To think there is some kind of weird push towards the far right?

[Checkcheckout]

I’m the first to admit that I am not the best informed - I prefer to keep my life stress free and simple as much as possible, and don’t have a TV, don’t read papers, and only listen to the radio when I’m driving (which is quite often). For my own mental health I prefer to live in my own little bubble.

But even with my limited exposure to media, I’ve noticed on Radio 2, both on the news and Jeremy Vine’s show, Reform are being given so much air time considering their paltry amount of MPs, the polls are being discussed regularly even though we’re years from an election. More than once listening to the radio I’ve thought the way they’re talking makes it sound like Reform winning the next election is a done deal, and thought to myself that this is how self fulfilling prophecies happen.

My algorithms on FB are seriously messed up. Despite having never been remotely interested in anything in the least bit right wing, all of a sudden I’m getting endless posts from knuckle dragging ‘patriot’ groups that I don’t even follow, with really horrendous and openly racist comments, thousands of them, which somehow FB are allowing to remain even though any kind of hate speech has always been censored on there. Why are these posts suddenly being allowed and pushed in my face?

Alongside this there seems to be a new story pretty much every day about the latest scandal involving Labour (again reported by the BBC), ok these things aren’t great although compared to the Tories’ rap list from their last spell in government, are fairly small fry really. It seems like there’s an active push for people to rebel away from the left just as the far right are gaining momentum.

Has anyone else noticed this or am I talking shite?

True, Farage was blustering about how he wasn't qualified enough to know if men shouldn't be locked up with women recently. But I'd imagine the base would hold his feet to the fire

Sssh! One of the excuses for voting Reform is pretending they’re the only option for women’s rights! As long as you’re not too bothered about this kind of thing and reproductive rights of course…

Don’t you try to follow other people’s accounts with different opinions too, to counter your algorithm? I’m probably more left leaning but definitely see both sides showing up on my social media. I see quite a lot of the pro-right wing stuff and I still disagree with the vast majority of it. Do you think most right leaning people are not doing the same thing?

Example - I’ve seen loads of the posts about Notting Hill vs Saturday’s march. I looked at them and wonder what Notting Hill festival has to do with the left when used as a comparison for the march, but I think it was an easy repost for people.

Sheer gullibility

No but the old FPTP electoral system is no longer fit for purpose & the two big parties are finished. There are now at least 4 parties in the race & the Big Two are scrabbling around as if the Greens & the LDs don't exist - they're both trying to appeal to the sort of people who would vote Reform & muffing it completely. Ideally, we should PR in place before the next election but it's not going to happen. A lot can happen before 2029 but under FPTP, there is a real possibility that Refuk will get in on a minority of total votes (Labour got in this way in 2024). Then the shit will get reall. The only thing they will offer the people who think they're saviours is performative cruelty to groups of people they don't like. Public services will be monetised ( fifty quid to go to the doctors, a ton to get a mammogram/ct scan etc etc - hip replacement you say? That'll be £10k or you can join the waiting list which currently a ten year wait.
Or something like that. I'm very pessimistic about the future because I think most people will just sit back & let it happen, even if they don't support Refuk themselves.

The people that vote for them will still blame ‘the left’ given the majority of Brexit voters still haven’t accepted it was a bad idea.

You only have to look at what happens when a pro-gun right wing spokesperson is shot by a right wing man from a right wing town in a right wing state - it’s ’the Left’s’ fault. The UK’s politics are not so different.

I asked the initial question.

You keep evading.

Why now? What happened to change your mind.
All the polls, even the daily mails, as late as 2023, included multiculturalism as a reason to be proud of our country.

Why has this suddenly changed so quickly for so many?

To the point that fringe groups are now seen as mainstream?

The reason I went back so far is because YOU said that multiculturalism was a new thing in the last decade. This is demonstrably false. Multiculturalism is something British people have been proud of for centuries. Sometimes they haven't. This has usually been caused by economic decline or propaganda.

What I'm interested in, as per the opening post, is why now. Is it algorithms? Who has made you change your mind? You said yourself you only questioned it recently. Why?

I agree regarding Putin. Even in Ireland there is huge Russian interference.

The Irish police believe Russia is involved in spying in Ireland https://kyivindependent.com/russia-involved-in-spying-in-ireland-irish-official-says/

Russian interference in Irish elections is also documented.
https://www.fiannafail.ie/news/russian-interference-now-a-stark-reality-in-irish-elections-mep-andrews

i am convinced there is even more Russian involvement in UK politics, including by using social media algorithms etc.

Believe me I am not a conspiracy theorist.

So, you and your opinions and beliefs are the ONLY ones that can be right?

How 'unfortunate' that every adult gets a vote, that should be stopped immediately only people who are on your wavelength should be allowed to vote.

Then it shouldn't be hard to win them back.

Have you even read Reforms policies??? They want to remove your human rights it is in their policies please go and read it for yourself, also if you would like fracking too where you may end up with damaged houses and mini tremors then you crack on but please make sure you are fully informed before you vote unlike most people who voted Brexit and now regret it saying they didn't know.

Psychologically it is. People tend to double down when they're proven to be wrong.

This is why I'm so interested in why people are feeling this way. And it does seem to be a feeling, most of the data I've seen is either false or, if it's scientific and could show trends at all, comes from such small datasets that it would be classed as irrelevant and an outlier.

So why are people so angry NOW?

Well that poster seems to think it's nothing but sheer gullibility. If that's true then it won't be hard to win them back.

But if it is indeed a bit more complicated than that...

don't know if anyone's mentioned it already, but check out a documentary on netflix called The Great Hack. It goes into why things have turned right wing and why your algorithm has been affected. It's to do with cambridge analytica who use facebook profile data to target people with right wing propaganda. Often the propaganda is fake to influence voting. They were behind brexit and also trump in 2016. The whole thing is eye-opening.

Because 'reading policies' worked out well for Liebour voters didn't it!? 👀

Feel free to back up yours. I think sometimes we’re lacking in being able to actually discuss opinions.

Are you saying don’t bother reading policies or that it doesn’t matter when they’re outrightly bad policies then, or something else?

Yes, it can and will be worse. If you are an average person with no great wealth you really will be worse off. Farage doesn't give a toss about you and people like you. Just you wait and see. It would almost be worth him getting in just to see how quickly you will be forced to change your tune.

And with all the immigrants gone you and your mates will be the ones wiping arses and sweeping streets while Farage and HIS mates sit back and count their cash. I can't bloody wait.

I genuinely don’t think his supporters will think it’s his fault though, they will still blame the left. It’s just part of the mindset.

You see it with Trump supporters, people that voted for him that are then on the receiving end of his policies, they think it’s somehow the Democrat’s fault, or that it was somehow an accident, and that Trump didn’t mean them specifically to be impacted, just other people.

I see Farage has already started laying the groundwork for his next set of scapegoats...

"I think one thing is certain, that children who have two stable parents have a better chance in life. But the most stable relationships, the one's that last the longest, tend to be between men and women. I do just happen to think there's an awful lot of kids in the country not getting the start at home they deserve." Farage - Reform party conference - 15.09.25

Tbh I thought he'd go after the disabled first but looks like it's single and LGBT parents who have the targets on their backs next.

Looking forward to mental gymnastics from the usual suspects trying to defend this one.

Kind of staggering wheeling out twenty year old insults like “Liebour” when in between we’ve had Boris Johnson as PM, the man who lied so much that his own friends said if he told them it was raining they’d go outside to check 😆🤣

In my darkest, most cynical, moments I feel we are being prepared for an absolute bloodbath gearing up to begin in the early 2030's.

The boats arriving in their dozens per day will seem like a distant dream when famine, war and disease begin sweeping the planet during climate chaos.

The British government will probably need to resort to machine gunning the seas around Britain.

They'll be needing to recruit some very patriotic hardcore followers in order to carry out extreme border control at some point.

Anyway, best not to dwell on those kinds of dystopian thoughts.

I wish someone would come out and say exactly what they mean by 'far right' and 'far left'.

Far right of what? Far left of what? Those names given to people actually mean very little except to the person who is saying it.

They meant something in the last century. What do they mean today?

It used to be party politics. You agreed with a manifesto and voted for the party who presented it to the electorate. You disagreed with the others' policies and no doubt said what you didn't agree with. In Britain there are more than the two main parties. We cannot call any of them far right or far left. What we can do is criticise the way this government are acting.

They promised change. They also promised to process the immigrants which arrive at our shores without permission. People liked that. They thought Starmer had a way of removing them that the other government didn't know about, that perhaps he was more friendly with the civil servants who ran the problem.

Turns out his idea of processing them faster was to let them all in! His other ideas are equally soul destroying to the electorate and taxpayer.

When Starmer makes an announcement he is flagged each side by the union flag, yet people call him left wing. When there are celebrations and visiting heads of state, the union flag is flown everywhere. Everyone waves the flag of St. George when there is cause for celebration. They are called right wing.

Can't other words be found? Can't people go back to using the party names, labour and conservative, liberal, green, 'uncle tom cobley and all?'

Why dredge up words from history?

They are words used to aim at someone whose views differ from yours. In the extreme, they cause people like Charlie Kirk to be murdered for his views. Thereby lies the danger. Unless people stop aiming useless titles at people, conflict will continue and there will be more political killings.

Perhaps, you could enlighten the rest of us?