To think my mum has fallen down a conspiracy rabbit hole and I can't get her out

[Coffeesoon]

My mum has just sent me a video of Ant Middleton explaining how in 2027 the migrants / boat people who are seeking asylum and have already been made legal, will kick off and attack us all.
He says there will be a civil war, he knows because of army contacts and that we need to prepare.
What am I suppose to say to that?
She fully believes that an army is being formed and is constantly telling me or sending me videos about it.
I love my mum but since covid, which she thought wasn't real, she has been thinking the government is out to get us. We live in an area of increased immigrants and she absolutely hates them.
I've tried to talk to her but shes adamant and its really getting me down.

Lots said here about the role of social media spreading conspiracies, and yup, totally true.

But here is a strange thing. All western social media is blocked in China. TikTok especially, that is super block. Even a VPN can't get that. It's blocked at SIM card level.

Chinese social media is also among the most censored, moderated, and monitored in the world. Try posting on there about fake moon landings, and leaders are lizards. No chance.

So you would think no conspiracy theories?

Nope, there are a few. A popular one for example is that all western history is fake. Yup, the Pyramids were recently constructed, because the west had no history, they sailed to China and stole Chinese inventions etc. Bat shit stuff. Folk create conspiracies that get past the censors.

So it seems to me, that no matter what, you will always get groups of people huddled in corners making stuff up, alternative facts, and all that.

There is an ironic part to this as well though re conspiricies in China. The government issued its final report on the origins of covid recently......and it's a conspiracy theory.

You can tell her if Ant Middleton really cared about this country then he wouldn’t have flounced off to Dubai, and would have paid the government the £1m+ he owes in company tax!

That is exactly what happened in Lebanon, so it's probably why she is worried about it

This. 👍

We need the bridge of sighs and it still wouldn't be enough👍😁

My dad is the same. I posted about it too.

Problem is the FB algorithms. He knows about this but is so wed to his bonkers views he won't admit his head has been turned.

Anti immigrant, racist, pro-Trump, Reform and Farage. He is completely obsessed with chemtrails, COVID being a hoax, vaccines being mind control. I respect his right to his opinions but I draw the line at overt racism, borderline fascism.

Indeed, some of the bollocks I have read is just mind boggling.

Quadruple sigh.

This is bullshit. Hijacking the trauma that women and children have been through to push an entirely different agenda is a disgusting thing to do. It's come from the likes of far right activist and convicted women beater Yaxley Lennon and friends.

And you wonder why those repeating this abhorrent statement to cause division as some kind of gotcha are considered far right?

This. This statement is part of it.

Having sympathy for refugees doesn't mean you support rapists and to suggest this is abhorrent towards survivors.

This comment disgusts me and shows you for who you are.

I do think Covid is to blame for distrust. The fact masks work, no they don’t, yes they do etc. we need to vaccinate children, whilst walking to your table in a restaurant you must walk with a mask on in 1 direction & then remove the mask whilst sitting down. The vaccine stops transmission, no it doesn’t. Stay in don’t kill granny. This many people died, no they didn’t we just don’t put report recoveries & if you got hit by a bus and died covid would appear alongside the cause of death blah blah blah. The government was blatantly lying & exaggerating & it’s opened people’s eyes. Your mom would remember the illegal Iraqi war where Labour lied to get us to join. She’s doesn’t trust what’s she’s being told because we are lied to constantly. The paper is full of reports of illegal immigrants committing serious crimes. You don’t have to look for them. They’re there in every news outlet. As for the cloud seeding, I read in the guardian they’re just planning on doing it in the UK. Everything is a conspiracy till it’s not. The problem I think you have with your mom is she’s consumed by it. I live not far from Birmingham where we had that lady stabbed in the neck waiting for the bus at the same time as the trending video of kids aiming fireworks at cars and people in the city centre. Your mom is scared, not because she’s mentally ill, she’s scared because the world has changed so dramatically she has lost trust

The civil war, if one ever occurred, would be driven by Brexit and ill-informed racists. Not by asylum seekers/ immigrants… whatever you want to call people. Unless they start shooting them in the sea, they are going to keep arriving and Farage destroying the Dublin Agreement made things harder to send them away. If we ever (shudder) get a Reform government, the people will still keep arriving on boats.

They never did answer my question on which war they've lived through on Britain's shores.

@Staringintothevoid616

and you could say the same thing about the useful idiots on the Left, on their marches wearing their black and white scarves chanting “from the river to the sea” trotting out the sane soundbites, the youngsters screeching “transwomen are women” etc etc.
if people are doing good research from a variety of sources, news, history books, biology books, sociology research papers etc then it becomes very apparent how many people on all sides have been completely brainwashed

You're assuming that I'm posting from a left-wing perspective. I'm not (particularly). I'm a centrist. Antivaxx rhetoric hasn't historically been particularly a "right wing" phenomenon although increasingly it is being fuelled by a kind of QAnon tendency which often originates from the right.

Shrill and polarised rhetoric and selective evidence building are not particularly the preserve of either right or left: sadly they're an increasingly universal phenomenon.

I do agree, though, that's very worrying how many people on both sides of this debate have completely lost any grounding in established fact or any ability to acknowledge the validity of arguments that contradict theirs. I know many well-educated, intelligent people who have lost any ability to acknowledge the selectivity and bias of their own viewpoints. On both the left and the right.

@Mlddleoftheroad one of the mouth pieces in Scotland that gives speeches to the Tommy fan boys has convictions for stalking and assaulting a former partner whilst going on about protecting women and children.
Pot ,kettle and dare I say black.👍😁

I dont thinks shes mentally ill but like some suggested probably scared.
She is from a part of Birmingham which is unrecognisable due to immigration. Crime rates and poverty have all increased and to be honest the area is quite terrifying to visit. She moved to a new area and now in that area immigration is starting to increase so shes scared that it will end up like where she originally left.
I've tried to explain that crime rates and poverty aren't solely due to immigration, government cuts I would imagine are having a massive impact, although some of the points on here I do agree with, I would just like her to step back from the extreme Facebook scenarios she seems to believe are happening.
I think I'll send her some videos and try to change her algorithm. Thank you to the people who pointed out that its due to fear, I'll try to be a little more sympathetic to that.

The video she refers to was full of holes. It’s worded on the lines that migrants are housing themselves in military bases and training in combat to form armies because they are all fighting aged men coming here to fight. It’s bonkers. I think Ant Middleton is in danger of losing credibility if he hasn’t already.

The constant bombardment of how bad Britain is a constant from certain sections of the media.all Britain's ills didn't spring up overnight but given where she lives her perceptions are understandable.

My cousin has gone down the rabbit hole.
Also started during COVID but not about the pandemic itself but focused on low traffic neighbourhoods or places where they closed roads to give pedestrians more room to socially distance.
Then it became all about how fifteen minutes cities and LTNs were a ploy to force us to stay only in our local areas by government. She was obsessed with some LTN in Oxford which is about 150 miles from where she lives and is a city she has visited maybe five times in 55 years.
From there it has been Davos, the World Economic Forum, central banks wanting to impoverish the people (I am not sure she knows what a central bank actually is vs Barclays or HBOS), the war in Ukraine being started by Europe instead of Russia and a lot of Epstein theories.
I have a suspicion that she has probably gone full Farage on small boats but tbh, I have greatly limited contact and blocked her social media so I don't know for sure

She was normal once, I swear.
There are some universities now researching what is causing middle aged people to fall down the rabbit hole but it's not yet told me how to get her out

www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/news/2023/december/dmu-research-investigating-online-extremism-in-middle-aged-people-gains-international-attention.aspx

Really, the left are without aggression. You think all the division is caused by Brexiteers and racists. Which by the way the slurs ending is isms or phobics has lost all meaning as it’s been weaponised against anyone who even dares ask completely reasonable questions. Keep calling people names when they have their fears confirmed later causes anger.

This puts her concerns in a context that I don't think many on here don't appreciate due to where they live.

Despite what people say, I think Birmingham does have no go areas for some racial groups. I have Hindu friends who literally drive a considerable way round to avoid driving in certain areas at all.

I have had UBER drivers not let me off in certain areas until they can see the door/building that I am going to. One wouldn't even let me cross a road on my own so did a U turn across 4 lanes 😳

But yeah, keep on laughing at this woman and scoffing at her opinions. Only time will tell.

Fears confirmed? What are you talking about? Farage caused a problem and it’s difficult to fix it. The Tories couldn’t, Labour are trying but not achieving much, Reform won’t be able to either, but they’ll tank the economy and ruin all our lives into the mix, particularly as women.
Asylum seekers aren’t even our biggest concern. The only people who are obsessed with it are the ones suckling on Farage/Putin’s teat by reading the Daily Heil and watched GB Lies.

You might be interested in this - it is an interview with a Professor at King's College who says that civil war is not as unlikely as you think: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6iHfBTH0VWR7JzosbKFtib?si=gZMcaC8yR5mKRYRzI4XQNQ&pi=3ZXctq_YSgSJ5&t=0

There seems to be a somewhat Stalin effect happening here instead of discussing the actual points raised. If people were more curious about conspiratorial beliefs they’d realise that they more than likely come from a place of fear, of feeling powerless, out of control and uncertainty.

Not all people are racist or batshit, a lot of people are scared and perhaps we could discuss the why instead of calling people names.

My mum is gender critical & started off spending a lot of time reading/ watching content around that. This has progressed to hard core right wing content. All critical thinking skills abandoned. She will believe any nonsense if it suits a right wing agenda. Banning Christmas, Islamic takeover, post birth abortions, climate change is a myth etc she swallows it all.
The sad part is she she will say she is worried about her family’s future but shows no interest in any of us, never asks after anyone. Every time I see her she just rants on so I gave cut visits to a minimum. We live really close & used to spend a fair amount of time together. I just can’t do it anymore. My sister took her to a hospital appointment a d was so embarrassed at her loud ranting in the waiting area.
Just makes me so sad, she is like a different person.

So... to be clear... you want anyone that disagrees with conspiracy theorists, that you have arbitrarily declared to be 'leftist', to provide evidence that:

• Illegal immigrants AREN'T amassing an army that will rise up in 2027 and trigger a civil war, that the military already know about - I would ask someone that believes this to provide evidence that they are. It's not on anyone else to provide an evidence-based argument against a non-evidence based claim. If you or anyone else can't prove they are, there's no need for me or anyone else to prove they're not. And if you or anyone else can't prove they are, it's not something that should be put out there as fact, because it scares old ladies like the OP's mum. Why do people want to scare old ladies?
• The people arriving on boats aren't asylum seekers - since 2018, 65% of arrivals have been genuine asylum seekers. The numbers become less clear as time goes on, because the last government stopped processing arrivals and just sat them in hotels, and we had a problem with illegal immigration from Albania that drove the numbers up but that has been largely resolved. It is estimated that, at the moment, anywhere between 80 and 90% of arrivals are genuine asylum seekers. This doesn't mean we should accept them - separate conversation - but it does deflate the argument that they are all here for economic reasons. They're not - they're desperate people.
• The UK is the rape capital of the world - tried to debunk that earlier, no one really seems to care, facts getting in the way of feelings is inconvenient. It should be noted that, even if we were the rape capital of the world, the data being used to support that claim does not link the rapes to immigration, legal or otherwise. That's a leap that has been made by the people spreading the total nonsense - and, in that entirely fictitious universe where we are indeed the rape capital of the world, I'd want to see the evidence that it's immigrants driving that statistic, rather than dark mutterings about incompatible cultures and individual cases of horrific crimes being committed by immigrants being used to tar the whole population, because what I DO know is that the data we have on the criminality of minority populations is very shaky, based on census information which foreign nationals don't engage with, and no one bandying about wild claims adjusts any of the data for age: https://news.sky.com/story/fact-checking-farage-are-foreigners-more-likely-than-britons-to-commit-sexual-offences-13407029 Again, when information is put out like this, with no evidence base, it scares people. Why do people want to scare their friends, neighbours and families? I'm fairly risk averse - if I think there's a danger, I'll alert people. But I don't just willy nilly spread bullshit without checking the danger out first. Who does that?

Are there any other points you'd like me to make a counter argument for? I'm assuming you've already discounted the international law-based counter-argument for 'France is a safe country'...

The Times (that well-known leftie rag) recently did a good video on how, far from being lawless, the UK has actually got safer over the last few years, with serious crimes reducing: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOtxN8aCDyJ/ The same link also explores the foreign nationals/sex crime myth.

Would you like me to explain why it is statistically invalid to use the case of, say, a woman raped by immigrants on Brighton beach as a way to suggest that all immigrants are a threat to women? Even if a different immigrant also assaulted a girl in Birmingham? This link helps to explain. It also usefully describes why correlation doesn't equal causation: www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zp89xfr/revision/1

We could discuss why immigration isn't the reason public services are on their knees - it does increase demand, but immigrants are more likely to pay tax as they are more likely to be working age, so in theory more immigrants should equal more money for public services. It doesn't though, because the pandemic and subsequent Russian war wiped out our economy after a decade of ideological austerity that had cut public services to the bone. Immigration isn't the reason folk can't see their GP or whatever.

Anything else you would like addressing?

I'm not going to apologise for making decisions based on data rather than anecdote, fear, feelings or propaganda, and I don't believe I am part of some sort of exclusive 'intelligentsia' and better able to think than anyone else.

It is precisely because I know I don't know everything that I take the time to look at the source data.

For all the people that think none of this is an issue and everyone is just making it a bigger deal than it is, I have a few questions.

1. How would you feel if tomorrow morning, you walked outside your house to head to work, and found 600+ men of unknown origin wandering around your streets?

2. How would you feel to learn that, without consultation, they'd been housed in a hotel or barracks close to your community?

3. How would you feel knowing they were allowed to roam freely, without any controls or supervision?

4. How would you feel to learn that they were loitering around children's schools and parks? Parks and schools your own children go to.

That is the reality that many people, up and down the country, are facing. They're feeling left feeling unsafe in their communities. Some don't let their kids out to the park anymore. Or allow them to walk home from school alone anymore.

Some have said they don't out at night for fear or go to certain places in their community.

One woman, in Southampton, described how she was walking her dog with her mother down her usual route on a grassy park when two migrant men jumped out of a wooded area and started to harass and poke at them.

Luckily, nothing more than that happened-but due to that incident, they can no longer go down that area to walk their dogs. That is their community, a place where they've lived their whole lives and there's now areas they can't go because they're too afraid.

You can throw all the data-sets at them that you like, you can yell that they're racists, far right, xenophobic bigots, all you want-but it doesn't change a stark reality for these people. They're no longer safe in their own communities.

Another man, who is on YouTube, lives around 200 metres away from a migrant hotel. It's a working class community, small, and all of a sudden, he started to notice these groups of around 40 men just walking past his house, repeatedly throughout the day.

He went outside, puzzled, and realised that this must have been a migrant hotel and sure enough it was. He was not warned or told beforehand that this was happening.

On that same day, he described how he was at his car, and noticed two schoolgirls walking home, and then around 10 of these men in a group, following them. 4 of them were trying to talk to these girls and harassing them.

He later saw these same men, but more of them, hanging around the park that his children often went to. He has stopped allowing them to go there now.

In the local shops, a lot of the items, including protein bars, had electronic security tags on them once this migrant hotel opened up. The pharmacy had to put everything behind perspex glass.

The community had went from a high-trust community where people knew each other and felt safe letting their kids go to the park to a community where protein bars were held under lock and key.

I'm not sure some of you realise just how limiting and damaging this can be to a community. I'm not sure some of you care and you won't care until it happens to you.

But please- be honest. How would you feel?