Am I a far right extremist?

[Isitme245]

I had a conversation with my best friend of 25 years the other day and she called me a far right extremist and how my views are scary, dangerous and 'nazi coded'
I was really shocked as I didn't think any of what I said was bad. I'm not a particularly avid supporter of any political party and very much keep opinions to myself. She's very supportive of labour and anti trump and always has been. Usually when she asks me my opinions I just don't want to get into it but I did the other night and now I feel bad.

Here's the breakdown:

• she sent me an article and told me that Nigel Farage is going to ban abortion eventually if he wins an election. I read the article and pointed out he only suggested lowering the abortion cut off date to 22 weeks (not 24 as it is now). I told her it wasn't the end of the world and it's reasonable if you read his reasons. I also made the point that men shouldn't really be getting involved in abortion law but that what he said wasn't the end of the world.

• she asked me about immigration and I said that it's great but that we should be prioritising skilled immigrants and have stronger immigration laws. She also asked about asylum seekers and hotels and I said that we should have stronger laws about monitoring people and collecting documentation when people arrive.

• she sent me and asked about Elon Musk's Nazi salute and I said I didn't interpret it that way

• I said that immigrants who rape or murder should be deported.

To me this feels really reasonable and not over the top but she really attacked me for it? Now I feel really awkward and uncomfortable talking to her. Is this far right??

Is that you Khan?

You’re really very condescending. Perhaps your friend just doesn’t like that and is distancing herself.

Which friend? I'm not the OP, have you got me confused? It wasn't a friend who told me that I was right wing for not wanting open borders, no idea where you've got that idea from.

I wasn't trying to be condescending either. You said you were tired and I was being sympathetic.

I think you're trying to be argumentative so I'll give up : )

good night.

I don't know why you decided to single me out to insult me with something that doesn't even make sense, but I hope it made you feel better and that someone enters your life this year who finally makes you feel loved.

The reason for reducing the limit on abortions is that we can now be fairly sure a 24-week feotus will survive and be healthy, which was not the case up until recently. It seems reasonable to lower the limit in the light of this fact, unless there is good reason for a later abortion e.g. catastrophic abnormality e.g. anencephaly. At the moment, as you say, very few women go past 24 weeks for an abortion and it is because of death of the child, conditions where life is insupportable, or where the mother's life is in severe danger. Such decisions would not be affected by lowering the limit to 22 weeks, because many of them occur now after 24 weeks.

Conflating abortion and viability is a dangerous thing to do.

For a start your numbers are wrong. The earliest baby to survive was 21 weeks and 1 day. I personally know a number of 23 weekers who have gone on to thrive with no issues.

The survival rate at birth for babies born before 24 weeks is 50%. But about half of those babies die within 6 weeks. 40% of those who survive go on to have lifelong / life limiting disabilities. A further 30% will have a less severe disability, but still will require long term care.

At 24 weeks, the survival rate rises, but is still only 65%. 20% of those do not make it home. Again, 50% of those who do go home, go on to have a life long disability, 20% of whom will be severely affected.

When people talk about "viable" they don't really know what they mean. Surviving birth is only a tiny part of the picture.

The reason we have to be careful about lowering the point at which a person can choose an abortion is down to pre-natal scanning and foetal development. It isn't until 20 weeks that many foetal abnormalities can be detected. If a scan is slightly delayed (which isn't unusual) you will put women in the position of having to make a very difficult decision in a very short space of time.

The system as it is, is working well. 0.1% of abortions are at 24 weeks. 1% happen after 20 weeks. 95% happen before 12 weeks. If we allow a political party to use abortion as a wedge issue, for political gain, we're all losing.

Isn't there technically a leftwing argument for immigration controls? As free movement of labour is often used by those in power to suppress wages. It's not necessarily left or right is it, doesn't it depend on what the person's reasoning is? I could be wrong, just wondering 🤔

@samarrange

So I simply don't buy the legal "immigration is needed because we have an ageing population" for a number of reasons.

Firstly those legal migrants themselves will one day become old and having worked and paid taxes in the UK will be entitled to pensions etc. therefore the UK will then need to import yet more migrants to look after an even bigger ageing population and so into effectively a pyramid scheme.

Secondly the level of net migration has added around 9 million to the UK population since 2000 or effectively the entire population of London. To provide the necessary infrastructure, health care, education, transport, housing over the same 20 year period is just not realistic just as it would not be realistic to build a new London every 20 years.

Lastly there are currently 9 million economically inactive UK citizens that cost the tax payer benefits to keep them going. You may dismiss them as unemployable but I believe getting these people back into work would benefit society. This can be done by making work a more attractive option than benefits and to do this most likely means that the work has to be better paid and the benefits system tougher. Yes this will mean that it will cost consumers more to run a care home or for fruit and vegetables or for the Tesco meal deal sandwich. But equally taxpayers should benefit from less money being spent on benefits not to mention the societal and health benefits of getting these people back into work.

@Catsandcheese
"Where exactly? Do let us know"

Well here's the most recent:

www.france24.com/en/europe/20250122-child-and-adult-killed-in-knife-attack-in-german-park

On the Nigel Farage abortion term limit being reduced from 24 weeks to 22 weeks, I fully agree with previous posters that he is testing the waters to see if there are any votes in this. Which imo there are not.

My personal opinion is that the government should most definitely not dictate to women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies and that there are very few votes to be gained from such a move and many more votes to be lost.

That said a number of posters are framing the suggestion for 24 weeks to be reduced to 22 weeks as seeking to outlaw abortion or create an unreasonable change. Which is interesting when you see that the UK currently has the longest time limit in Europe by a very long margin with most at 12 weeks:

Yet no one seems to be arguing that these countries have unreasonable draconian abortion laws.

Thank you, this is a reassuring post. I did just that today and reached out to her looking to clear the air. She told me she'd told a mutual friend of ours (that we're meant to be meeting tomorrow) about our conversation and apparently the friend is upset because my views endanger her and her family. The mutual friend is half Pakistani on her dad's side, was born in the UK and her dad is a paediatrician.
Original friend told me she's incredibly worried that I am being radicalised and is going to support me in getting through this so I don't 'lose people.'
I feel really weird and like I've been made out as some sort of extremist... I'm also wondering how on earth she may have twisted my words to make our mutual friend think that I have views dangerous to her and her dad. Feeling really uncomfortable

So you are pro the right of misogynistic men imposing abortion laws and don't recognise a nazi salute either?

I haven't read the thread, just your posts OP. I can see why you'd be concerned. After all you're just being reasonable.

Now your friend thinks you're racist and believe brown men are paedophiles. I wonder how she came to that conclusion.

No, I'm just sick of the double standards of the left.

How many times have we heard that if innocent men don't like being tarred with the same brush as rapists/abusers then they should stand up and challenge the wrongdoers in their midst? If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem etc.

Then when 1200 sexual assaults are perpetrated in a single night by Muslim men (or a Pakistani grooming ring uncovered) they suddenly change their tune and would rather brush it under the carpet for fear of offending innocent members of that demographic. Suddenly all the hot air about challenging the perpetrators in your own demographic/community doesn't apply.

It's this kind of stuff that drives people into the arms of Farage and Tommy Robinson etc.

You just sound a bit stupid uninformed to me. If you only want skilled migrants to come in.. who is going to pick your cabbages? Who is going to serve you at Pret A Manger? Who is going to care for old people? What should a British Mum do who has married a foreigner? I cannot move back to my own country because the rules of coming back and how much we have to earn are too much for us. They would literally remove my children's Father from the country.

I used to live in London and in my basic unskilled job I worked with nearly all EU citizens. But maybe you live in a shitty white rural place where you never met any foreigners anyway so you have no idea.

I would ditch the original friend completely. What a patronising twat! She clearly thinks she’s a much better person than you are and people like that will only drag you down

I’d rather live in a ‘Shitty white rural place’ than an ethnically diverse city that resembles a third world country

Like London? It's classed as one of the best cities in the world.

Macron’s palm is facing up, his arm doesn’t forcibly go straight with a grunt and palm down. A whole different vibe.

The smart thing to do is speak to your mutual friend.

Arguing is a waste of time. Musk knows what he did and so do the people defending him.

It's convenient for them to make excuses.

With a pretty high crime rate too.

There was a thread on here the other week where somebody linked a discussion from GB News. Arrest figures per nationality had been released following a FOI request and 2/3 of sex crimes in London are now committed by foreign nationals.

So in this case diversity was apparently not good for women's safety.

Do you have a link to the statistics or could you tell me where to find it?

London isn't equivalent to a developing country, yet it's incredibly ethnically diverse. Is the crime rate higher than any other major city?

This! Mumsnet is not representative

Agreed, there’s definitely a set on MN who seem to exist in a far-left echo-chamber with narrowly defined parameters on what are acceptable views, and presume most other people do too.

They then react badly when confronted with anyone who doesn’t fully embrace their worldview, and presume that even those who hold pretty average centrist views are “far-right”.

There is, but most on the left don’t seem to be interested in argument or debate, and actually thinking through positions.

It’s all about the “tribe”. There’s a set of core beliefs that you must adhere to with questioning in order to belong, and any questioning or deviation from that is met with fierce disapproval.

It’s very similar in these respects to fundamentalist religion, and has become deeply illiberal in attitude.