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 don't think Howie has very good reading comprehension.

Ha ha Scuton and Chesterton as "influencers" is a hilarious image! I can just imagine what their youtube channel would be like.

But This does reference something that stuck out to me in the OP, and which I've noticed with others. The tendency among many regular left wing people to assume that the right is just full of stupid and uneducated people talking nonsense.

I've seen so many people through some recent issues like GI shocked to discover that they can watch or read someone like Douglas Murray, or even Jordan Peterson, and actually, they are clearly not stupid and make some pretty insightful arguments about various things. that in a public debate between Murray and Malcome Gladwell, the letter comes out of it looking like a bit of an idiot, not the conservative.

And then they find there are very serious intellectuals on the right like Scruton, and they have not only never read them, they may not have known they existed at all, they've never heard of them.

It's quite a shock to discover there is a whole serious intellectual edifice that you not only dismissed unfairly, but that you weren't even aware of the existence of, and most of your smart, university educated, left wing friends don't know anything about it either.

It's massively disconcerting.

Agree w this totally - except 2 points. If I can ask, what do your self-professed 'far-right' friends/acquaintances believe? And which of their beliefs do you find a bit extreme?

On why women opposed 'weird' stuff. I agree there could be female centric arguments for limiting abortion laws & others. However, it's important to recognise other motives too. For instance, some women were anti-suffrafge not bc they were particularly female-centric but bc they thought women mostly didn't know enough to vote, or sometimes bc they thought working-class women possibly being enfranchised was a bad idea

@AliasGrace47 I feel guilty responding to this as I owe you a response on your other thread, which I have not been ignoring but have been trying to compose in drafts for 2 days... :)

But as this question is easier:

1. Points of difference (probably more of degree) - how far is too far on "remigration" incentives; eagerness for an actual revolution/overthrow of power vs targeted technocratic replacement of policies (this has a strong male/female divide I think); discomfort with some race/IQ stuff. In some ways I'm more of a cultural conservative than they are though on things like family/church/neighbourly relations. There are some who are more like... esoteric, like academic religious philosophers I consider a bit mad but harmless. (This is my entire wider circle not just my close friends I'm talking about.)

2. I agree with the second point and would add also that sometimes they were just wrong and their predictions did not materialise! Or were just very tied to some specific issue unique to their time/place.

Thank you, please don't worry about taking a while to reply to the other post. Your post was v interesting & that's fine if it takes a while to reply, obvs a complex issue.

This is also interesting....if I could ask a couple more questions...

The people who want an overthrow of the state- presumably they're not actually planning anything? If there was some kind of unrest/riot/civil war, do you think they would join in? Are they armed?

And do they want an end to democracy? Or want to overthrow the government by force but then re- establish democracy?

I actually think that both now have an opportunity to become more pragmatic centrist parties of the Left and rRght.......now that the extremes are catered for elsewhere.

Please this 🙏 I'm fed up with madness

But the 'expense' issue is purely down to the forces of global capital - with its porous/non -existent borders. Cost and expense can be measured in ways other than purely monetary. Self sufficiency, national pride, community and employment are worth a lot - which is largely what the 'Reform' agenda is now about and which is why they are now open to re-opening coal, oil and gas fields in the national interest.

If it's ok to ask a little bit more : I'm assuming the race & IQ comment is about those believers in that 'human biodiversity' theory? Ie. That black people are naturally on average less intelligent so there is no point in initiatives to boost their academic performance?

Didn't coal mining have a high fatality rate though, as well as causing health problems often? I understand the pride, self sufficiency aspects...but is there nothing else that could replace these, no other job..?

Not to mention the potential effects on the climate, though I know that is debated.

I don't know anyone personally who wants to overthrow the government by force with their own arms/army, like storming Parliament or something. But I also don't know anyone personally who has put up a flag lately, for example, or been to a migrant hotel protest (I think), so my perspective is limited!

It's more like sometimes (men) seem like they're hoping "things will kick off and then we'll be able to move in". Not that they necessarily are hoping to start it.

I don't find it much different from when I used to be on the left and there'd be some bearded communist type making similar comments tbh, it just worries me more because I see the "widespread civil unrest" scenario as more likely in this case.

(Race/IQ is still a bit outside the Overton window even in those circles so I have too few examples to draw on.)

I started spoiling ballot papers a few years back as there was no party I could vote for. But at the next election I may feel forced into voting for our current MP, who I detest, because the only viable alternative might be Reform. I was confident my vote at the last General Election wouldnt matter - and it didnt. But next time if things look tighter I may feel a have to vote for anyone who can beat Reform regardless of how much I dislike their other policies.

In local elections I no longer worry too much about the party and choose on the basis of whether they are a decent person or not.

Pretty much everyone on left or right who makes a lot of noise about revolution or civil war is all mouth and no trousers. There may be some people in Islamist circles who take it seriously.

And there's only so much you can get from ideology. On a theoretical level, I'm a bit of a James Burnham aficionado, so arguably my critique of the current system is a lot more radical than Carl Benjamin and his pals on Lotus Eaters, who, once you get past their edgy jokes on race, are really just a bunch of Tory boys whose main driving force is a hatred of Farage.

So much of what's painted as extremism and counter-extremism in the UK is just kabuki theatre.

If there's a threat to democracy it's from the regime itself. I know "populism" is a swear word around here, but democracy needs a certain amount of populism in the form of giving the voters what they want. But the high priests of the regime, the Rory Stewarts and James O'Briens quite openly say the point of politics is to protect the stupid voters from their own base instincts. To give voters what the regime thinks they need. We will eat our spinach and we will like it.

Rory's only criticism of the regime is that, when he was a minister, he couldn't get civil servants to do what he wanted. Well, duh. That's the system he supports working as designed.

Oligarchies become calcified and fragile over time, and I think we're at the stage of a feckless oligarchy that's incapable of solving the problems of government. Something will have to give.

@Shortshriftandlethal , But the 'expense' issue is purely down to the forces of global capital - with its porous/non -existent borders.
Maybe so, but those forces of global capital are so huge. One country cannot challenge them. Mrs Thatcher said "You can't buck the Market".. She was absolutely right.

I don't see conflict in your views. The issue, I think, is in the division of political views into different camps where one view must be aligned with and articulated to a whole series of other approved views. Then these are labelled 'left' or 'right' wing and social and personal identity becomes bound up with the chosen (or inherited) camp and isn't questioned enough.

There is no reason why a person shouldn't hold a whole range of views, attitudes and allegiances that don't fit in one camp, and also change their mind over time and choose different parties to vote for as it suits. I see this as normal, the vast majority of people I grew up with didn't have a political 'identity' but a load of different views, some of which aligned with some politicians at some points, who might then get voted for. No-one thought that wanting to stop pollution, or lower crime rates meant you had to vote for particular party all the time.

I believe it's important to consume as wide a range of media and information as possible, be slow to take 'sides' or categorise ideas as 'left / right wing' or whatever, to engage with a wide range of real people, in real life and avoid the trap of revering / hating political personalities. I mix and match my views as I please and the sky does not fall in.

Probably one of the other reasons to read more books/history is to get a sense of ideological "movements", groups of connected ideas that become more or less popular over the years, rather than "sides" which are fixed forever.

e.g. progressivism replacing trade unionism on the "left" is just one example of many such shifts.

Implicit in statements like "I didn't leave the Left, the Left left me" is some kind of disappointment? frustration? that the ideology that was dominant when you first felt drawn to "the Left" is no longer the dominant ideology.

But I don't think it's a problem per se for ideologies to recombine and see if they can prove popular enough (to @SionnachRuadh's excellent point on populism!) to oust the previous one. The interesting question if you are disappointed is something like "why did my favoured ideology not have staying power after all? why could it not compete?" - certainly this is something I've thought about a lot in the context of liberalism.

I hope that's true about all mouth and no trousers. I do think Islamists are definitely concerning in that regard, and potentially other groups.

Agree about populism. Obvs it has been used for ill by the 30s dictators, the Perons, other people etc but it's ofc v wrong to say that therefore giving the population what they want is intrinsically wrong.

That's interesting about the Lotus Eaters, I didn't realise they hated Farage. I listened to 1 episode (the Freya India one) once & from that thought they would like Farage. Clearly mistaken.

I'm going to bed but would like to say goodnight to all you ladies on the FWR board who make me not feel like such an outlier as a compulsive multi-paragraph poster 😁 one day I will learn to be concise...

@OneAmberFinch Just continue, as you are.
Good night

I feel pretty cynical now. In a weird way prefer the rights approach as more honest. At least they are not trying to pretend they have the moral high ground and are virtuous like the left are.

Will never forgive the left for backing the anti women trans movement, turning on the brave women and some men that spoke up to say the emperor had no clothes,the denial of the cologne attacks and the blind eye turned and victim blaming of the grooming gangs. I can’t unsee all that.

I'm so glad I started this thread. I was quite nervous about posting it tbh.I've just been trying to work through things in my head and I've really appreciated all of the intelligent, insightful, thought provoking posts pp have taken the trouble to write. There's way too many to respond to, but I want you to know I have read them all and its given me some clarity and reassurance ( and a lot to think about! )and I'm grateful for that. I hope this thread has also helped others who are also struggling with this. I don't have any answers, but I've appreciated the forum to discuss and explore ideas in a generally respectful way. It's been the opposite of the polarisation and name calling we see so much on social media these days. Thanks all!

Has she said anything to the contrary?

When you start from the position that you are left wing, you never believe the right are right about everything in the first place.

I used to work for Rory Stewart. It was in the immediately post Brexit days and I found him refreshingly intelligent and reasonable, but in retrospect this was only by comparison with the rest of the Tory government.

At the time a lot of people were saying they didn't understand why Rory didn't defect to the Lib Dems, and he said himself that that would have been the wrong thing to do because he was a natural small C conservative, even if he disagreed with a lot of the actions of the large C Conservative government. He'd have done much better in the John Major or even Margaret Thatcher years. I respected the fact that he said he wasn't going to just abandon his core political principles and join a party that was not a good fit, just for the sake of political expediency.

I think it's worth considering what we know of Rory's background. He is from an aristocratic family. He went to Eton. His obvious intelligence and aristocratic connections made him a suitable choice by the royal family to tutor Princes William and Harry. (I doubt they'd have chosen just any Etonian for this job.) And he served his country in the army. So he's spent significant periods of his life, including most of his formative years, in an all male or substantially all male environment, where there is a natural hierarchy and you respect it. At Eton there were no girls or women whose needs had to be taken into consideration. And in Afghanistan there would only have been the kind of tough nut women who wouldn't have wanted to show or talk about their own vulnerability or need for male free spaces. And he's spent most, if not all, of his life in environments where there is a natural order of things, a hierarchy that you respect, and where there are people who give orders and people who obey them. Women typically haven't played a major role in any of these environments, and where they have been present, they haven't generally been the ones giving orders.

I think all of this is consistent with being a small C conservative, and believing that you are doing what is best for the little people, who don't know what is best for themselves. It is consistent with believing that democracy is about giving the little people the illusion of choice, where they believe their views are being taken into account and then those in power just do what they were going to do anyway. It's consistent with not listening very much to women, unless they are the kind of women who do their very best to pretend they are not like other women so as not to appear vulnerable. And it is consistent with favouring individual liberty to do what you want over collective responsibility. I've long said that gender identity theory is a small C conservative ideology because it prioritises the individual freedom of a small number of men over the rights of all women. Telling a small number of privileged men that they can't have everything they want because we have to think about vulnerable women as well isn't something that comes naturally to conservatives. In a way, I think gender ideology is where small C conservative and small L liberal meet and shake hands, which might explain how it has managed to take root across the political spectrum. The people most likely to oppose it are those who are socially conservative, which isn't very fashionable these days. Rory Stewart is fiscally conservative but socially liberal, so his support for gender ideology shouldn't be all that surprising.

It takes real independent thinking to be socially liberal but recognise that on this particular issue being socially liberal comes with negative consequences. I thought Rory Stewart was an independent thinker because he was willing to go against the grain so often within the Conservative government. But that's actually quite a low bar. I also think that, far from not caring what people think of him, he wants to be seen as one of the great intellectuals of our age. He's considered a bit of an exotic species because he's a Tory but not a Tory as we know them in the Brexit age. If he now said he opposed gender identity theory, he'd immediately be put back in the "what can you expect, he's right wing?" box, which is not where he wants to position himself. So I think being pro gender ideology is essential to his own personal brand.

Perhaps the general public no longer supports it very much, but don't forget, Rory doesn't care that much about what the general public thinks. The opposition to gender ideology is largely coming from working class and left wing women, who are the literal opposite of Rory Stewart and the intellectual men he likes to surround himself with.

It's disappointing, but shouldn't be all that surprising.

The point is that GC people who weren't making any kind of threat at all nevertheless lost their livelihoods, experienced persecution, and faced prosecution for stating simple facts that the left had decided could not be spoken.

In a way, I think gender ideology is where small C conservative and small L liberal meet and shake hands, which might explain how it has managed to take root across the political spectrum.

Following on from that train of thought, I think it also explains why sex realists, for want of a better word, have struggled to gain ground.

If gender ideology is where small C conservatism and small L liberalism meet, sex realism is where feminism and social conservatism meet and don't really want to shake hands.

Social conservatism tends to view women as childbearers and care givers. So this tends to manifest itself in political policies designed to keep women in these kinds of roles (and away from the corridors of power) by promoting women as stay at home mothers who raise their children and later care for the elderly (reducing the burden on the state) and generally respect the authority of their husbands. It tends to frown on same sex relationships, which don't naturally lead to the next generation of children being produced. And it generally dislikes immigration, which it sees as an undesirable influx of people who don't necessarily share "our" values, but recognises that this means we need our own women to have more children, which directly influences attitudes towards things like contraception, abortion, and women pursuing goals unrelated to childbearing. All of this is the antithesis of feminism.

Feminists, on the other hand, recognise the reality that women are often thrust into the role of childbearers and care givers, and want policies which support women in these roles without limiting them. Saying, "we recognise that women are biologically the childbearing sex, and that society has developed around women in caring roles and this will not be upended in our lifetime, and women are also physically weaker, so they need sex based rights which recognise this" whilst also maintaining that women should have equal rights and opportunities to men and be just as able to become president of the USA or CEO of Microsoft, is a really difficult tightrope to walk. It always has been.

So feminism is incredibly vulnerable to being split down the middle over something like gender ideology, which might sound great in principle (people not being limited to the gender roles they were "assigned at birth") but doesn't work in reality (male rapists in women's prisons). And when you end up with a large chunk of your natural supporters deserting you in favour of the ideology which sounds great in theory but doesn't work in reality, and then find a whole bunch of people you disagree with about almost everything else wanting to buddy up with you over this issue, it's very difficult to know how to deal with that.

Which is why gender critical feminists are frequently split down the middle over whether to join forces with people like Matt Walsh and Kellie-Jay Keen or only talk to people who agree with us about everything, whilst men like Rory Stewart, Alistair Campbell, Ian Dunt and James O'Brien can stay in their cosy little bubble, patting each other on the back for being so civilised that they can have a debate with other privileged white men who have been known to have different political views about completely unrelated issues. A debate to which women, the people actually affected by this issue, are naturally not invited.