Reform banging on about the “establishment” constantly

[Tping]

Every single time they’re interviewed, they bang on about the establishment like they’re some edgy outliers, stalking the political periphery with their radicalism and anarchic spirit. They’re as much a part of the “establishment” (whatever the fuck that means) as the others. AIBU?

And look how well that's working for America...

Apart from anything else why should someone who's a professional civil servant loose their job because their boss changes. As for the judiciary, it needs to be truly independent from the sort of political interference seen in America. That's what properly written and debated legislation is for.

No, in the UK a lot of the pushback was from feminists having to go to court again and again. It didn’t spontaneously disappear, it had to be tried throughly through our judiciary to enable women to claw back rights that were being removed from them. It was grassroots challenging of our institutions that pushed back the rot. Theres a reason the UK is called TERF island.

The thickos lap it up,Reform issue statements such as no foreign nationals in social housing(so private rent)
Sending UK prisoners to El Salvador
Their small boats policy..France Non Monsieur Farage.
Only brown people affected..think again.
Him and his kind are the establishment and the multi millionaires /billionaires are their kind of people.

The flag hoikers not so much.

You're right about it being a grift. Temu Trump is not an egalitarian.

The point is it’s anti-establishment to want to dismantle the way existing institutions function. I didn’t at any point say I approve of Farage or what Reform would do. My point is simply that he is not establishment.

The problem is people use these phrases for people they just don’t like. Common understanding of what terms mean is important for people to communicate truthfully. My objection is not an effort to defend Farage. The shortcut here is people believe that being anti-establishment is a virtue so should only be associated with people they approve of.

I happen to think strong sensible institutions create stability and are important for countries to prosper and for civilians to be able to live well. I do think institutions can be misguided but I am absolutely not anti-establishment in the “tear it all down” way of thinking. Anyone who’s been in a country with poor institutional control or overly political institutions will know it’s actually quite shit.

That is true. But it was also cynically exploited and overstated by the Right.

I was strongly supportive of the TERF position (to use a convenient shorthand) on trans ideology.

But it was used as a cover story to attack other progressive ideas and positions.

Which ones? For me it wasn’t overstated, every single female in the UK would be affected by the loss of those rights, every single one and most would have only found out when it became a problem from them. Changing the civil rights position of 50% of the population is not minor imo.

What would you call someone wealthy, who goes on fox hunts, has been prominent in politics for decades and has mates who can just chuck £5 million at him ‘no strings attached’.

It’s certainly not ‘of the people’ is it?

Yes agree. Why would people want to avoid having an argument?

Could it be that the number of truly curious people is actually quite low - therefore all the other people just have set / ideological ideas that they have to impose on others. People can’t / or haven't been taught to create and extrapolate ideas.

The main thing that drives me crazy is how all of this stops progress- truly good progress. If we let the best ideas from the best people rise to the top we could have cured cancer by now. It’s illogical if you are a true logician. This is why you have to study it like a sociologist / psychologist.

It could be.

The point is the locus of power has moved. The person you describe above could certainly be said to be rich and powerful, but they (might) no longer be the establishment.

No but again that doesn’t mean his ideas are establishment. Pol pot was anti-establishment and he studied in France and came from an extremely privileged background. Lenin came from an privileged background. We don’t argue that they were establishment and had establishment ideas because of that, they destroyed the institutions of the countries they controlled.

The point is not whether he has what’s perceived as an establishment background, the point is whether he supports establishment ideas or not. If you want to fundamentally change things like the judiciary or the civil service, i.e. our institutions then you are not establishment. It doesn’t matter whether you like him or not. I dislike both Farage and Corbyn, both to me are anti-establishment.

You definitely get what I’m trying desperately to communicate here.

The point is it’s anti-establishment to want to dismantle the way existing institutions function.

Which reform policies claim to do this, and how? Having stricter immigration isn’t dismantling anything, it’s simply a policy choice, and one that’s been the trend for years.

Yes - we have to have common language. So important.

I noticed For Women Scotland had their 15th victory against the Scottish Goverment today.

It’s not about the policies. That’s the whole point of this thread. It’s an idea. This is what people never got about Brexit. It wasn’t about the polices (it should be!).

Farage is basically saying - people like us. You cannot view it through identities (black, gay, rich, poor). It’s about attitude/ view.

I was responding to this point: it’s anti-establishment to want to dismantle the way existing institutions function.

I’d agree that’s anti establishment, but what has that got to do with Reform? What have Reform said that indicates anything about dismantling the way institutions function?

I would also point out that when people keep saying fringe groups are establishment, it gives them more of a route to power and radical changes. I mean how many people really want political interference in our judiciary. Yes people may want for example for MP’s to legislate ore harshly on xy and z but do you really want any given government to have more power or do you want our judiciary to be truly independent. This is the kind of thing people should be discussing, but no it’s “farage went to private school” honestly thats not the worst thing about him lol. Or he’s grifting, yeah well people think Angela Rayner grifted too. Discuss the ideas because this isn’t going to work.

If you can’t discuss ideas rationally and acknowledge radicalism then it’s going to be hard to communicate where the danger is. The “HE’S A WHITE MAN” is hardly going to be effective given that most of the other parties also seem to like having white men from privileged backgrounds as leaders too.

As I said I’m an ethnic minority and I’m getting bored of the identity politics now. It’s going to rapidly stop working on people and you are going to have to get into the weeds on ideas at some point.

Tbh I don’t think academy educated poc women would be doing a better job.

They want to reform the judiciary and curb it’s powers. You may think thats a good or bad thing but it would be a change to the way or institutions function.

Changes to civil service hiring and firing allowing more political appointments. Again you may think this is good or bad but it’s a big departure from how our civil service functions today.

@Bringemout

Which ones? For me it wasn’t overstated, every single female in the UK would be affected by the loss of those rights, every single one and most would have only found out when it became a problem from them. Changing the civil rights position of 50% of the population is not minor imo.

To be clear: I don't disagree with this position at all. I was also troubled by the trans position on "gender", I agree that it posed a threat to the rights of women, and I'm relieved the Supreme Court took the position it did. I'm also grateful that feminists fought on this point.

But I also think this has been used by the right as a kind of "gotcha" to invalidate other progressive positions and to shift the Overton Window so dismissal of other progressive views is considered much more acceptable than it would have been in the past.

The right has yoked the trans issue into a basket of topics which supposedly demonstrate the hollowness of progressive and left-wing causes. This has had an impact on how people discuss a host of other areas where there is institutional inequality in society. Including, ironically, prejudice against women.

Any discussion of how women or people of colour are negatively impacted by institutional racism, at work, in politics, in society is now waved away as "woke" by association.

DEI is much more than just about finding niche jobs for men pretending to be women. It's a premise that assumes that a diverse (in the proper sense of the word, not the box-ticking one) group of people will function more efficiently and more fairly than one in which people hire and promote other people who look and think like them.

There's tons of data to demonstrate that diversity (again, of the proper sort) improves on many hard financial metrics: companies with diverse boards make more money than ones with less diverse boards. And that's before you even get to the discussion about how that benefits equality in the wider society. Of which women are of course beneficiaries.

But the whole flap about trans ideology and "woke" has left an environment so febrile that is impossible to have a sensible conversation about this without going down rabbit holes about men in women's toilets. And I find it frustrating that many feminists are unable to see past the trans issue as if it was the only threat we face.

Sorry, I digress, but this is a classic example of where people like Farage have manipulated our perspective.

Ok yeah I see what you are getting at, I think the problem is that many ethnic minorities don’t like DEI if we perceive it as undermining the idea that we attained positions on merit. I think there is a difference between saying “we would like more of xy and z group to apply so please do and we will ensure your environment is conducive to your working at your best as a gay person/ black person/ woman etc and actively setting quotas for example. I don’t think I have heard much on MP’s denying that racism exists tbh, if I have missed it thats my fault.

The judge who recently ruled that the met was guilty of indirect discrimination because it automatically paused promotions for people under investigation for misconduct and that disproportionately impacted black police officers I think is an example where people think it’s got out of hand. To me I don’t care what colour you are if you are being investigated for misconduct you definitely should not be put forward for a promotion. The question of whether the met disproportionately investigated black police officers is a different one and should be looked at.

I think people believe in fairness, sometimes it is fair and just to give one group something you don’t give others. Sometimes it’s not, I think it’s reasonable to discuss that. If someone disagrees the best way to tackle it is to demonstrate that someone is wrong, not that they are just a bad person.

Those reforms would give the ruling party more power. How is that anti establishment? It’s a move to a more authoritarian system of government.

If ‘the establishment’ is ‘powerful people running institutions to their own benefit and liking’ then Farage would certainly fit the bill. Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss. Normal people are still the losers at the bottom of the pyramid while the people at the top get rearranged.

”we’re going to overturn the old way of doing things where power and money were in the hands of that group of people. It’s now going to be in the hands of this group of people” <gestures to self>.

Orwell wrote about this…

Sadly some people believe the lie, just as some voted for Brexit on the basis of lies (at least enough to get over the line as it were).

@Bringemout

Ok yeah I see what you are getting at, I think the problem is that many ethnic minorities don’t like DEI if we perceive it as undermining the idea that we attained positions on merit. I think there is a difference between saying “we would like more of xy and z group to apply so please do and we will ensure your environment is conducive to your working at your best as a gay person/ black person/ woman etc and actively setting quotas for example. I don’t think I have heard much on MP’s denying that racism exists tbh, if I have missed it thats my fault.

I completely agree with this and I'd feel the same as a (white) woman about any role which had actively set quotas about hiring women.

I don't think this issue is solely limited to discussions about DEI. I think there was a deliberate campaign by the Right to hijack the trans debate (among other things) to shift the discourse so any kind of progressive views are regarded with suspicion and it's had a negative effect on our public discourse. The word "progressive" itself has been tarnished and is now associated with bonkers left wing single issue causes (such as trans rights), instead of being a broader commitment to moving society forward in a way that benefits as many people as possible. I would like to reclaim it from the clutches of the far left and the far right. But that's another story.