Do you honestly still feel part of the left?

[JoanWilliams75]

Don't get me wrong - I don't consider myself on the right. But, wow, this gender identity movement has really opened my eyes to the dogmatism and close mindedness of the left. The left has grown almost conspiratorial in it's critique of capitalism and sees the worst in everybody. I've always been critical of extreme identity politics, but I was pretty 'woke' until about a year or so ago.

Hearing your political allies repeating TWAW or else has really made me question what else is a lie. I realise this gender identity movement is not a bizarre blind spot of the left (I keep seeing Glinner tweet 'why are progressives supporting this?!') but reflects a much broader failure of the left itself. I've found myself much more willing to engage with other perspectives and I am much better for it. I can't believe how close minded I used to be.

I don't know what left and right are supposed to mean anymore. I guess I'd consider myself "left" libertarian. Though I support basic income, free speech, environmentalism and generally live and let live.

Just some thoughts. Anyone else?

I've always seen myself as a right wing socialist, that is I believe that businesses should be able to focus on making money as long as that doesn't impinge on the rights of workers to a fair living. I guess the Waitrose / John Lewis model is sort of what I'm getting at.

I've never felt very comfortable on the left as it has always seemed more about being right-on that being right.

Tap - to a point, but I think there is now actual scorn of poor people from some of these students because they don’t think the “right” way about certain issues (Brexit, trendy identities, etc). I also think that they (students) are more privileged and bubble-inhabiting than they’ve ever been.

Thank you for all your replies! I really appreciate it. Glad I am not alone. I have really had to rethink a few of my ideas. To the poster who said that they now understand the right's insistance on a small government and individual liberty - I'm with you. I am genuinely much more frightened of the dogmatic left than I am with some milquetoast tories tbh.

For a while I felt that being "gender critical" and part of the "real left" was very isolating. It's only when I opened my mind a bit and began listening to different perspectives that I started realising that a lot of people are actually discussing these issues and share my perspectives. It's just they are smeared, as we are, as right wingers or "alt right" or whatever. I've been listening to the "intellectual dark web" a fair bit this year lol. I can't believe that people like Joe Rogan or Bret Weinstein are smeared as "alt right".

Anyway, I really need to revist my history books and try and figure out what the hell it is I even think anymore.

Oh, and I accept that being "left wing" is just another identity at this point...

I considered myself hard left, now I suspect I will spoil my next ballot. Mainly over trans issues and like Bowelofbabelfish I have followed in Chch shootings closely with my new-found cynicism and my rose tinted glasses are well and truly smashed.
So many left wing on SM unable to do more than parrot "f*ck white people", "be kind", and other inane dribble. It's embarrassing almost.

I actually started prying open my mind a year or so after Trump gained power. Awful as I find him, and his extreme supporters, I could not believe than 40- plus percent of USA voters were as portrayed in left wing media.
They're not.

I too feel politically homeless.

No I don't . I've been left leaning all my life - union activism and so on , totally on board with traditional socialist principles etc. However, since Tony Blairs new labour i guess, I've not voted for them as they became unrecognisable. The phrase politically homeless is often quoted on here and that's exactly how I feel. Most especially because of all this trans nonsense and their misogyny antisemitism stifling of free speech - the list goes on.

milquetoast tories

The party that's actually proposing the GRA?

I suspect I will spoil my next ballot
so will I

I feel politically homeless thanks to all of this fuckery. On the right you have austerity which has disproportionately harmed women, and the fact the Tories got the ball rolling with the GRA consultation without consulting women's groups. And on the left, it's ID politics, outright misogyny, anti-Semitism and authoritarianism. Plus Brexit smeared all over the top of both like diarrhea sauce on a shit sundae.

No I don’t. I consider myself part of the old left - the kind that says work hard, and if you can’t, we will catch you if you fall. The kind that says we should work together to improve things for everyone. I dont recognise the current left. It’s authoritarian, and frankly I think it’s extremely dangerous.

That expresses exactly how I feel too. I'm politically homeless. It has been a good opportunity to reassess my opinions.

Thatcherism still has an influence on UK conservatism and there's Brexit. Small c conservatism might have been a temporary alternative for me without that.

I always vote and will have to pick someone when the time comes. Too many women suffered for me to abstain.

GCAcademic, isn't it ironic that our dear Owen Jones started his career by writing Chavs, a book that criticised these attitudes (I still remember student unions running 'chav' parties). What happened?

Agree with you to some extent about students being more bubble-inhabiting than ever but think there's a large number of students who are apolitical, just want to get a good degree and then move on into the world of work. They have too many material worries.

I have followed in Chch shootings closely with my new-found cynicism and my rose tinted glasses are well and truly smashed. glad to hear that yeahnahyeah, the more that happens, the better.

I have no idea who I’m going to vote for if there is snap GE.

They are all dreadful.

All of them are self serving twats. I cannot even believe the stance the left have taken over the trans issue.

I need to leave this country

Don’t get me started on Owen Jones. As far as I can see the little shit has made quite a career and bags of money out of his posturing in relation to poor people. Quite what he’s actually ever done for them, or to what extent he would entertain the views that they might express, is another matter entirely.

The problem is that we live in a largely post-Fordist economy but politics has not moved with the times. The old notions of left and right are out-dated, the nature of work has changed, as has the nature of business, trade and the ways in which policies are informed. We need a new political party which moves beyond right and left, but using different unifying factors. I remain left-leaning in many of my ideas, because they extend to basic notions of fairness, but for as long as I have been alive the left has been dominated by middle-class careerist politicians out of touch with the lives of ordinary people. I would like to see a politics that represents the interests of working people - all working people. I think what we saw with Cambridge Analytica is the dark side of data collection to inform politics, similar to how Macron got elected by using a focus group from the 'most average' French town to develop his campaign, regardless of how he would actually end up governing. The use of data can mean empty marketing strategies for politics that don't deliver. However, if implemented under an appropriate code of ethics, technology brings with it new opportunities through Civic Tech to inform policy in a more democratic and open manner. I believe AI will continue to influence the future of politics whether we like it or not, so it should be harnessed for good and incorporated within a transparent, tight legal framework. We know so much more now about how the world works through the possibilities that technologies and science have brought us, and it appears to me that relying on 19th century philosophies as a basis for a political movement verges on a kind of religiosity of thought, and as such encourages tribalism rather than negotiation.

Anyone who intends not to vote, doesn’t feel like they can vote for anyone, please spoil the ballot rather than just not turn up. That’s what I did last time- and a part of me felt guilt! I’ve voted all my life.

No I don't anymore, nor do quite a few of my friends. The left (whether labour movement or trotskyist or anarchist) has always had a misogyny problem. But now it's given a legitimacy thanks to identity politics and the disappearance of the left up its own post modernist fundament. It does still anger me that they don't understand historical materialism! (what an old lefty I am!).
I work in the poorest area of the city where I live working with people at the sharp end of austerity. We're seeing cuts in public services, people hungry due to Universal Credit and low wages, ridiculous rents for poor quality housing etc etc.
People are not debating pronouns. We're discussing how to keep the local breakfast club open when the council pulls the funding. we're doing deputations to our local council (Lab/SNP coalition) in a desperate attempt to make them listen to their electorate. We're dealing with cuts to older people's services, adult social care and people getting their redundancy notices.
And of course there's no labour party office in the area, no-one out campaigning (local people are). And I just think, honestly, if the Labour Party can stand up for the people going through this shit, what is the point of it? And of the left generally?
Stopped going to my trade union branch meeting as I it's all very Corbynite and I'm too unsure of them to make my views on the whole trans issue public there. Pathetic.
Yep, politically homeless. The SNP government is a dangerous centralising force as far as I am concerned. It will not challenge structural inequality and poverty, I am politically homeless.

I don't think the posturing, woke liberal types actually are left-wing, they just say they are because, according to their sixth-form understanding of politics, being right-wing is evil and bigoted. I know people who claim to be Marxist anti-capitalists who, nevertheless, support "sex work" as being no different to any other way of making money, since all jobs involve selling your labour. They honestly see no dissonance between these ideals and the reality of bodies being commodified as just another thing you can buy in the general marketplace.

That said, I'm another one who will probably spoil my next ballot unless Labour seriously get their act together before the next general election. I still believe that true socialism is the best system of government but Labour are a long way from that at the moment.

Yes, indeed, and, as is well-known, Jones wrote Chavs while he was on a taxpayer-funded scholarship to do a PhD which he never finished. PhD funding is hard to get and he took that place away from somebody else who was actually going to go into research. Rather selfish.

I have a faint hope that things might change when Corbyn leaves. He has both a privileged background and is not very bright, what a combination.

I do locally - I see and experience the difference between a labour led council and a Tory one (our council is no overall control, and while my poorer part of the borough is solid old labour, the poshest part is super-Tory).
I know our Labour MP to say hello to, she sent my DC a Big Ben postcard when she was in hospital (without being asked to!) and she/her constituency office is known for effective casework, as are our three labour cllrs. The Tory MP from the neighbouring constituency doesn’t even pretend to live there, his kids go to school in London and he doesn’t run regular surgeries. Our Labour MP takes local school kids round parliament and can be found washing the pots at Xmas fairs etc.

I don’t recognise the ‘left’ I see online, I don’t recognise the national debate. Parliamentary politics is a shitshow that I cannot bare to look at through my fingers from behind my sofa.

Not sure what the fuck we do about it, but I will still deliver labour leaflets locally because the Tories fuck over the weakest (here, that means poor kids with SEN needs and anyone elderly or disabled needing home care).

Agree with the above though - always use your vote, even if you spoil it. All spoiled ballots go into a pile on count night, and all the candidates listed on the paper, along with their agents, have to agree that each one is truly spoiled. This means you can send a direct message to all the candidates on election night. Do it!

Thanks, Betty, didn't know that about the spoilt ballots. Think I might get creative and do a little drawing, you know, of certain appendages that women don't have ...

It has opened my eyes too.

I have some born again Christian family members (I'm an atheist) who run a support centre for some of the most challenging members of society. They said that every year the council simultaneously increases the number of challenging people sent to them as a "last resort" destination whilst criticising them for being Christians and reducing their funding because they aren't inclusive enough.

A year or two ago I would have rolled my eyes at their complaint but now I can totally imagine the council in question (one of our favourites on this board) and the sort of reasoning it employs so that its woke members can feel superior to the people (flawed bonkers religious people but bloody good at what they do) who are doing the actual work.