbyn in charge.

Neither party can win when it lets it's headbangers set the agenda. That's been true for a century and I don't think it has changed now. We just have a lot of extreme media.

@Rspbc1

The Conservative Party goes from centre right to populist right and is mainly under the control of the centre right. There is no far right faction of the Tory Party as it’s beyond the pale in this country.

Bollocks. If you can't see the current Home Secretary has her head right up the backside of the far right then further discussion with you is pointless.

but I believe she left the country in a far better state than she found it and some people hated her for it.
Thatcher's social housing policies have directly led to the current housing crisis, 30 years later.

HTH
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/12/no-thatcher-didnt-save-the-economy

Your obsession with paedophilia as being a left wing practice is bizarre and akin to that of far right conspiracy theorists. They are consumed by the idea of a global paedophile ring, and it feeds directly into the discourse of Islamophobes this country. PIE was much more complex than you're making out. And did you miss the bit when Thatcher was covering up paedophilia in her own ranks?

Brexit was mostly about immigration, so in a sense a central voting electorate can absolutely deliver a result that surprises those who think it’s not possible.

I think the term far right has a very specific meaning and it is thrown around too easily. The use of it is often extremely hyperbolic tbh. There are far right people and they are a very tiny minority as are communists.

There’s nothing hyperbolic when you have an MP murdered by a far-right individual.

Truth twister.

That's for the OP, not for you @LadyWithLapdog. The far right has infiltrated and hijacked the Tory party filling it with Ukippers, other far righters, conspiracists and other swivel eyed loons. Trying to swing it the other way is just part of the programme. People would be correct to worry about the far right OP but it appears to be doing you some favours.

Can we ever go back to being moderate and tolerant?

As someone from a minority group (which has been treated abhorrently by the West for hundreds of years), I’m not sure I would say Britain has ever been “moderate” or “tolerant”. But no, YANBU to note the increase in the voices of the far right. Things have been more discrete in the last few decades or so, those things now seem to be rising to the surface once again. It’s not surprise to me as these people have always been amongst and around us, they’re just emboldened enough to show their hands now.

What does “woke” mean?

Interesting time for this thread to come up gasping for air. It's almost as if a coachload of right wing nutjobs have been let loose to divert attention from the decline of the right elsewhere. I was heartened that the results in Poland look to be partly due to more women voting.

Did you hear Sunak welcoming Farage into the Tory party? if he so wished.

Why we are the only country ever to leave the EU, ministers openly saying we should leave the ECHR, ignore the UN charter on refugees, our deportation policy aims, the attacks on benefit claimants, our very vocal support for countries like Saudi Arabia.

No one votes BNP EDL etc etc because so much of what they want is being done by the Tories.

The Communist party or whatever they call themselves now is not banned, unlike members of the EDL BNP etc who have very violent and racist views, even FB banned theses groups.