To be completely shocked about someone I used to know

[EWAB]

When my youngest was at primary school I really liked this woman who had kids either side of mine.

She was in the PTA equivalent and was just a nice woman. There was no drama around her.

I remember having a day off and went into the local cafe, and she invited me to sit with her friends. She was funny, warm and witty.

Significantly, she had friends of all ethnicities and her best friend was Asian.

Everybody will relate to being busy but I think if it was a different time in my life or we had kids in same year we would have been mates.

I am absolutely shocked that she is a member of a right wing political party and has a presence in that party, utterly and completely shocked.

I know it’s not illegal but God.

All three of my siblings are Tories, I’m not someone who thinks everyone has to think like me but I am stunned.

Mumsnet hates this, but I have had a physical reaction to the news. I am just Gobsmacked and weirdly let down and I do know that’s a stupid, irrational thing to say.

Same thing, just in slightly different wrappers.

Same thing, just in slightly different wrappers.

What policy overlap do they share, by your understanding?

Reform sounds pretty horrendously far right to me.

I certainly would lose respect for anyone who campaigned for it. And would assume anyone who voted for it was poorly educated or not very bright.

I mean a lot of their strategies and policies are right out of the nazi playbook

I hadn't heard of Reform before so just had a look. The only thing I can see about immigration is that they want net zero immigration and they are against illegal immigration. Other policies are zero waiting lists, working on the economy, public sectors etc. What about them is far right? Genuine question.

If it was your mum I could understand you being a bit shocked but a random school mum you once sat with in a coffee shop? You didn’t really know anything about her, just what she appeared to be in that moment.

My lifelong Labour voting in-laws out of nowhere voted for the EDL in elections a few years ago. Ironically, they would vote for the Tories over their dead body. Still got it in for Maggie.

We asked them if they really understood what they were voting for, who the party was. I know that sounds offensive, I guess, to ask a grown adult but we were all flabbergasted and there is no debate that is an extreme party.

To those saying this :

It absolutely does. You are voting for policies advocating the type of society you want.

How does a traditionally left leaning woman vote if we want a society where we can be sure that vulnerable woman will not be forced to share rape crisis/ women's refuges or even prisons with men who identify as women?

Or if we want our daughters to have fair sport away from males or to be able to access changing rooms / toilets in school/ university or in wider society free from males?

I can't see how 'the left' can be seen as holding any form of moral high ground when left leaning parties such as the Lib Dems and the Green Party and even Labour hold these views?

Women have been called right wing or aligned to Nazis for expressing reasonable views about biological reality.

She probably just doesn't agree with the UK's ridiculous open door immigration and op thinks that makes her evil 😂😂

@lifeturnsonadime quite. I quite literally have no-one to vote for now.

Depends how far right-wing. There are the mainstream (Conservative, and I would also add Plaid Cymru and DUP, but not everybody would agree with me) where it is pretty well another way of running things. And then there are the likes of UKIP, Reform Party, BNP et al, which are the home of extremist nut-jobs who just want the country to 'return' to some imaginary (white of course) utopia of the 1950s. If I found somebody I had known and liked was a member of any of these I would really struggle to maintain any good opinion of them and would wonder how I could have been so wrong.

Somebody throwing the nazis about in this context might need to worry about their own standard of education before mocking other people’s, no?

I’m quite liberal and I think reform odious but I don’t think it’s far right.

It's a bit hysterical to get worked up about that

Up to a point. It depends on the politics though.

I have never voted Tory and almost certainly never will but I wouldn’t rule someone out of hand for voting Conservative.

Very different matter if they were BNP though. Borderline with Reform.

People are very much entitled to their views but I would draw the line at an explicitly racist party or one with very hardline views on immigration.

I agree that many feminists on the left now have no-one to vote for.

But being accused of being on the right doesn't mean that it's okay to actually vote for the right! And if you do, you mustn't be surprised if you are judged as 'bad' in that you are presumed to be voting for the society you want - one which has no compassion or communitarianism and which prioritises self-interest.

That’s the kind of tolerant “feel good bullshit” we (me included) like to tell ourselves.
But it only works to a certain degree. As soon as the other person has views that are fundamentally incompatible with one’s basic moral convictions…

My fiancé is related to a neo-nazi. That person used to organise rallies, marches etc. and is currently still active and present in that community.

Is that a good person? Seeing as one’s political viewpoint doesn’t define one as a good or bad person?

The answer to that is yes

I think I would also be shocked. And her best friend might be part of the group too.

I think right wing partys have taken over alot of localism/nationalism causes in a way they both shouldn't have but also prioritise.

I'm semi-far right myself for these reasons but wouldn't not be friends with different races of people either.

I think its a difficult time in politics right now though

I've no knowledge of Reform's stated policies, from the little I know of them I'm confident I will never vote for them. but I wouldn't base my voting decisions, or much else, on what Wikipedia has to say.

@workshy46
'She has different politics to you, big deal'

@Springchickenonion

'But someone's political viewpoint doesn't define them as a good or bad '

That's nonsense.

I assume the OP is alluding to a far right party.

To me supporting xenophobic, racist ideology and refusing to acknowledge the reality of climate change is a big deal and yes it does make you a dodgy human being.

You've just mashed a lot of buzzwords together there in the hope it made some kind of sense, which it did not.

I once met a woman at a wedding in a European country not UK. I was say next to her for the meal. She was funny, great sense of style, I thought she was great.

Then she took her shrug type thing off, and she had very right wing tattoos. VERY right wing tattoos. I was gobsmacked and shocked, totally taken aback.

Well I may be surprised by something like this, but a 'physical reaction' seems a bit over the top when you barely know the woman. You just know to avoid her now.