Unfriending right wing friends

[nondrinker1985]

One of my school mum friends of around 10 years has started sharing loads of Restore Britain/Rupert Lowe posts.

I’m actually really shocked as she’s an Irish immigrant herself.

I’ve unfriended her which is a shame as day to day she’s ok. Also another mum who has been liking and commenting on the Restore Britain posts, they’ll probably tell me they’re not racist but I can’t be arsed calling them out.

Well said.

A neighbour (I used to talk to) told me a few months ago he'd happily sink the boats and shrugged in a 'don't care' way when I said that's murder. And yes, he's very very much a reform voter and was a brexit voter because he wanted the UK to 'take back control'.
These people are the pits.

I unfriended anyone who shares political posts of any flavour and made it clear in my profile that political posters will be unfriended. I don’t want anyone’s beliefs and ideology messing up my algorithms. Just follow local community, animals/crafts/books. Anyone else, and a few have been post for Reform, are simply unfriended now.

If I want to read about politics etc I’ll seek it out.

Humour is subjective.

Clearly

Absolutely this. Every word.

As Reagan said "If fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the name of liberalism".

This thread shows that perfectly.

What do Farage, Lowe, Tommy Robinson, Matt Goodwin and their ilk have in common?

They have all made and continue to make large sums of money from appealing to racists by stoking division.

I’ve just had a look at Restore UKs website. They claim that they will completely remove the right to claim asylum in this country

This has a number of issues; firstly it will mean leaving the ECHR which will also remove a lot of women’s rights (equal pay for a start). The document also prohibits the use of torture, gives us the right to a fair trial)

Secondly, the UK has a fairly thriving Defence industry where we sell to other countries. If we rip up the asylum process completely and refuse to accommodate them, these countries will refuse to do business with us. Even European countries will refuse to engage as we’re expecting them to take “our share” of asylum seekers.

UK Defence exports accounted for £14 billion in 2023. The cost to us from asylum seekers (who are coming from countries we’ve sold arms to destroy) is but a fraction of that.

I always find things like this amusing.

Someone shows the ultimate intolerant view point against a fellow person - racism - and bemoans then when someone not being tolerant to that hatred.

You couldn't make it up!

Insulting someone is usually a sign of little or no intelligence and/or lack of a valid argument.

Ah, but the it's the nasty boat people. That's all reformers really care about.

Scary innit? Epitome of cutting our noses in spite of our face.

I agree, so insulting racists and bigots must be ok in your book too.

Or are you only in favour of insulting those people who don't share your views?

God, it’s this combination of smugness and stupidity that contributed to me stopping being left wing. Just didn’t want to be associated with people like this.

According to an article today in The Times, thanks to a Reform UK legal challenge to the government attempting to delay elections in 30 councils across the country, the government has now backtracked after being warned by lawyers that it may be illegal (it’s behind a paywall, unfortunately). So thanks to Reform in this instance for trying to uphold democracy (and I am not a Reform supporter).

I think we should go out of our way to listen to the be ore’s of others and make sure we understand what’s going on out there and why people feel threatened, their fears etc. But we don’t need to be friends with racists and bigots to do that.

Thanks for that quality addition to the debate.
I always find name calling is a great way to get people to see how reasonable you are. Well done.

I’d just ask my friend why they believe what they believe. I used to think FWR was a hotbed of transphobia (literally would glance and think “what is it with the feminism boards!?”) and then I sat down and really had a read and a think. After that I’m a lot more thoughtful about being curious about other perspectives, my instincts have been wrong and my understanding has been limited in the past.

Would also agree that insults aren’t debate. I would never have cut iff a friend for stating a position I don’t like unless it was 100% unequivocally clearly racist, homophobic etc.

I don’t think you understand what resilience means.

You do understand the difference between opinions and facts, I hope.

Agree, in an ideal world, this would be great.

And also in an ideal world is not to have political parties who get to spout their racist and often incorrect soundbites to the people in the UK. Even the tories were joining in the immigration blame game for the state they left the country in - and it was down to them! It's an abuse of trust by our political parties - at best.

We all deserve decent politicians who don't lie, aren't in it for themselves and have the interests of us all at heart. But as I said, in an ideal world...

Are you here illegally then?

What is your AIBU? You haven’t asked anything! I lean the other way to you but I don’t delete most people unless they’re unwilling to debate should they post something and can’t cope with debating an alternative opinion, if they can’t? I just mute them!

I take it you are using the term racist as interchangeable for anyone who does not share your views?
Still it's a handy one, isn't it? It enables you to shut down debate (who wants to defend a racist?) and parade your superior opinions in one fell swoop. You must think you are very clever.

😅😅

So far, as I've already said, the left are the only ones throwing out the insults. Their go-to argument is that someone must be a racist or a fascist if they are not left wing.

I've already shared my beliefs. And I've no doubt that to a left winger I would be classed as right wing so therefore by it's very definition I automatically must be a racist and a fascist too.

That's my point.

Given their red lines of misogyny, homophobia and racism, I wonder if the leftists on this thread, desperately trying to cleanse their timelines, would support a government that filtered immigrants for their views of women, gays and Jews.

I would guess probably not.