Off Topic Politics Thread

Not sure the Vikings were universally popular when they first arrived here tbf.

 

Yeah, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, in the same way it would just have been a coincidence had a Jewish journalist been removed from a Nuremberg rally.

Time for people to open their eyes and see Reform and Farage (and his buddy Trump) for what they are.

 

This is a ****ing ridiculus and quite frankly offensive thing to say.

Equating reform to the Nazi party is genuinely ridiculous. Why don’t you stop acting like a child and think about what you’re saying?

 

Okay, I’ve thought about what I’m saying.

And now I’ll try to make it clearer, just for you; Reform are a cult, a bunch of right wing extremists led by a narcissistic populist, appealing to the ignorance and fear of the uneducated. If it looks like fascism, that’s probably because fascism is what it is.

Farage ponces about in Country Gent tweeds instead of uniforms by Hugo Boss, in order to draw a veil of phony respectability over himself. But he’s fooling no one, and if you can’t see these people for what they truly are, that’s probably because you are one of them yourself, which is a bit sad.

 

It annoys me that Reform are defined as 'far right' (which they are!) but that the Greens are never defined as 'far left.'

Simialrly in France, National Rally are always labelled 'far right' (which I agree they are, despite the fact that several coallition partners are centre right) and yet the opposition alliance is simply "left wing" despite its leader, Mélanchon, leaving the Socialist party several years ago because it wasn't Marxist enough.

Why is it so easy to call out (correctly) right wing politics but not left wing?

 

When the word "left" on its own is an insult in the UK, and the word "right" is seen as synonymous with power and status quo, these semantic decisions are more important on the right.

The Greens are already a fringe movement and their "leftism" makes them unelectable to a lot of people. You can call them far-left if you like. It won't impact their electability.

Reform, on the other hand, want people to think they are centre-right and many people are buying it. This means actively calling them out as far-right has meaning to it.

 

I'd say that "right" is seen as synonymous with bigotry and is generally not a favourable term. "Far right" is generally synonymous with Fascism. If "left" is socialism then surely Marxist/Communist-leaning parties should be referred to as the mirror image of far-right? Isn't it about being objective and balanced? All of these extreme concepts should be called out for what they are.

 

The whole spectrum thing is very limited. I have said this many times. You can be very left on one thing and very right on another. Are the greens far left? Where is the centre? What issues do you prioritise in your placements? The greens are hardly Marxists!

The only reason I am okay with Reform being called "Far Right" is there is an insidious undertone of racial bigotry in the way they present immigration.

 

Oh i agree, binary positions on a nuanced spectrum generally aren't helpful. I wouldn't say the Greens are Marxists but definitely Communist undertones where anti-capitalism is at their very core.

 

Isn’t the Left/Right distinction only really for economic policy? And then on social policy you have authoritarian/libertarian split

It’s why looking at left vs right is overly simplistic. Mainly because lots of people ignore the existence of left authoritarian (lots of red wall types, Galloway etc). Or somewhat bizarrely and conversely overhype their existence and prominence.

The “far right” and “fascism” both tend to point towards Right Authoritarian.

Right libertarian is an odd one. Quite close to the default position of Boris Johnson - you can tell how resistant he was to the lockdowns despite what the conspiraloons think

 

Plenty of people use the label far left - arguably far more incorrectly than the term “far right” is used. Take our resident conspiracy theory peddling troll. He and many of the outlets he follows will call Joe Biden and the US Democratic Party as “far left” so much that the term becomes meaningless

The Reform worshippers at the Lotus Eaters even claimed that Sunak’s cabinet was the most left wing ever. Even more so than Blair. So it can all get a bit silly.

So that is part of it in my view

The other part is that we in the western anglosphere (for want of a better term) have never really had exposure to a “far left” government or direct threat and real threat from one (WW2). I don’t really count the Cold War although I guess fear of that kind of thing was always on the mind during that period of time. And I think the real fear there was the “Authoritarian” side I mentioned in my post above. Not the “Left” part of that equation.

From a podcast I listened to the other day on modern British elections the fear the left leaning commentators had over thatcher was the risk of authoritarianism rather than the right wing part.

But I’m starting to get unfocused on this now

 

Tell you what. If you can name a white journalist who has been removed from not one but two Reform events, once for asking awkward questions and the second time before he had even spoken to anyone, then I might concede that you have a point.
Until then nah.
And your comment “as it's Femi I suppose it's possible he's done something at an event before that might somewhat explain it” seems to indicate that you have a negative opinion of him, which might explain your comment.
If asking awkward questions and then using facts to disprove claims made, counts as “doing something” at a previous event is grounds for him being evicted, then the rule should apply to any journalist not just Femi.

 

Whilst you are likely right there has been plenty of evidence of how thin skinned the Reform Ltd people are when it comes to being put under scrutiny. Aren’t they threatening lawsuits due to negative news articles and calling it election interference? I don’t think that’s a precedent anyone wants set otherwise the right wing client media won’t be able to print a single word about Labour during any election ever. It’s petty and stupid

With regards to Femi - isn’t he an independent journalist so likely has less protection from just being chucked out that some of the others who might have asked them awkward questions

And he is obviously partisan as well. Are there any white obviously partisan journalists who have gone to their events and asked awkward questions ? Owen Jones jumps to mind. Has he done anything like this? Does he know better? Well - of course he doesn’t as he is an idiot who is more focused on attacking Starmer because he isn’t Corbyn

 

In a nutshell, in the UK "far left" is anyone who wants the rich to pay taxes, whereas "far right" is anyone so extreme even the Tories are embarrassed by them. Not quite sure where Liz Truss or Suella Braverman fit on this metric tbh.

 

US Supreme Court has ruled that Trump is immune from prosecution for official acts taken as president but no immunity for unofficial acts. Well, that's really cleared things up.

 

That's not how these things work. It's not up to anyone else to prove Femi's removal wasn't motivated by racism. You're the one making the claim so it's up to you to produce evidence to support that claim. "He's black and he was removed" is not good evidence. It's far more likely he was removed because of his political views and (I assume) dislike of the party and people involved in it. Which isn't the best reason but these things do happen.

I don't have a particularly strong opinion of Femi because I don't pay much attention to him. I know he's very anti-Brexit and I'm fairly sure he hates Farage so it's possible he's done something beyond ask awkward questions, whether that's at an event or elsewhere. I don't know, I don't much care. As I said, I'm not a fan of removing journalists from these events.

But this type of rule does apply to all journalists, although it's usually more subtle and rarely applied as crudely or openly as removing someone. There are exceptions (for example the BBC's chief political editor will almost always be able to get interviews) but most of the time it's how political journalism works. If media outlets and/or political journalists want access to politicians or political parties they have to take them out for lunches or dinners and do favours for those politicians or parties. That could be writing a puff piece about someone. It could be reporting a particular story in a particular way. Maybe it's making sure a story comes out on the day when a politician is due to make a speech about the subject. It might be choosing not to report a story at all.

If a journalist or outlet does these favours they're more like to get information leaked to them. They get exclusive interviews, they get off the record briefings etc etc. If they don't do the favours their access is limited, they're more likely to be ignored or get very brief answers at press conferences and the end result is their stories are typically less interesting and/or published later so they get fewer clicks/views and the outlet/their career suffers. As Greg said, Femi is particularly likely to suffer from this because he's an independent journalist. I suspect someone like Tommy Robinson, who also describes himself as an independent journalist, might also be removed from an event like this, although for very different reasons.

 

“The far left is anyone who wants the rich to pay taxes”. Yet another ridiculous sentence. You’re racking them up today mate.

Even Farage himself thinks that the rich should pay taxes. So you might want to rethink that opinion too.

 

If Farage told me it was Monday, I’d check a calendar

 

If he told me it was raining, I would go and look outside.
He’s up there with Boris with lying.

 

This US supreme court decision has just empowered Biden to assassinate Trump and there would be no legal recourse against him whatsoever.

Whatever your politics, if you care about democracy you have to see this decision as evil and corrupt.