To feel like I'm not sure where I sit politically anymore, and to worry about it.

[Lookuptotheskies]

I've always been a staunch Labour voter. Always been pro refugees. Always given people the benefit of the doubt. Always felt okay that I've brought innocent kids into the world.

Labour are making cuts to disability benefits (and in turn, carer benefits). They are looking to slash sen support in schools.

My town is being overtaken with overt criminal activity. Illegal cigarettes, money laundering business, violent crime on the increase, known drug dealers, fly tipping, etc. Nothing is done. It's just a never ending thing, they bust one and another pops up.

I've always fought against the tide of racist idiots, using politics as an excuse for violent riots. I live in a multi-cutural town, chose a very multicultural school for my kids. But I can't continue to argue with the people pointing out the rise in crimes, drugs, exploitation etc which is very visibily linked to immigration. I feel so uneasy about acknowledging how I feel about this! Guilty and a bit embarrassed. I've always been live and let live, whereas now I feel more protective, more cynical, less tolerant.

I am also gender critical and very much in favour of single sex spaces, based on biological sex. This has been a slow thing too. I've witnessed the language around women changing (cervix owner, pregnant person, chest feeding etc). I've witnessed our spaces and groups being invaded by biological men (I don't want a man on the other side of the curtain to me in a women's hospital ward, or a bra changing cubicle, or a swimming changing room.

Does anyone else feel like they are completely re-evaluating what they accept/don't accept, and what they stand for politically?

I don't currently feel there is any one political party that aligns with my ideals.

I may or may not get completely flamed, but I'm curious on other's thoughts. I will check back intermittently but I don't live on my phone/mumsnet.

This is not a troll post. I've been a mn user for over 18 years.

They are indeed, I don't know if you've heard David Betz, professor of war studies at KCL who has been on the podcast circuit for about 6 months, warning that in the near enough future there is going to be nationwide civil disturbance on par with Northern Ireland during the troubles. It is interesting that he's coming from such an establishment institution and is appearing in some places generally considered high unsavoury by his ilk - not sure what to make of it

Yes. I can relate to all of this. I grew up in a socialist household and I feel the same way you do.

I also consider myself left wing but am having a bit of a political identity crisis.

The ‘solution’ of taxing working people more and more each year, to the detriment of their own standard of living, to support those who are not working (both those claiming welfare, disability support and pensioners) - while being unable to actually address these ballooning costs in any way… I don’t think anyone really supports this.

I have also simultaneously hit a point where I pay a lot of tax, but am excluded from eg childcare support, so am vastly less well off than one might expect, while paying one of the highest tax rates on earth… but also being excluded from the generous public services (childcare) I am finding for others. We are not, it seems, in all this together.

I think there has been a lot of hysteria over welfare reform - and it’s pitched as ‘you must have disabled people’.

I don’t think anyone resents supporting those who genuinely are unable to work due to disability - but I think a lot of us are sceptical about the expansion of what ‘disabled’ seems to mean in context of claiming additional welfare.

And then the great untouchable mass, the 13 million pensioners in Britain. Again - the triple lock in unsustainable. Non means tested benefits are unsustainable. The average pensioner is better off than the average worker now due to the huge wealth held by this age group… yet the triple lock persists. The second unspoken pension crisis is government pensions, which are again completely unsustainable and many councils etc are facing bankruptcy because of them… but again they seem untouchable.

And to touch on your point on immigration OP - I think that a lot of people are confused that almost 10 years post brexit, a conservative government that presents itself as limiting immigration, we saw last year record net immigration levels. No one seems to be able to get a grip on this - despite the public having made their feelings on it very clear.

I feel exactly the same way OP. I am finally politically homeless whereas up until now I could still manage to weigh up my own values and still vote even though it felt like a major compromise. For example I still voted labour even though I am GC.

I can’t contemplate not voting though as I believe if we don’t, it’s not a useful protest position and we are then no different from the people who complain nothing changes but don’t do anything to influence change.

Same OP. I come from a poor background in a mining community. Have always voted Labour but voted Conservative for the first time after researching what Labour wanted to do to my work sector, and being brought up to believe that any kind of independent vote was a wasted vote. My work sector (Early Years) is now being destroyed daily.

‘Starmer was also happy to take money off disabled people’.

There needs to be a rational discussion about the expansion of PIP claimants. The number of claimants has increased by 50% in 5 years and shows no signs of slowing.

I don’t think anyone genuinely resents supporting those genuinely unable to work - but I think querying the expansion of the definition of ‘disability’ to support what is now millions of people is fair.

You can’t have worker A working 40+ hours a week and paying a 40-50% marginal tax rate inc student loans, while living in a flat share and not being able to afford a family - while funding family B to claim housing benefit, UC and PIP to live in a house and have two kids.

And that’s how it’s starting to look to even the left-leaning middle classes - they are struggling to get ahead and achieve stability, yet the government want more and more from them to fund those out of work - while not actually addressing the ballooning cost of supporting those people.

I think they could get away with tax rises when it was positioned as funding the NHS, as everyone uses it and wants the service to be good.

These tax rises are… to support a growing number of workless households claiming PIP (alongside other benefits) - when most voters seem to be very sceptical about the sudden rise in people claiming. And of course the growing cost of pensions and pension benefits - while pensioners already have higher disposable incomes than workers, and most younger workers don’t seem confident they’ll be getting that pension themselves anyway…

Couldn’t have said it better. This isn’t 2017 anymore. The landscape has changed enormously.

I also feel politically homeless. I've also (almost always) been a Labour voter but I feel they've lost their way so much in the past year I struggle to believe they are in charge.

For me it's not particularly about immigration (although I acknowledge why it's a concern). Above all it's about longstanding economic decline which no government in the past 15-16 years has touched the sides of tackling. Our living standards are so palpably worse than they were when I was in my 20s, there's no apparent plan to tackle this and its hard to see a way out of it. Brexit obviously was a disaster for the UK but that ship has sailed and Europe overall is suffering from a similar malaise so there's more to it than this. There's just an overwhelming sense in this country at the moment of things going backwards, of people feeling anxious and gloomy and impotent about their own ability to influence their futures. Yes we still have, relatively speaking, a good standard of living by comparison with poorer countries but we should be doing better than that. I live in London and the standard of living here has visibly deteriorated since COVID.

I'm worried about what this means for my daughter and her generation (teenager) and I would urge her not to pursue a life in the UK after she's old enough to choose.

But at the same time I would rather die than vote Reform or Tory and while I think the Lib Dems are the closest we have to a credible centre left party there's no way they are being elected where I live. So I continue to hold my nose and vote for Labour as the least worst option but without any real conviction and with growing frustration.

I'd like the Wilson governments of the 60s and 70s back. Labour party of today are just watered-down Tories, they're little different from the Heath Tory government of the same era.

The proposed new party of the left gives me some hope, but it's probably futile. It all makes me glad I'm old, tbh, I'm sick and tired of all our public services going to shit and people getting poorer.

Western families are having less children while immigrants legal and illegal especially of certain religions are very family oriented. Language is a big barrier too. My nan was here for nearly 20years and hardly spoke a word of English. I'm torn between empathy and practicalities. The tragedy is people come here for a better life and for those from war torn countries its better than the fate that they might have had but its still a poor life. In the next 10years it's estimated that there will be 20 million more people in this country. How can this be sustained. Also there won't be enough water for everyone as the resoviours are low already. Water will have to be rationed, along with everything else. We're already in a housing crisis. It was Tony Blair who opened the borders. Keir Starmer took Tony Blair's government to court to give illegal immigrants the right to claim benefits and won under the human rights laws. The Conservative's couldn't really do much about that one tbh. I dread the future for the younger generations in this country. Especially these born and bred here. We've got to stop over sentimentalising and think of our kids futures in my opinion. I'm voting reform. Not because I'm racist but because they are the only party that will have a fair immigration system point driven like it was before no matter where in the world you come from. The subject of illegal immigration is something else. And should be even tougher.
We're letting our bleeding hearts stop us from thinking with our heads and the future of our kids. Saying all of that, no government can deliver everything it sets out to. They are always in between a rock and a hard place. Although I do think Labour is to be trusted the least. I'm grateful to be born here, as are many children of immigrants but the younger generations of a certain demographic have been brain washed and have so much hatred for the country they were born in. They're just waiting to be enough in numbers so they can have an uprising. Religion does have a big role to play in it for them. This will become an Islamic country one day. Same as many other countries which grew in numbers and everyone had to convert. I pray I don't live to see it 🙏

I agree with every single word of this. This will be an Islamic country one day- I hope and pray I’ll never see that day.

I don’t think we’re ever going to be 100% content with one political party but we have to go with the one that is the closest to what we believe and feel/trust. The only alternative would be to not have a party but whenever there is a big issue which needs to be voted on (I am aware there are tons) we are asked to vote as a demographic nation.

If that does happen mn is a good record on why and how.

@Glitchymn1 ”In the next 10years it's estimated that there will be 20 million more people in this country.”

Where have you got this stat from, as it sounds extremely unlikely! I agree population growth exclusively as a result of immigration is a challenge for the UK (and seemingly universally unpopular) - but that figure sounds far too high.

A huge percentage of the prison population are non-British born. I can’t understand why they’re not deported rather than being fed and housed at the tax payers expense.

@HarkerandBarker I would argue crime is more to do with attitude and not caring about where you live. I agree pretty well offf people don’t commit neighbourhood crimes but the dc of ordinary folk certainly do. They are not all poor by any means. It’s attitude and their idea of fun that’s wrong. In the countryside we get racing cars. Young men speeding and racing each other on motor bikes or cars. They are not poor! It’s attitude and how they get their kicks. The police are presumably having their cocoa when this is going on.

Now that the powers that be have access to AI, robots, etc, that they think are going to be the answer to everything, I have many days now when I feel they think we ordinary humans are utterly dispensable. And the more disabled or vulnerable we are, the more dispensable we are, in their eyes. Genetic testing of babies, withdrawal of rights and SEN, making food and medicine and accommodation eyewateringly expensive - all of these together have depressingly logical outcomes.

I've always had a tendency towards the Greens, I was always staunch labour in elections though due to our stupid first past the post electoral system. That's actual labour, not the populist Muppets we currently have in power. I would never have believed things could be this bad and badly thought through under a so called labour bunch.

They are handing the country to Reform on a plate, can't wait for a world where 18 year old posh kids, mostly male. are put in charge of children's welfare everywhere. (Reference is to Leicestershire though you can see these pampered rich kids with little if any life experience everywhere you look that Reform succeeded in the recent elections).

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04334/SN04334.pdf

Please check the reference data. It's 12%. Whilst that is a significant minority, it is not a huge percentage.

I feel many of the same things.

Left voting (Labour and Lib Dems) for years. Husband and teenage son are increasingly right wing and I push back on what I think are more extreme (not extremist) positions but I also think we can’t go on like this.

When so many of the people who turn up on boats are young men. A tricky demo graphic to manage at the best of times. And if their lives in their home countries are so bad then why aren’t the women and children turning up in such numbers too - women’s lives are often much harder than men’s.

People bringing cultural attitudes that are not compatible with British values and culture and seemingly not wanting to adapt.

People (not only immigrants) who want to take but don’t seem to want to work to get to a position where they can contribute (whether that work is bettering themselves through education or taking control of their health and improving their wellbeing - of course not everyone can do this but are we really saying the massive increase in disability benefit claimants have got no prospect of getting better ever).

Agree on the point about kindness. It’s a great impulse and one I feel too. But it doesn’t work when the other party takes advantage. If everyone is genuinely doing their best then it’s a fair deal. But it doesn’t seem to be working now.

i do worry about the future :(

I’m fed up pretending all cultures are equal. I would say the majority of non-western Europe cultures have values and practices we would find problematic and yet we wholesale import these cultures and “respect” them when they fail to integrate and their communities abuse the skilled worker scheme to import all their families. We need to take a much harder line on immigration like Denmark or Australia.

I’m also fed up with the left wingers who simultaneously wanted the winter fuel allowance back for everyone but also want wealth taxes. Pensioners are the wealthiest group in society - means testing the WFA absolutely only affected the wealthier pensioners.

YANBU

Unfortunately, people in communities who have been most badly affected by high immigration and who have been trying to speak about it for decades, have had decades of being told they are thick and racist. It’s shown real class prejudice. These were low income
communities and the people in them were regarded as the Great Unwashed that the middle class people, unaffected by high immigration, could look down on.

I often hear middle class professionals talking about how we just need to educate those with concerns about immigration, but when I speak with these professionals they have never taken the time to educate themselves about the impacts high immigration have had on these communities. That would involve talking to and really listening to the Great Unwashed after all. And there’s no need for that, as poor people are clearly just wrong about their own experiences, aren’t they?

I have always been very left-wing, but have had a bit of a reckoning in the past few years. My best friend and I once jogged down the Whitechapel Road and were heckled 14 times by the men outside the masjid. I’m in a same sex relationship and have been on the receiving end of hassle from people from cultures where same sex relationships are frowned upon. I have a very intense professional job, and I sometimes feel like I’m working long hours and getting taxed loads so I can pay rent, try and save for a housing deposit, and put my dream of family and children on hold whilst others enjoy council housing in zone one and two of one of the most expensive cities in the world. I used to be so left wing but now I just feel angry that if you come from a normal / working or lower middle class background and you work hard you just get treated like a blood bag by HMT. I can’t believe I no hold these views as they used to be anathema to me !

@MidnightPatrol has nailed it with their post, it feels like the middle class are propping up a lot in this country. Yes I know there’s an argument of tax the rich more but we need to acknowledge there are more people in the middle class, paying high taxes and seeing no return on it. It’s due to collapse. So many of my peers are earning £100k+ in London and yet they’re dumping the extra into their pensions or compressing their hours to avoid tax as they don’t see any positive returns for working substantially harder and paying more tax. All they see is a person lying about their mental health in a poorer part of the country, having a house on benefits and feeling like it’s funded by working professionals who still live in house shares. I think there’s needs to be huge crackdown on benefits overall, not just PIP, for both British citizens and then also stop giving benefits to immigrants. That’s why so many come to this country in the first place.

I've been shouted down before for pondering what the UK's October the 7th will look like.

Once the demographic numbers have shifted enough it is inevitable. Anyone who doesn't think this is coming hasn't been paying attention to what has happened to every other country where that has happened before. Without fail.

It's hard to see the UK not learning from other countries mistakes. It's like watching a gullible tourist being led down an alley to slaughter.

I'm a higher taxpayer and am happy to be so, insofar that I'm funding public services and people who need state help. But a lot of public funds are wasted and that annoys me.

I am left-leaning but the current Labour government are just useless. "Watered down Tories" is a good description. It was never about doing good for ordinary working people with this lot, it was about getting into power, and only that. Starmer prevented his "left -wing" MPs (Dear god) from going to pickets during the national rail strikes, (which wound me up no end, being in the industry) and did FA after last year's riots to try and persuade people that Reform really aren't in Government for the good of the people. He's gone after the disabled. The way to dissuade people from voting for populist wankpots is to make life better for the proletariat. I'm not seeing any evidence of this, a year after he took power.

What do people need? Free education. Reasonably priced housing. Access to a job that gives them a good standard of living, not just one that "gets you by". They need a government who, if you are disabled or have vulnerabilities, don't keep telling you to get a job when the system is very much against you doing so. Access to much better healthcare, especially mental healthcare. A criminal justice system that is fit to serve the devolved country you live in. Just, you know, basic stuff. This Labour government can't provide this.

I also don't think Corbyn is tge answer either because although more left-wing, he has opinions about certain groups in our society that I can't get on hoard with.

I think we need to change the tax system so that the 1% pay a significantly more towards the country. Look at the Duke of Westminster & how he gets around paying tax. We need to close loopholes for the super-rich.

I'd vote Green if it wasn't for their track record on women's rights to single sex spaces, and firing their own for having similar opinions to me.

I spoiled my vote last time. My mini-protest at politics in general. Honestly, all political parties need to get their houses in order. I can see Reform being the next party to run the country and this comes after many years of inaction by everyone else. It's an absolute bonfire of a future for the UK.