Who else sees the parallels between "nasty right wing GC" slurs and "nasty right wing Brexiter" slurs?

[ConsiderTheLobster]

If you're GC, you know that a vocal majority within certain liberal left circles will denounce you as a right wing bigot. You know that you're actually GC because you've looked into this deeply and are trying to protect vulnerable people (women, non-conforming children, and trans people).

If you voted Brexit, you know that a vocal majority within certain liberal left circles will denounce you as a right wing bigot. You know that you're sceptical of the EU because it constitutes a corporate-favouring trading block, poses barriers to nationalisation of services such as railways, has deeply racist immigration policies (permitting free movement of predominantly white Europeans whilst restricting the movement of others), keeps people in many non-EU (e.g., African) countries locked into unfavourable trade deals, and reduces the influence of genuine democracy.

If you're GC and you work at a university, in the NHS or in left-leaning media, you're scared to say so. If you voted Brexit and you work at a university, in the NHS or in left-leaning media, you're scared to say so.

There are of course some genuine bigots who oppose self ID because they're transphobic. And there are genuine bigots who voted Brexit because they are racist. In each case, these are the narratives peddled by certain media about, respectively, all GCs, and all Brexit-supporters.

So - how many of us GCs still berate the nasty fascist Brexiters?

*bloc

It's a slightly different argument though.
Not everyone who voted for brexit is racist but everyone who is racist voted for brexit.
In the same way that not everyone who wants to protect women's spaces are right wingers but all right wingers want to protect women's spaces.

(disclaimer I am remainer, centre left and as GC as they come)

‘but all right wingers want to protect women's spaces‘

Do they though?

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

‘but all right wingers want to protect women's spaces‘

Do they though?

I dunno, sounded good in my head. The whole private property /public property innit?

I disagree, @Usermn78. I think both those statements are false. Say you're running a corporation which exploits people in an African country, and the EU makes that easier... lots of racists will vote in favour of that.

I think there’s a parallel and I think there’s basically a certain type of person on the left who likes the freedom to be nasty about whole groups of people indiscriminately because they are guilty of wrongthink. (Obviously nastiness isn’t a specifically left wing trait but the particular moral self righteousness is specific to the left as it is now.)

And I really don't think all right wingers want to protect women's spaces. I know several personally who absolutely do not.

It's absolutely not that simple Usermn. There will be racists who voted Remain and there might well be right wingers who might use women's spaces as a sacrificial loss for woke points or god knows what purpose.

I hate identity politics. We can't say 'this group of people all think this'.

I am left, remoaner, GC but hate Tory bashing and hate calling Brexiters gammon racists.

Posie's suggestion wasn't a good idea but Ruth's tweet calling her a right wing nut job was a dick move imo

I think for some right wing misogynists the chance to take something away from women is too good to pass up.

If you are talking about the behaviour of denouncement, then you will probably find a parallel between two instances of denouncement.

It is a lazy trope that is used to dismiss an argument without engaging. Whenever they run an article on trump supporters they always show gun toting rednecks. These people and there opinions can be dismissed as racist reactionary bigots. I refuse to believe that they are representative of over 70m people who voted for Trump but that's what the media would have us believe. It's arrogant and dangerous. These people obviously feel that they aren't be represented but there is no desire to engage. They have (or believe they have) moral superiority and thus can continue to push policies that are alienating to half the country. You should always govern from the centre. It's a lesson the US has forgotten and their politics has continued to become ever more polarised.
Similarly I voted remain but feel the Brexit arguments are misrepresented and the half the country portrayed as little Englanders.

I see two problems with the OP:

1. I don't believe that a majority within liberal left circles denounce GC as bigots. I think the majority of the left are GC themselves, and haven't really got around to thinking very much about trans issues yet. They support the idea of tran rights in the same way that the left's default position is always to support the underdog and struggling minorities. They're not particularly aware of the conflict between that and the kind of anti-TWAW feminism on this board, and it hasn't exposed fault lines that have affected their own lives yet.

1. I don't get the impression that most people who voted Brexit did so for the reasons stated. I voted Remain but I can appreciate some of the nuance described here in favour of Leave. But the idea that most Brexiters were concerned that immigration policy is too racist and they wanted to make things fairer for Africans is ridiculous.

"Posie's suggestion wasn't a good idea but Ruth's tweet calling her a right wing nut job was a dick move imo"

I missed whatever this is referring to; please would you elaborate, @DontBuyANewMumCashmere?

OP, I agree.

everyone who is racist voted for brexit

Like others I'll always flag this one up as lazy. It's one of those statements people make as a substitute for critical thought. We're forever arguing against that approach in FWR.

The quote incidentally is from Will Self who likes to say provocative things to start a row, it's how he makes his living.

Posie Parker made a video this week, in which she apparently suggested to her American followers that the men, who may or may not "carry" [a gun], who may be fathers or feel they are protectors of women... Should start self IDing as women and use women's toilets.

That this (men using women's loos, NOT 'men shooting trans ppl' as has been suggested is what she meant) would be one of the things American men could do to make the Left realise what an awful idea self ID is.

(I think telling men to use women's loos is an awful idea so I will say right now this was not a good idea! Why not suggest a widespread Man Friday movement rather than men in women's loos?)

Ruth Serwotka of WPUK then called Posie incendiary, hateful, bigoted?, a right wing nut job which, iirc, harks back to Julie Bindel calling her dogshit (?)

I brought it up because I objected to the way Ruth and Julie chose to call Posie out, you can criticise people you disagree with in a better way without calling her a right wing (she's an ex Labour member) nut job (I'm sure that would have been flagged as ableism if someone on the right had used it!)

Then people who sought to bring some neutrality to the thread were called fools, insane, lost the plot etc
She told Maya F who tried to put the message into context that 'you're better than this'

It was a revealing thread.

I agree with thecountess.
I can see the parallels. I think there is a tendency on the left atm to turn every issue into a moral position so if you disagree there must be something wrong with your moral compass. Take any issue that the left support be it the EU, diversity, climate change, immigration etc. and if you disagree with their take on it you are not simply having a different opinion, you are stupid or a bigot or small minded etc. It’s become fairly clear over the last few years that the Labour elite don’t much like women or the working classes very much. They’re backing themselves into a moral corner and they’ll be screwed for some time to come if they don’t start treating their core voters with more respect.

It's a variant of "you're either with us or against us" which was the line George W Bush used to launch The War Against Terror.

I'm a GC Brexiter who works at a university so I'm going to say I agree completely.

The anti-Brexit types usually go for name-calling and assumptions of bad faith, while the anti-GC ones use violent threats and the language of disgust (dirt, disease, vermin) so I'd say the latter are worse. Both seem to deliberately and emotively misunderstand arguments though, especially around 'you must hate trans people/foreign people'.

I agree with that in general Signalbox but actually I think Brexit is a marked exception. A significant number on the moralistic far left actually supported it in its "Lexit" incarnation, for various reasons including some of those described in the OP. The really determined Remain camp - the ones who are most alienated from the working class - are the centre-left Blairites and social democrats and if you look at their arguments against it, they're much more pragmatic and practical - mostly to do with the fact it's going to be really bad for the economy.

The moralistic left don't mind that because they plan to overthrow the capitalist economy and replace it with a morally better Marxist one anyway. The pragmatic centre left have no illusions that there's anything morally great about the market economy, they just accept that it's here to stay so we might as well have one that works well and creates prosperity rather than doesn't.

And their frustration with the working class is more to do with the amount of SELF-harm that class seems intent on committing, as it's the working class themselves who will suffer most as the economy tanks. Like all those Red Wallers who voted for Johnson, and now that he's made such a cock up of handling coronavirus we see that you're twice as likely to die from it if you live in a poor area.

Not everyone who voted for brexit is racist but everyone who is racist voted for brexit

That's nonsense. Can you really not imagine a situation where for economic, cultural and social reasons a person can be pro EU just for the personal benefits and still be racist?.

Good analysis FifteenToes but as a Red Waller myself I'd say that many of the working class people in those areas voted for Brexit and then for Johnson with their eyes wide open realising that while the result would be unlikely to revolutionise their lives, for once their voting would have a real impact and would give their complacent "betters" a shock they'd not forget for a long time. I think the calculation was that in the long run it wouldn't make that much difference to their lives and anyone saying they were wrong is speaking from a faith position.

@MissBarbary

Not everyone who voted for brexit is racist but everyone who is racist voted for brexit

That's nonsense. Can you really not imagine a situation where for economic, cultural and social reasons a person can be pro EU just for the personal benefits and still be racist?.

Yes of course. I was lazily quoting Will Self, not realising what the post was alluding to as I'm not on twitter anymore. I'll withdraw my comments. My general approach in these arguments is to listen to Maya F as she is eminently sensible.

@nauticant

Good analysis FifteenToes but as a Red Waller myself I'd say that many of the working class people in those areas voted for Brexit and then for Johnson with their eyes wide open realising that while the result would be unlikely to revolutionise their lives, for once their voting would have a real impact and would give their complacent "betters" a shock they'd not forget for a long time. I think the calculation was that in the long run it wouldn't make that much difference to their lives and anyone saying they were wrong is speaking from a faith position.

As a Northerner now living in the south this rings true to me. My family and friends in red wall seats were sick and tired of being taking for granted by the left.

@nauticant

Good analysis FifteenToes but as a Red Waller myself I'd say that many of the working class people in those areas voted for Brexit and then for Johnson with their eyes wide open realising that while the result would be unlikely to revolutionise their lives, for once their voting would have a real impact and would give their complacent "betters" a shock they'd not forget for a long time. I think the calculation was that in the long run it wouldn't make that much difference to their lives and anyone saying they were wrong is speaking from a faith position.

I see that. But unfortunately I think they're wrong, and in the long run it will make a difference to their lives.