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 know that book is v popular, but I am a history student and I have read & heard a lot of stuff that argues it is mainly inaccurate & discredited.

I don't believe IQ is related to race, but imo Diamond's book isn't the way to prove that.

I see the free speech issue as secondary. The main problem is sexism, and the left is awash with it. The trans stupidity is one manifestation of this but not the only one. This is where the left and I departed. Once you see the full scale of their sexist beliefs it's impossible to unsee it.

But at the same time I've no intention of hitching my wagon to the sexists on the right either. The whole lot of them are unpalatable.

I'd somewhat reluctantly accepted restrictions on free speech when it was to curb hate but it's become not "no hate" and more "no dissent". So we need to go back to no inciting violence, no threats of violence (so not defending Lucy Connolly) but also not claiming hurt feelings are literal genocide.

Left and right no longer seem like relevant descriptions. I'd like to see a lot more discussion of Reform/Farage's economic policies and their costings because while Reform have put forward some populist policies the raising of the tax threshold benefits those paying higher rate tax far more than those on low incomes. The proposal to cut the interest paid on the central bank reserve account balances notionally held by the UK's commercial banks with the Bank of England sounds good but I'd like to hear from some banking experts on that. The removal of money currently being wasted - well we've seen how much has gone to Stonewall and people like Isla Bumba but not convinced its as much as Reform claim and there's a big chunk of "other" to explain away. Personally I dont want to see net zero expenditure cut to give tax cuts to the rich.

If you dislike my analogy, it might be better if you stopped using the same techniques as TRA's.

1. Argument from authority. If you don't want to argue with a Professor of Gynaecology, did you argue that Sandie Peggie should have accepted the views of the (much better qualified) consultants that Dr Upton was female?
2. You've also missed the point I made that there were other contributing factors. The hospital also failed to screen for sepsis, which was the immediate cause of death.
3. But people are dying! Bit like the Trans Day of Remembrance, where we're supposed to grieve all the trans people who've died in Brazil, only you're using Texas. Or a decade old case in Ireland.
4. Yes, laws that make a doctor worry about being arrested and jailed for trying to help a patient might endanger that patient. On the other hand- using the analogy again - if they're trying to help a patient by cutting off perfectly healthy breasts and taking skin from their arm to make a fake penis, laws that make a doctor worry might not endanger that patient. They might protect them.
5. Dodgy Statistics. Yes, pregnancy (a nine months procedure) is considerably more dangerous than abortion (an outpatient procedure). But where did you get the 40% complications rate from? The most recent figures I can find from the UK are 8% serious complications. It's about 20% if you go worldwide - that suggests the best treatment is good, low-cost healthcare.
6. 'Adoption is not harmless to children' also misuses statistics (as well as being 'no middle ground'). Adopted children do indeed have a higher rate of problems than non-adopted children. But most don't. I'm afraid the actual evidence doesn't care about your opinions. (Admittedly you may have been confused by the understandable tendency of medical studies to look at the minority of children/adults who do need help. Rather than the majority who don't.)

So we're still on a TRA style purity spiral. Still on the 'but people will die if they don't get treatment', still on 'no middle ground,' with some added 'dodgy statistics' and a nice 'argument from authority'.

One other point:
"mothers are generally most trustworthy with their children and so are the best first choice to be responsible for them."

So you're not a radical feminist? It doesn't occur to you that this viewpoint is very much to the advantage of the patriarchy?

Still on abortion, but ... @baggle might be right, that the main problem is sexism. Best statistics I can get say that UK abortions currently end nearly three in ten pregnancies. It's a record high. It's going off a cliff at roughly the same time as the 'trans' social contagion.

So WTAF is going on that makes a significant number of girls think they need to change themselves into men - and a significant number of women think they shouldn't be pregnant. Are we looking at two separate problems, or two symptoms of the same underlying problem?

But the current left and 'feminist' answer is 'Nothing to see here, look! A Texas squirrel!'

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"

Exactly. 💯 this. It turns out that the left these days aren’t interested in anything anyone else has to say, unless it fits Their mental model. In fact the left are often racist and bigoted. But they never look in the mirror.

Signed
a very ex Labour supporter.

This ^

Again I would recommend a read of Jonathan Haidt's book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.

His research and the research of others seems to confirm that people on the "left" are more intolerant of the views of others and inclined to be more judgmental and self-righteous than those on the "right" - who are more likely to listen to views other than their own without moral condemnation.

My view is that those on the right are more likely to go with what works whereas those on the left are restricted and confined by the bounds of a rigid ideology. If something (or someone) doesn't conform to the ideology then it's the "something" (or "someone") that's wrong, not the ideology - which can never be doubted, no matter how patently daft and ludicrous it is.

Another very ex Labour voter and former socialist

(I was stupid enough to vote for the "dream ticket" of Kinnock and Hattersley. Christ...)

Oo just bought it, thank you x

Welcome to normal.

I like the SDP ( Social Democratic Party) as they’re left in the good ways but don’t buy into the nonsense beliefs. Unfortunately they don’t run in my constituency and are small and quite unknown.

I agree about your worry on free speech. People on this thread have said the UK never had free speech absolutism but it was never this bad. The good thing about absolutism is there’s a clear line. We’ve loss all sense on the issue.

I think you’re WAY overthinking it.

People on the right are more recently unfashionable and so willing to be reasonable in the face of disagreement. They have to be, they’ve been out of favour! Cast your mind back to being a lefty during the Cold War and immediately after the wall fell, when we were the unfashionable ones - we were pretty laid back and easy to get on with ourselves. It was the right wing government then who was overreaching in the name of peace & order by blaming Hillsborough on the victims and sending spies to infiltrate trade unions and environmental groups.

If you’ve not learned yet that power corrupts conservatives, liberals and populists, now’s the time.

I know this an older thread but wanted to say that I definitely agree re Robinson's youth being no excuse for crime.

But it's more than youth convictions: he's got a battery of crime accusations, including violent ones, and convictions stretching up to recently, including allegedly harassing a journalist who reported negative information about him, as well as decidedly unpleasant treatment of a Syrian refugee boy. Not to mention the recent vile incident where he spread false & malicious information about a mixed-race family which left them in fear.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/20/family-in-fear-after-tommy-robinson-shares-video-of-black-man-with-white-granddaughters

I wish all his supporters made themselves fully aware of all this so they could make an informed decision about whether he really is who they want to promote. Many I've spoken to dismiss any conviction as 'state suppressing our Tommy' which is dangerous. Ignoring any faults of the side you support always is.

‘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.’

Totally agree. Same here.

No interest in reform or Tommy Robinson or any of that.

The issue is that the left have gone so far left they resemble the far right in their intolerance and bigotry. Except it comes with a huge dose of self righteousness too. Worst of all worlds.

Let’s hope the conservatives sort themselves out in time for the next GE.

Just wanted to say that after watching the utter farce that is the ' Your Party' conference this weekend, I can definitely confirm that I do NOT identify with that bunch of lunatics!

Zarah Sultana is my MP ( although I actually spoilt my ballot paper rather than vote for her ), and I'm not sure she will get in next time on her current platform as Coventry South is not what you would call a radical area. She'll probably have to move to a different area to get reelected...

I couldn't bear to watch that! They are a shambles, and I say that as someone who joined the LP when Corbyn was elected leader (not because I thought he was great, but because I hoped it marked a modest step in a leftwards direction for the party). But nowadays, Corbyn, like nearly all the liberal left, seems more obsessed with identity politics, not least the dead weight of genderism. And as for Zarah S, she's even worse! I think it's clear that a significant proportion of the electorate now find themselves politically homeless, which is bad news all round.

Or men are just being bellends about not wearing condoms? STIs are on the increase too.

Argument from authority. The NHS doctors who pretend to think that Theodore Upton is female are trumped by:

• Professor Sir Robert Winston (endocrinology) saying that there are only two sexes and you can't change from one to the other.
• The thousands of years of recorded history in which zero men have given birth and zero women have sired a child.

But people are dying! Trans people only die if they choose to commit suicide. That "delaying" tactics like nets on bridges serve to prevent suicide by forcing the would-be victim to delay their act whilst they find another method, forcing them to take more time over the decision and giving an opportunity to reconsider, proves that suicide is a choice. Pregnant women die because of eclampsia and haemorraging and sepsis and hyperemesis gravidarum and obstructed labour, none of which are choices. The two situations are sufficiently dissimilar that I can safely reject your analogy.

Dodgy Statistics. You've engaged in a different logical fallacy, called "moving the goalposts", by referring to serious complications and not all complications. I didn't limit my statement to only serious complications. Morning sickness affects up to 80% of pregnancies and a third end in miscarriage. Miscarriage is recognised as a complication, so that's already more than the 8% you claim. 8% plus one third does add up to 40%, if you won't accept morning sickness as a complication. I admit that I was typing "40%" from memory and I didn't bookmark the source I saw that figure in so I can't cite it. But pregnancy is verifiably deeply unpleasant for a lot of women and the point I was making is that it's not OK to legally compel women to endure that because we find abortion icky, nor is it OK to hamstring the doctors who wish to help them.

Adopted children do indeed have a higher rate of problems than non-adopted children.

That is literally my point. Why would you want to increase the risk of a child having problems? The evidence absolutely does support my opinion here.

So you're not a radical feminist? It doesn't occur to you that this viewpoint is very much to the advantage of the patriarchy?

LMAO. Most murders and sex offending are perpetrated by men. Even the at-first-glance over-representation of female offenders against newborns disappears when you control for the number of hours the mother spends with the baby compared to the time the father spends. A viewpoint that ignores this and places girl-children and their innocent boy-children brothers into harm's way because of some flawed idea of "equality" is not feminism of any type. Men will be morally entitled to parenting equality when they commit sexual and violent offences at the same low rate as women.

Radical feminist ideas like Wages For Housework attempted to redress the impact of motherhood on women by recognising that when women bear children, they create new citizens, and the State should give financial support for this work.