What's going on with the far right parties?

[ItsPrettyGoodReally]

Hi,

I wondered if anybody might know what it is that means far right parties are rising in so many countries?

I was really desperate for this general election so we could get rid of the tories and get a labour government. But now suddenly people are talking about the far right in the UK, and in France and Germany, and Trump seems to be doing well in America.

I do kind of understand that maybe it's a reaction against globalisation and a return to the nation state.

However, I also see the massive gap between the ultra rich and the rest of us, and that reminds me of the way things were just before WWII, which is not a good thing.

It all feels a bit 1932 to me, and I would rather that the world was keeping a calm head while dealing with all the challenges.

Does anybody out there have a way to rationalise the situation that seems like there is a safe and calm way out of all this?

I think the key is that we all (across the globe) have to keep respecting democracy, and talking, and voting, and above all keeping our best calmest heads on, but I would be glad to know what others think.

Thanks!

...and there it is yet again, the same old clapped-out communism trope levelled at "the left".

Try breathing through the nose for a change, then you might actually be able do a bit of your own research and stop regurgitating garbage you've been drip-fed by cheap headlines all your life.

Communism, by definition, has never existed in any state on this planet controlled by human beings. It's all been merely varyingly different versions of capitalism with less room at the top and a larger, more uniformly downtrodden, underclass.

The utter garbage spouted over and over again by a continuous stream of randoms in every single political discussion makes it increasingly clear that the society Thatcher denied existed has gone as mad as a bag of cats...

Those differences are part of British culture. America is a 'melting pot'. It's made up of people from all over the world. Would you agree that there's such a thing as American culture? How about Italian? Customs and culture differ in each region. Is there an Italian culture? Is there no longer such a thing as culture or is it just the British this logic applies to?

Of course there is.

Whether you're a Northerner or a Southerner, if someone suggests that women shouldn't be allowed to vote you'll edge away quietly.

It doesn't mean that there isn't a single person in the UK that believes that. But it's enough outside norms - for them not only to think it but also to say it - that you'll wonder what other crazy ideas they have.

In a village in Afghanistan, that wouldn't be so unexpected.

If a few Afghan refugees come into an existing community, then by the time their children are adult they will have absorbed enough of our ideas that the possibility of women not being allowed to vote will be just as ridiculous to them as to our children. They'll know it's been the case in the past, but they won't wonder whether it should be again in the future.

If those children from Afghanistan are housed in an area with 80% refugee families, their mother not learning English, and go to an Islamic school, then they won't absorb UK values in the same way. Then in turn, they will influence the attitudes and values of the next generation of children who move to the UK.

I am sorry but it was on Sky News. It no longer is.

And again, culture evolves over time. It's not something static. But that doesn't mean it isn't real.

The relevance here is that people who feel - rightly or wrongly - that their culture is being eroded or sneered at (or feel unhappy because they are being told that they don't have a culture at all) are more likely to be pushed towards a party like Reform

Precisely. This narrative that Britain (or, more specifically, England) has no definable culture, and is simply a nation made up of disparate migrant groups, is really harmful and will, I think, ultimately only lead to growing division and resentment. If groups that already feel ignored and left behind are also fed the idea that their traditions are meaningless, their values archaic and bigoted and there is no overarching positive vision for them to buy into, then these groups will become increasingly frustrated and angry.

I’m seeing this increasingly in the primary that DD currently attends - suburban London school, mixed demographic but since the curriculum has been ‘decolonised’ pupils are constantly drip-fed the idea of the English as oppressors of other cultures, and that the nation has little cohesive identity beyond the subjugation of others. At the same time the message seems to be that all other cultures are to be recognised and celebrated through regular diversity days etc. I’m not sure exactly what the school’s large minority of white working class kids - who are already among the most troubled and lowest attaining groups in the school - are meant to take from this.

OK.
So this is straight up anti-Muslim prejudice being masked by "valid concerns".

Why don't you try listening to what people are saying?

Thanks for looking. I did actually find the sky news thing on youtube and realised that I had already watched the Grimsby debate. I'm catching up. :-)

It says a lot that I didn't even bat an eyelid at how confrontational it was. All the debates have been marked for me by the look of ground down despair on the faces of the audience members. They just look tired in their souls, and I'm almost relieved to know it's not just me.

This is a real problem in our house actually. DH and I are from other home nations but are raising our English child in a house in England. Our DC has no positive sense of his own identity, because (and I'm sorry to say this) England is viewed so badly by so many countries, our home countries included, and all the european countries that I have travelled to.

It's a real challenge to know how to teach my DS that his identity as an English boy has any positive attributes at all.

I'm sorry to say that out loud, but relieved as well because I grieve for my son having this struggle, and I would be glad to know what it is that I'm meant to be teaching him that is a positive English identity.

However, I also see the massive gap between the ultra rich and the rest of us. Does anybody out there have a way to rationalise the situation that seems like there is a safe and calm way out of all this?

Yes the answer is to address the inequality, by ending the false economy approach. Need good well-funded public services, supportive benefits system, social housing, good child support system, and jobs education and training opportunities. Across the UK (likewise for other countries).

False economy means disadvantaged groups pit against each other and hostility grows. The Benefits and Elderly Bashing threads are an example of this. With the benefits bill for example, it's high because of the false economy approach. People aren't able to access timely and effective help (healthcare, housing, social services, MH support) so end up in more need of state help and for longer periods.

I've never encountered anti English sentiment in any European country they I've visited. Lots of countries appear to love the English - e.g. Germany.

No. It's really not.

It's pointing out that there are very significant cultural differences in women's roles in society between UK culture and Afghan culture.

Can you not see that?

And this is the culture we seek to protect within the UK.

Rightly.

With mass immigration, it's similar to the issues people regularly raise on threads about displaced regional 'blow-ins' adding pressure on jobs, housing, and public services. The need is to acknowledge the impact, especially on the less advantaged, and to address it. In a compassionate way.

That doesn't have to be by dramatically reducing immigration numbers or restricting regional movement. It's one option but it's not the only one. Other options are a more even distribution across the country (and within regions, so not concentrated in only some parts of a region, which often tend to be the poorer areas). Another option is investment in social housing, jobs with wage protection, and public services. The latter option is actually needed regardless of immigration or 'blow-ins'.

With issues around cultural or regional identity (I see similar complaints to immigration about regional 'blow-ins' and regional cultural differences). Encourage support for integration whilst also working with and all groups involved to encourage respecting different people and groups, with no one group (including the British working class, historically an oppressed group) made to feel Bad or Left Behind or lesser. Encourage different groups to be more tolerant and understanding of each other.

One important thing is that any discussions on these issues need to be done calmly without hostility or hate, have compassion for both immigrants and displaced regional 'blow-ins', but also take into account the needs of people already in an area.

#AtomicTruthBomb

There is little difference in practise between extreme far right and far left in practise - they both end up assuming only the top guys have any say on anything

It's always the 'wrong' sort of communism when the left need to explain away genocide. For some reason, they never want to accept that maybe the ideology itself leads to genocide.

They can't understand that communism can never work, because nobody would be willing to do the horrible jobs if they can get the same reward for doing the nice jobs - e.g. who is going to want to work night shifts at the sewage works, when they can get the same wage/benefits working normal hours in a library?

Far left and far right both have led to huge amounts of death

What we have in the uk is far right to slightly left of centre so really this is a distraction

Yes. Could those agitated by the prospect of communism note the thread is about hard right parties.

I did. It was informed by anti-muslim prejudice, of the sort beloved by the far right.
There is precisely no evidence that Afghan immigrants want to stop UK women voting. There is no evidence that Muslim immigrants of any kind are "diluting our culture". It is scaremongering. And its pretty irresponsible.

Do you think that British expats are a significant risk of "diluting" the "indigenous culture" of Dubai? If so, are you calling that out as a problem?

What about the creeping Americanisation of the films we watch, the books we read, our media generally? Are you Protesting about that?

I personally am fed up of racism being couched as "valid concern". And I'm white. Must be horrendous to be brown at the moment.

This cannot be serious! What??

How are you raising your son to be "proud of his English identity"?

It is the "faaaar right" who are currently trying to ban what's taught at school regarding LGBT. Appears censorship is fine, as long as you only censor "woke nonsense" 😂

You're making assumptions about intention. A discussion about British culture and values, isn't racist.

I didn't say it was.
The arguing tactics on here are something else. I said the hypothetical case study of the impact of Afghan migrants was racist. And it is.