Struggling with my political allegiance now and it's really bothering me

[Appalonia]

Since the eighties, I have been a leftie, raised money for the Miners ' strike, was in the SWP for a while in the 90s, lifelong Guardian reader, worked for charities for most of my career. However, I'm so disillusioned with what the left has become now. It started as for many of us with the trans issue, seeing formally trusted and respected institutions like the BBC, the Guardian, C4 etc either ignore, or blatantly skew the issues, the only place I could read the truth about what was happening was on ' right wing' media outlets that I would have dismissed outright previously.

Since it was only right wing outlets or posters that were talking about this, pp like Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, The Spectator etc, I feel like I've been exposed to right wing views that I now feel more more aligned to than left wing commentators like Owen Jones, Mark Steel, most comedians etc.

I now listen to Trigggernometry, Free Speech Nation The Lotus Eaters, and I'm starting to feel more aligned to them on other issues now, like free speech, immigration etc.

So, I'm thinking about the demonstration for free speech in London on 13 September in London and part of me really wants to go because I think it's really important and what's happened with the trans debate and how it's been reported in the press and how so many gender critical pp have been silenced. And it's not just about GC views, it's about free speech in general. But the people who are organising this, is really putting me off. I want to go and stand up for what I believe in but at the same time, this demo is being characterised as a ' far right' demonstration, and I don't want to be associated with that. In fact, years ago, I would have been on the other side, demonstrating against fascists.

I just can't disentangle it all in my mind, I believe in free speech and I do believe it's under threat in the UK, but at the same time I don't want to be associated with pp like Tommy Robinson. But even saying that, just watching his interview on Triggernometry was eye opening. Can anyone relate to this? I just feel so conflicted right now.

Sorry, I don't feel I've expressed myself very well, there's so much more th an this. I just can't square my identity of myself of a life long socialist with how much I disagree with so much of what the left stands for now, that I just don't agree with.

I empathise with you. I feel very conflicted too. I’ll reply more fully in the morning but just wanted to say you are not alone.

Absolutely. The Left left me! Agonised over who to vote for in the locals. Still disappointed the Communists didn't stand in my area.

If it helps at all on your penultimate paragraph, recognising material reality isn't the same as agreeing with someone. I'm sure I agree with Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Trump, and Putin on what colour the sky is, but that's not the same as sharing opinions.

I really struggled in the last election. All the options were wrong for one major reason or another. It was the toughest one I've ever had in 30 years.

I’ve been politically homeless for a while now. So depressing.

I really sympathise. My choice last election was easy because I live in Rosie Duffield's constituency but OMG being a sex realist leftie it's hard to find a home.

Me too. My MP was Zarah Sultana and for the first time ever I spoilt my ballot paper But this is how to feel about things going forward and in particular, the importance of free speech, which seems to be under attack from the left. Just look at the arrest of Graham Linehan for his tweets this week. Why have the left abandoned free speech as a core value now? And if they have, do you have to align yourself with the right who seem to be free speech defenders? It's so tortuous and topsy tervy!

I can totally relate to this, the left has collectively lost its mind! The centre right parties now sound like the voice of reason on free speech, women’s rights and safeguarding children.

I’ve been politically homeless for a few years now as I don’t trust the conservatives etc on other issues such as welfare and the NHS.

Free speech absolutism is very much an American cultural value. I'm Australian & like the British, Canadians & other countries we recognise there's a line where free speech becomes counterproductive to social cohesion & human rights hence our hate speech laws that Americans don't have because of their first Amendment right to free speech.

I suspect what you are seeing with British institutions as with many globally as necessity not to conflict with those & anti discrimination laws. Whilst you might feel they are cowering to 'ideology' you don't agree with, the fact is trans people are protected groups.

Whilst free speech absolutists argue if there's no absolute free speech, the 'market place of ideas' is restricted, the question is are those idea being restricted of any value to the flourishing if civil society as free speech intended? Are those ideas misrepresentations that when combined with a mob mentality restrict the freedoms & by extension the free speech/expressions of others as John Stuart Mill the god father of free speech warned?

It's interesting you mention Douglas Murray & his 'selective' free speech. IE any criticism of Israeli government policy = antisemitism+Hamas allegiance & should be restricted. I think you will find many of these free speech 'champions' aren't so loyal to their principles & were only in it for the lucrative business model it has become via manufactured oversimplification of issues that have radicalised many.

Anyhow, here's historical fruits of where free speech absolutism ends.
Rant over.
https://www.un.org/en/hate-speech/understanding-hate-speech/hate-speech-and-real-harm

I'm totally with you. Brought up in a mining family, two brothers, both NCB employees, struggled through the miners strike. I've been a socialist/Labour voter all my 70 years. I used to attend Young Socialist meetings, selling their newspapers, even travelling down to London to meetings.
And as someone else has said, the Left have left me.
I cannot comprehend how they have been captured by the trans cult, the climate scam net zero cult and the immigration is good cult.
People have/will come to the conclusion that the two party politics system is coming to an end.
Unfortunately, Reform will wipe the floor with them.
And that makes me very sad.

@Appalonia "Why have the left abandoned free speech as a core value now? And if they have, do you have to align yourself with the right who seem to be free speech defenders? It's so tortuous and topsy tervy!"

when you say "now" I am not entirely sure what you mean. They've been stamping down on particular aspects of free speech for years.

The left have been pissing me off for several years now in fact.

I probably fall into the category that would be described as far right by Keir Starmer -unless he's learned his lesson or unless he is also a racist who won't let me be far right because of the colour of my skin 😂

I can't say I care where I am on the political spectrum. why do these labels worry you?

I don't think Tommy Robinson is the right figurehead for "unite the Kingdom". I have been familiar with his situation since he gave his Oxford union speech - so that's going back a long way - but the criminal convictions are a real problem and I don't buy this crap about him being young then.

Can you imagine what Donald Trump does to people who try to enter the US on a fake passport? And fair play to him for that. Good for him. But that's exactly what Robinson did. Which is a rich considering his own comment on illegals.

It sounds to me like you want to make a point and you want to feel more secure in your new leanings. I wouldn't go along on the 13th of September though.

You could join Advance UK, I suppose, if you want to join something.

But I suspect what you're really struggling with is a sense of being abandoned, maybe? Or you can't get your head around the fact that you were wrong. I'm wrong every five minutes. You can't put your faith in anyone politically these days. It's not something to blame yourself for.

ask yourself honestly, are you perhaps annoyed because you find yourself agreeing with a majority? And you thought you were too special for that or something?

I must admit, there have been a couple of posts here where people have talked about their disillusionment with the left and it's extremely clear that they thought they were superior in some way, they thought they were on the side of good and decent people. And that's annoyed me. People thinking they're virtuous because they're on the left. Pfft. I mean, I can't begin to cover how ridiculous that is!

Honestly, I feel as if I'm in a constant rage because of the bloody left - and it is a known tactic to do the chaos creating and deliberate obfuscation that we see. I'm glad if more people are waking up to it.

I basically ignored politics from 2020 onwards but various things have led me back to it. I'm going to have to duck out again because the state of my blood pressure...

I really hope 13th of September goes well, but sadly I think it's unlikely.

Yep. I say this too. My political views at still broadly the same as they were 15 years ago, where I was regarded as a super far lefty. Nowadays I'm closer to centre without even changing because what far left and right mean have gone so extreme.

The narrative that 'centrists are just far right and ashamed to say it' is damaging, too. Most people aren't far anything and just want sensible laws.

I used to vote green religiously but after the whole 'lesbians are non men' debacle I just don't trust where they're at anymore.

I know more or less where you're coming from. I can still do my Tony Cliff impression, and though I'm very critical of Cliff's record these days, I think he'd be shocked at how far the left has fallen.

I'm completely homeless. One thing I consistently notice is that my right wing friends don't mind me disagreeing with them, and welcome a good argument, but with my left wing friends I'm always policing myself. Not that I think genuine friends would cancel me, but I don't have the energy for endless scolding like "you can't say biological sex is real, don't you know {mutuals} have a trans child and they'd be really upset to hear you say that"

Last year I voted SDP. I don't completely align with them, but their hearts are in the right place and we might be better off if they weren't so tiny.

My path to being more conservative also started with being a GC outcast. I think we often discuss something like "the left abandoned me but it's possible to be GC and still a leftie on every other issue" (which is perfectly true). But I think you are talking about a different thing.

When you are on one side you often only get the filtered strawman version of the other. If you actually talk to the people and read their magazines and take part in their discussions, you see the full version of it and you also see where there are nuances and internal debates, and you often find you can "slot in" somewhere at the table.

I think there is a risk with paths like yours and mine, where your exposure to RW thought is through the kinds of people who are really into the online culture war. And through the magic of becoming similar to people who are nice to you and want to hang out with you, you absorb those ideas but it's the twitterified outrage version and not the thoughtful principled version.

In my experience there is a phase of "being in the wild" where you call yourself a moderate, or a free speecher, or heterodox, or something. I think human nature makes it difficult to be in that limbo for too long, so you will begin to settle down into a more fixdd ideology again eventually.

Something that helped me is to consciously let go of the "I'm on the left and I have to make this worldview fit with that because it's my identity". And consciously go and learn/read about different strands of conservative thought in quite a systematic way - read books where coherent ideas are presented not memes or current affairs content. So you will have a more solid foundation to build an updated worldview on, that merges your past one and new one in a coherent way.

It's not about feeling special, it's about fairness and justice, which is what I used to think the left represented. But I don't think that anymore. Also I didn't understand the importance of free speech, until I saw pp silenced and persecuted for simply saying that men cannot be women, and that came from the left. So I do think this demonstration for free speech is important, but at the same time, Tommy Robinson is such a toxic brand,I'm not sure I want to be associated with him. But thousands of people are worried about the mass immigration we've had in this country over the last decade. Are they wrong?. Are they all racists? We seem unable to have a reasonable debate about this as everything is so polarised now. There seems to be no middle ground anymore and no conduit for sorting out the issues this country is facing without everyone screaming at each other and calling each other foul names. It's exhausting and counter productive.

Thanks to the posters who wrote really thought ful replies whilst I was trying to formulate my latest replies, they made a lot of sense!

Free speech shouldn't be a left-right issue. The left have currently lost their way in failing to uphold it. Free speech is more about moderates vs extremists - moderates will agree with the philosopher Voltaire's famous line, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - because if an idea is based on misunderstanding, misinformation or downright malice then allowing those who espouse it the freedom to say it creates the opportunities to disprove, discredit and ridicule the idea. These are also the exact same reasons why extremists are anti free speech because they don't want their ideas disproved, discredited or ridiculed. Meanwhile, if those of different views are able to talk about their ideas freely, that is how new ideas are synthesised which take the best concepts from oposing ideas and find a middle path.

It's disturbing that you think the right wing press is "telling the truth" though. The right wing press is just as full of bias and misinformation as the left wing press

So Douglas Murray, who I only came across because of what he said about the trans issue, is an example of someone that I would have previously dismissed, as he is a conservative. But having listened to him on that issue, I have now listened to other things he's said and read his excellent book, The Madness of Crowds. But if I agree with him on one thing, do I have agree with him on everything? Same as Jordan Peterson, Lionel Schriver etc, who are all clear sighted on the trans issue. If they are right on this, does that mean that they're right on other issues too?

I think one important thing is not to feel you've left one tribe and have to rush to join another tribe. Read a lot, listen a lot, expose yourself to different viewpoints.

I have a TRA friend who's a lawyer (not Jolyon) and he was absolutely shocked by the Supreme Court judgment. I believe he'd told his trans friends it was an easy win for their side.

The interesting thing is that, though he knows some prominent GC feminists and used to be friendly with them, he doesn't know their arguments and isn't interested in hearing them. His attitude is very much "they're anti-trans and anti self-ID, and that's all I need to know."

I want to say to him, Helen Joyce does two or three long-form podcast interviews in an average week. Even if you won't read her book, take an hour and listen to her, you don't have to agree with anything she says, but maybe then you wouldn't be blindsided every time your side loses a court case.

But he won't do that. It's really easy on the left to live in an information bubble. In fact people in that world will go out of their way to avoid viewpoints that the tribe doesn't approve of. It's as if they would be opening themselves up to sinful thoughts by listening to Helen Joyce.

All I'd say is don't jump into another bubble. Listen to a wide range and figure out where you stand, and you don't have to feel guilty about not being tribal.

"It's disturbing that you think the right wing press is "telling the truth" though. The right wing press is just as full of bias and misinformation as the left wing press"

I'm only referring to this 're the trans issue. The ' right wing' press were the only ones reporting on what was happening. The BBC, C4, The Guardian either ignored what was happening or badly misrepresented it.

Could have written your post op. Always felt I was centrist / left but the left and their media response to the cologne attacks opened my eyes. Then the trans debacle. I feel like I’ve seen through them. Feel very cyclical about them. Don’t see myself right wing but if we aren’t left wing then what are we?

I feel I would have more in common with Lionel shriver (who I’ve met and enjoyed her books) than I would with Owen jones.

I first encountered OJ when he was 17. He was an arrogant little scrote even then.

We have the same issue in Australia. I don't think its racists to ask the question about the benefits & costs of immigration. It gets racist tho when migrants are assumed blame for increased crime, housing crisis & economic downturn as many of these race baiters suggest because their real problem isn't economics or crime but cultural loss.

The facts are given the birthrates are below replacement, there's a necessity for immigrants to maintain economic growth. That resources are strained as a result is a consequence of Government incompetence & blaming immigrants only distracts from the real causes.

That immigrants in some areas commit more crime is a function of poverty that many waves of immigrants historically experienced that's not about inherent traits or culture.

But should the government do better better in terms of character vetting, skills selection relevant to needs & resource creation? You betcha. But how this is framed matters & supporting Reform or Tommy Robinson isn't where they are going.

Some might say 'who cares about living standards when our culture is being eroded'. As a first generation female of Italian heritage I can confirm all those sexist vestiges from my parents were gone with my birth. Subsequent generations preferring liberty & capitalism is a fact.

The Trans nonsense has tainted the left. We need to be GC. Farage and the right wing MSM is not the answer. We need a new left. How we get there I don't know.

I totally agree. There's been times when I was at a Let Women Speak talk in Hyde Park in London where it felt like the birth of a new, genuine grassmovement and if felt really hopeful and exciting.