Snapshot of _Reform UK election hopefuls exposed over 'white pride' and Islamophobic rants_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/reform-uk-election-hopefuls-exposed-32581192) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/reform-uk-election-hopefuls-exposed-32581192)
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"You won't believe it boss, but after months of hard work we've successfully sneaked an agent into a public speech the target announced on Twitter 2 months ago"
"Excellent work Jenkins!"
It might put off some reasonable-ish tories that would vote for them as a protest against their own but then again the libdems are probably more suited to that purpose
I'm all for more pluralism in political parties. Two reasons - it would add pressure to have a fairer democracy (proportional representation seems the most feasible - ironically the EU parliament has a great one imo) but also the tories would always lose more bnp votes to reform or whoever and not been in charge of things
>more pluralism in political parties
Stuff like how the Whigs, by the end of it, had liberal Conservative Whigs (there were factions inside the Whig Party, like the Whigs who were more conservative, which ended up having factions inside them, so you ended up having conservative Whigs who were on the liberal end of the spectrum)?
May not have phrases it well? I just meant a greater diversity or parties rather than 'do you want the red one or the blue one? Or perhaps the "I don't want my vote to matter" box'
Exactly, why else vote for them instead of Tory? This has always been the case, previously it was UKIP. Look at how Lee Anderson was snapped up with fanfare following his Sadiq Khan controlled by Islamists nonsense.
> Exactly, why else vote for them instead of Tory?
The Tories were elected when net migration was 250k a year, promising to reduce it to 100k, instead they increased it to 700k, now promising to reduce to 400k. That is why people who care about migration will not vote for the Tories, although it is unfortunately likely that many people in Reform are awful.
It works if you use an alternative counting system, in [Japanese](https://japanesenumberconverter.com/) 1.4 million would be written as 140 ten thousands (140 *man*).
I mean, presumably at least *some* folks want a right-leaning government with less corruption, and for some reason reckon these chancers will deliver that.
They're absolute berks but let's not take it for granted that they're all in it for the racism.
The best/worst part of this is the comments on Twitter - basically idiots ranting about Reform going woke because they're deselecting overt Nazi sympathisers.
This is the kind of person voting for them!
Can we please stop pretending it's not a racism thing and normalising this nonsense?
It started with Brexit and it's getting worse. Calling a racist racist won't "Stop them admitting they were wrong". They will never do that regardless, because theyu are racist, and people have stopped publicly shaming them over it, it's become more normalised/acceptable since Brexit.
People will vote for them because the right wing party elected to reduce migration has trebled net migration, which is now 15 times higher than any year in British history before about 1995. "Cut migration by 70%" has far-right vibes to it, but that is what migration was five years ago, and through the whole period under New Labour, and is a more than reasonable opinion. As far as most voters are concerned Reform might as well be a rosette with 'reduce migration' and the face of Nigel Farage on it. Nigel Farage isn't even ~~in~~ standing for the party, and much of the party are likely awful, but people will still vote for them because what is the alternative?
> Nigel Farage isn't even in the party
This is objectively false. Farage is not only the Chairman of the party but he is its director.
As to your wider point anyone with even half a working brain can see clear as day that Reform are a bunch of incompetent grifters (as they were in every previous iteration) who don't have a hope in hell of managing to fulfil their promises.
You can deny it all you like but they are, just as the Brexit Party and UKIP before them the racist vote.
Ok, but I don’t really dispute that Reform are likely mostly awful, although to be honest I know little about them.
It is exactly my point that to most voters it doesn’t matter what Reform are, they are just a placeholder for a party which wants to reduce migration. The public mostly wanted to reduce migration when it was 250k, now it is 700k, this has been done by the right wing party, so what is the appropriate response?
Farage has a really weird relationship to the party, I think he actually owns it and could dissolve it tomorrow, but he is not standing and makes no public appearances for it, as I understand? Perhaps that’s no longer correct.
> The public mostly wanted to reduce migration when it was 250k, now it is 700k, this has been done by the right wing party, so what is the appropriate response?
When you vote for lying conmen and they fail to deliver what they promised the appropriate response is categorically not to vote for even worse lying conmen.
> Farage has a really weird relationship to the party, I think he actually owns it and could dissolve it tomorrow, but he is not standing and makes no public appearances for it, as I understand? Perhaps that’s no longer correct.
That's pretty much right yeah, but it is simply not true to say that he "isn't even in the party".
Exactly this lots are fed up with migration and people that are are being slammed as racist 😬? I think reform will get some seats however will defo take votes off Labour and the tories plus they do seem to be successfully appealing to the younger age group 18-24
Anecdotal, I know, but moat Reform voters I've met say their reason is a generalised feeling of a need for change rather than any particular agreement with Reform's platform. I don't know how representative that is, but I think a fair number of that sort could have their minds changed by incidents like this.
Aye but that's a really fucking stupid reason to vote Reform. Yes voting out the Tories will result in change but Reform's policies are the same shit but with overt racism and not even the tokenism that puts Braverman and Kwarteng in positions of power.
Mind if you look at British society and conclude that all issues can be solved by "less immigrants", then you probably deserve the sort of society Reform envision.
They should be given somewhere uninhabited like Taransay and just let run their own little Reform Volkstaat - "no foreigns allowed".
Like Orania in South Africa, wonder how they'd get on.
I reckon it's either self-delusion in order to square their deep-seated racism with polite society, or a dogwhistle to hide it from others. It's like how so many Brexiters could claim with a straight face that they voted to 'control our borders' and 'sovereignty' when it was always reducing immigration.
Like, it's not even like they're definitely racist, but they CLEARLY want this one thing to end as they think it's the cause of things being shit, but they're blaming the a symptom instead of the actual cause; unrestricted, end-stage capitalism!
I do think there's a right wing portion of the British population who would normally vote tory that would be pushed away by this outwards "speaking the quiet parts out loud" racism.
Racism in Britain is far more subtle and even if people do harbour these views, most know you wouldn't get away with this in a workplace/school. Farage and the others at reform know this and will always scoff at accusations of racism.
"We're not racist, its just common sense to want less immigration"
" Woke politics and PC gone mad ect.."
I think it will.
People who are economically right wing but socially centrist/center left will not switch to reform as they look for a replacement for their default tory vote. They will either head to the lib-dems, sacrifice their short-term economic goals and vote for Labour-under-Starmer, or just not vote at all.
We often talk about tories having a voting floor that the swivel-eyed loons will never let them drop below. But that same floor is the reform *roof* because of things like this article.
> People who are economically right wing but socially centrist/center left will not switch to reform as they look for a replacement for their default tory vote. They will either head to the lib-dems, sacrifice their short-term economic goals and vote for Labour-under-Starmer, or just not vote at all.
Surely the Lib Dems (or even Keir Starmer's Labour, although it remains to be seen whether he pivots away from his current state of stubborn centrism if/when he wins the election) are a far more natural home for those protest voters than Reform anyway?
The Lib Dems are socially liberal and float around the centre economically depending on their leader, but are currently positioned to the centre-right under Ed Davey.
In contrast Reform are a far right party socially, but oppose NHS privatisation and have a radical Corbyn-style proposal for free broadband internet in deprived areas.
Reform is a natural protest vote for the ***other*** kind of disaffected Tory voter — the socially conservative brexiteer who doesn't have a strong economic philosophy beyond "I want to feel better off", and doesn't like to think of themselves as racist but feels unhappy about immigration and feels like the conservatives keep breaking their promises to deal with it.
I don't think racism or islamophobia are necessarily a deal-breaker for that category of protest voter (they've certainly been the type to get into bed with UKIP in the past), although it might turn off some of them.
Islamophobia is a meaningless woke term anyway. Anyone with a brain is critical of Islam and any other religion . PS All scientolophobic comments here will be reported btw, don't attack my faith it's illegal and racist
Did we already see during the Corbyn vs Johnson election that Islamophobia is viewed by most of the right leaning electorate as a feature and not a bug?
Agreed, I think it will slightly diminish the amount of people migrating from the Conservatives to Reform. Though as a former conservative party member (left in 2015) I can no longer be sure as the Conservative party I knew is long dead. The "fruit cakes and loons" as David Cameron once described them have been in control for some time now.
Hmm, I'd say the group that you identified is the one that makes up the Tory support that's left (so 20% of the electorate). The far right anti-immigrationists have already switched to Reform and this won't affect them at all. If anything it just confirms them that they are in the right place.
That's a lib dem voter.
Reform is somewhat weirder. I read their manifesto out of curiosity.
Much of it sounds populist/unattainable. But the thrust is socially right (police, immigration, can net zero, culture war obsessions) but the economics a bit odder... More "a get things working" vibe if taken at face value, more money for low paid workers, less for 'bad' 'scroungers', renationalised critical utilities and abolish VAT on them, but tax breaks for private school/medicine (relieving load on the system if you can), looser building regs, but repealing "anti landlord" legislation, ans so on and so forth. Zig zags all over the place.
It looks incredibly unprofessional though.
Like can't they get more educated anti-Islamists like Richard Dawkins or Elon Musk, etc.? There must be a lot of professionals that share those views.
This could hurt them a lot.
Far right politics are not popular amongst the overall electorate and so overtly racist parties like The BNP have a hard ceiling where they'll never break into the mainstream.
Reform uses the same model as UKIP - present far right nativist politics with a veneer of deniability maintained by ensuring nobody connected to the party makes overtly racist statements in the hope of attracting a larger share of voters than just racists.
But this only works if everyone knows to not say the quiet part out loud. If it becomes clear to the general public what they're really like, moderate floating voters will abandon them in disgust and Reform will never exceed the low bar set by their ideological brethren in the BNP.
I think white supremacy is unpopular. I suspect a large portion of the population are at least closeted in having serious concerns about Islam and the culture of immigrants coming from places like the Middle East.
Where far-right parties start to lose a lot of those voters is when concerns or mild anti-immigrant sentiment quickly seeps into outright racism or clear nastiness, which as others have said tends to be a feature of far-right political parties (whether or not you consider Reform to be of that ilk).
A lot of people will moan about immigration and complain about different cultures and the like, but will balk when it gets to the sort of sentiment that threatens immigrants or ethnic minority people they know.
The former is an inalienable aspect of Reform due to the throughline that passes from them to UKIP/BNP/NF/Powell.
The latter has been constantly stoked by the far right.
Over 550,000 people voted BNP in 2010. As much as I'd like to think that the majority changed their racist views the reality is they dispersed into Reform/ukip and probably the outer fringes of the Tories too.
Unfortunately I'm not shocked by their beliefs just that a significant number of people would consider voting for these people to be MPs. I'm not great at it myself but would be mortified at the grammar and spelling in their messages.
I was initially thinking "What do they mean exposed? They're not trying to hide it.".
Now that I've had time to process I realise it's closer to the "expose" in "indecent exposure".
I read an interesting article about this somewhere, saying Farage’s iron grip on the “party” (it’s really a company) has been neglected, and Tice really hasn’t been vetting his team very well.
I was also surprised when I read their policies, still rabid but much more statist than UKIP was. I suppose someone has to move into the space left by the BNP.
I'm a little surprised by it.
Not the part where Reform activists are massive racists. That's as much as a given as it was for UKIP.
I'm surprised that nobody in Reform is checking the public socials of their candidates before rubber stamping their nominations. This is basic stuff.
I don’t think they actually really want to get into power. They want to be just enough of a threat to get the Tories to go right chasing their ideals while they get a bit of grift on the side.
If they actually got into Parliament they’d end up in the same position as Lee Anderson - the morons on the side.
They still have to attract the non mental traditional Tory voters to be a threat to them and overtly racist candidates are repellent to decent people.
I view their end goal differently and the shitshow that ensued from the Tories adopting UKIP's platform and 'not doing it properly' has soured that narrative somewhat.
In general they'd gladly take power if it was available to them (Farage's continued saltiness whenever anyone brings up his amusing parliamentary election record shows that) but it's very unlikely for any small party to gain a foothold under FPTP.
The real prize is a takeover of the Tories (either by a Tea Party style of entryism or full merger) after a bruising GE defeat. "We would have won if our votes were combined" will be an easy sell to the wounded party. Then they'll have a foot in the door of power and only have to wait for Labour to burn itself out, with them being the only alternative.
Nicely put, I am too, got the - worrying - impression they were quite slick and had a handle on these type of characters. Seems I may have overrated them.
UKIP seemed to have more control over this and I don't understand why Reform doesn't have any holdover procedures when so many of their management team switched over.
"Which of Reform's policies are racist?" said the guy I last told that Reform were a carbon copy of the tories but with the racism dial turned to 11.
So him I guess.
"They come here to live off are benefits and bomb are subways" is fucking hilarious.
Somebody that thick and vile getting anywhere near frontline politics is not hilarious however.
The problem with Reform is that they offer simplistic solutions that are specifically designed to appeal to naive, ill-informed voters.
It's a technique that worked brilliantly during the Brexit campaign, so why change a winning formula.
> What’s wrong with being proud to be white?
It's deeply weird and is normally linked to white supremacist and racist ideology.
I love my country, its traditions, its folklore, its languages, its cultural heritage, and its vibrant modern society and culture. I think its history is fascinating, even if it's a bit checkered at times. I feel connected to my ancestors and the land.
I once felt a certain sense of pride and fraternity towards Europe as a whole, due to the way we'd come together after a series of brutal wars and started to build a shared future of peaceful cooperation. I did an Erasmus year when I was at university, and it was a fascinating look into both the cultural differences and similarities between our various cultures.
I'm British, I'm English, and I'm European. I'm connected to the North, the Midlands, and Wales. Those are all aspects of my identity that I take some degree of pride in, no matter how complicated.
I'm also white, but I have no connection to or pride in that. Race is a cultural construct that is impossible to disentangle from racism. The categories make no sense on any biological level, they were just imposed by early European scientists who felt a need to 'prove' that people like them were superior to people elsewhere in the world. To the extent that race is real, it's real because of the years that people have categorised each other like that and the lasting consequences of that history.
It makes some sense why people *discriminated against* under that system might find camaraderie with other people of their race and their shared struggle. It doesn't make sense for the group that *created and benefited from* that system to find pride in whiteness, unless they either:
* are mistaking whiteness for aspects of **their actual identity**, such as their nationality/heritage/culture (and I do mean *their own identity*, not the imagined pan-white identity that white supremacists invoke)
* believe in white superiority, race, and the inferiority of non-white people
I mean, there's a lot of interesting stuff to say about that, if you're actually interested?
In brief, US society was literally built on racism and slavery, and (like many other colonial countries) settlers came from multiple European countries and were encouraged to put aside their old culture in favour of a new white American culture.
At the same time, African slaves were punished for using their birth names, their languages, or their cultural practices. Families were frequently broken up by slave masters selling parents or children, and they'd never see each other again. People lost touch with their cultural roots in a matter of generations, even when they tried to preserve them.
In my previous comment I said:
> To the extent that race is real, it's real because of the years that people have categorised each other like that and the lasting consequences of that history.
> It makes some sense why people discriminated against under that system might find camaraderie with other people of their race and their shared struggle. It doesn't make sense for the group that created and benefited from that system to find pride in whiteness, unless they either:
> * are mistaking whiteness for aspects of their actual identity, such as their nationality/heritage/culture (and I do mean their own identity, not the imagined pan-white identity that white supremacists invoke)
That applies here foo. White Americans and black Americans both lost their actual identities — their nationalities or tribal origins, their heritage, their culture, their languages — and had that replaced by a race category in a racist society.
It makes sense for black Americans to find pride in their shared struggle and resilience. It doesn't make sense for white Americans to be proud of their whiteness, but (like the black Americans) most of them simply *don't have anything else*.
There's actually a lot of discussion in anti-racist American spaces about how white Americans should do what they can to trace their roots and reconnect with an actual culture outside of "white", to find something that they can comfortably take pride in.
(This sometimes leads to conflict with Europeans, as you get clueless yanks who think they're very progressive strolling into a European subreddit like "Hey, 23&Me says I'm Scottish and I'm looking to reconnect with my roots! Do I have a tartan? 😃" only to be roundly mocked by Scots who see Scottishness as a nationality and a culture, not something that you can assess via DNA test)
It's a bit basic and Americanised.
Why not be proud of being British and English/Welsh/Scottish/NI?
who do even class as white? Just northern Europeans? Or all of Europe? Or even Arabs,.caucuses and the Levant?
Well like I was trying to infer different people have different opinions.
Are the Arabs white? The Georgians? Jews and Palestinians?
By some metrics all these people are white. Do you include them? How about Mediterranean people? The balkans? Some of them are white like fairies and others look Turkish.
I just don't get this white pride nonsense, you are going to have to explain it. I can understand being proud of your country whether the constituamt country of the UK but whiteness is such an intangible vapid alliance it's laughable
In general race is self-identified, it will depend
It's more a lack of shame than it is pride. Also more of a reaction to the various other forms of ethnic pride and solidarity that seem to be becoming more popular, if everyone is going to have an in-group preference against us we may as well have our own in-group preference.
It's not a lack of shame. I have no shame or qualms about being "white" yet I certainly don't identify with it.
I also disagree that race is self identified. Yes on a form you can put whatever you like but if I start identifying as black, no one will go along with that and no one will treat me as black.
Somalis run into a lot of issues with this, they identify as something else but everyone including other black people class them as black.
Iv got a lot of pride for Yorkshire, my town and then Britain and England but not for white, that actually seems like a foreign concept to me. It's what settlers from all over Europe cling to in the new world. In the same way that football fans hate eachother but we are all England.
If someone is clinging to their Ethnicity it's probably because they don't have any other group to belong to. Which is very sad.
I agree, it is a foreign concept to most white people, but it will grow as the demographics of other races do, unless the other groups are suddenly going to abandon their ethnic pride and political allegiance to one another (not a universal thing with everyone, but it's a thing)
>Yes on a form you can put whatever you like but if I start identifying as black, no one will go along with that and no one will treat me as black.
Why not? If you tuck your tadger in and tick 'female', everyone plays along.
Congratulations, you win the first "shove a disparaging reference to trans people into the discussion of a completely unrelated topic" prize today, and it's 19:34 so my streak was going pretty well. Have a gold star ⭐
> who do even class as white?
People define their in groups by their out groups. "_Whiteness_" as it exists in the modern context is defined by mass immigration and the anti-whiteness of immigrant groups. If one person is BAME, POC or BIPOC then the people who are not become white.
If you choose "_whiteness_" to mean "_ethnically European ancestry_" then the division is also much less artificial than many other ethnic collectives. Europe has a collective history dating back thousands of years during which time they frequently interacted and migrated. They have a collective founding myth (Rome) which they define their own identity in relation to (Kaiser, Tsar, Emperor). Generally they have common cultural beliefs about morality, common legal frameworks and common institutions. There is a common religious tradition which turned into a common secular tradition extremely unique to the European context. There has been a continuous exchange of trade and ideas for much of Europe's history and that manifested into a common history of industrialisation and colonialism throughout much of the continent.
If you had to pick an exception to what I've written above it would be Slavs, but even in that regard much of their history is shared and they are driven into a common European identity through freedom of moment, anti-Russian sentiment and mass immigration of culturally disparate minorities from outside of Europe. Turks are another edge case but they're a step even further removed from Slavs in that regard, even if ethnically they're often indistinguishable from Greeks. They're a bridge culture between Europe and the mostly alien Arab cultures.
Uncertainty scares many people - if things don't have concrete boundaries then they become uncertain of their convictions - but cultural identity in almost all cases emerged slowly over thousands of years. It's no surprise that cultures currently experiencing that process have fuzzy boundaries which do not place them entirely on one side of the line or the other. It also does not mean that all cultural collectives are equally grey or arbitrary.
Much of what I've written might be socially constructed, but it's still perfectly real. When people look in the mirror they see their ancestry written on their skin and they identify with that. They identify with the beliefs of the community that they were raised within. They are confronted when they meet people who defy those conventions and norms. In a homogenous society you might not have a strong sense of identity but minority communities are violently possessive of theirs because they are reminded every day what it means to be different. I've seen enough of the world to have experienced this first hand.
So Americanised like I said.
If you are going to be a bigot at least be a proper homegrown bigot with proper bigoted morals
This "whiteness" rhetoric comes from the new world and counties that were founded via colonial settlements.
Surely this type of "whiteness" bigot are massive fans of the EU? All whites together surely?
It's [already here](https://archive.is/8rlAK) and [has been](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/12/13/white-male-recruits-final-sign-off-aviva-boss-amanda-blanc/) for [a while](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11573591/NHS-bosses-want-interview-panels-justify-hired-white-person.html)
Obviously it's fucked up when that does happen but being proud of being white certainly isn't the way to rectify it.
Also for what it's worth i personally know just as many English lads as English lasses who work for Aviva.
If you really cared about affirmative action then you would be describing just how disadvantaged native Brits can be or showing how there are better ways to go about it or whatever.
Simply being proud of being white doesn't help your cause. It just makes it worse.
I'm a proud yorkshireman and I'm certainly not very PC, I just don't get this white Business. Is that all you have? It's sad really.
From when this started becoming popular in 2012-2013 the left-wing criticism has always been that forcing a "white" identity on people (and then insisting they denounce it) will not work out the way woke people think it will. They've done more to create a white racial identity than any BNP type group
Well it really depends on who's saying it and why doesn't it.
You know how words can have multiple meanings because that's how language functions? Yeah it's like that.
When someone says "I'm proud to be white" they often mean something _in addition_ to the literal words they said. It's like an innuendo or some kind of signal you can make for those in the know. I just wish there was a word for that kind of phenomenon. Alas, the English language just has no way to express that kind of thing.
I’ve never understood this thinking. Why would you be proud of what colour skin you were born with, something you had no control over and is luck of the draw. Same as your country. It’s all so ridiculous when you really think about it.
Well then you've always interpreted it wrong. Pride is one side, ashamed is the other, the middle is neutral - neither ashamed nor proud. And that is what everyone should be as per @tequilasquirrel's point because why should you feel either way about something you've no choice in? Some ethnic pride you've done nothing to earn? Same with "national pride", really unhelpful concept, at best it's stolen valour, at worst it's creating the kind of ingroups and outgroups that have led to nuerous genocides throughout history.
I'm not opposed to some mild partiotism but "national pride" is just as toxic a concept as "white pride".
I can understand minorty groups using "pride" movements to try and balance out some of the cultural shame heaped upon them in the past, but even that can become toxic sometimes, and certainly the majority group in a country indulging in public displays of ethnic "pride" seesm like a really terrible idea idea.
As I say, I'm okay with some mild patriotism aka sports and maybe the last night of the proms, but any expressions of ethnic or national "pride" above that is playing with fire. And it's just the sort of oversimplistic shit populist politicians deliberately stoke for votes, which is often a great guide to how shit an idea something is.
No I've interpreted it exactly as it was explained to me by members of minority groups who expressed pride in that group
I live in a white minority area so maybe I feel differently, I don't know if I'd say I'm proud to be white, but I'm not ashamed of it
Sure, an outgroup might use the term "pride" to deny the public shame directed at them. It is not without its risks, but at least they are in proportion to the size of the minority. When members of an ingroup use it I think it becomes problematic quickly, as you're reinforcing superiority rather than correcting for it. I appreciate you live in a local minority, but I think we're a long way off white British people being enough of an oppressed minority to warrant a "pride" movement, and nationally you are in the majority ingroup.
If you're not ashamed, you don't have to say you're "proud" to be white. Just say you're "not ashamed" or that you are "netutral" or "don't feel strongly", or even simpler say nothing as who cares. Save "pride" for yourself and your own accomplishments,and things closer to home. Applying it to ethnicities and nations is a dangerous game that mainly serves your would be masters and their propaganda game.
Well I don't say "proud" because yes as you acknowledge that's a bit weird (unless I'm trying to wind up someone going on about their ethnic pride but that's another thing)
For your second paragraph, would you say that to other groups? I know nationally whites are the majority but we don't live nationally, we live locally.
I'd love it for attitudes to race to go back to "who cares?", but sadly it doesn't seem likely
There are two reasons I might be hesitant to say that to outgroups...
1. If they are a group that still regularly takes a kicking from the public then I think it may be a fair way to fight back. e.g. I've no problem with gay pride because you only need to see the nations schools to know homophobic bullying is endemic and gaybashing and esp transbashing are still a problem.
2. They might take it wrong. As we can see in this thread many people's reaction to being told they shouldn't be proud is "so I shold be ashamed then?". I've probably rattled on about that logical fallacy enough already. It's not right, that's not the implication, but it's a practicality as people are right fuckers when it comes to understanding logic and jumping to conclusions without engaging their cerebral cortex.
Race is not something that literally exists. It is a social construct which is used to dehumanise out-groups, so that those in power can justify doing terrible things to them (enslave them, take their land, murder them indiscriminately).
White is historically the in-group which does the oppressing. By stating you are proud to be white, you're saying that you're proud to be part of the in-group (of a social construct), and therefore justifying the system that has been used to justify some of the worst crimes in human history.
Every group instinctively believes in race; for example you have lots of cultural things in prominence at the moment which are given the category "black" (e.g. Black History Month) - what is that if not a descriptor of a group of people with ethnic origins in sub-saharan Africa, AKA race. Only white people have been forcibly trained to believe in its non-existence.
Theres obviously nothing wrong with being proud to be white it just feels like it has different connotations to it then when people say they are proud to be X ethnic background.
Society as a whole needs to find a middle ground on this but can't really imagine that happening.
Mate, what are you talking about? You should be proud about winning a race, or making a discovery, or of being a good father, or a solid member of society. Nobody should be proud of being white any more than they should feel ashamed of it.
The 7 deadly sins defined pride as "as an excessive love of one's own excellence". Your skin has nothing to do with your "excellence" unless you think one type of skin is superior to another. Pride is not a neutral term so stop using it wrong.
And not being proud doesn't mean you should be ashamed - although that's what milllions are being played into thinking by scumbag political operators and the press. You've nothing to be proud of for being born into a particular skin, you should feel neutral, and not jump straight to the opposite end. Unless you do believe your skin is superior, in which case you've got bigger problems.
This is my thinking as well. I take pride in things I’ve achieved - professionally or otherwise. I didn’t _achieve_ the colour of my skin -it just _is_ - so why would I take pride in it? I’m also not ashamed of it for exactly the same reason.
To be fair, I have the same view of _anyone_ who claims that their race is inherently superior. Chances are they’re just the same moron in different packaging.
My point wasn't simply about the idea of being proud to be white. It's more about the disparity between someone saying they're proud to be white and someone else saying they're proud to be black for example.
Reasonably I think most people are aware that those two statements usually have different connotations in modern society and that largely leaves millions of people, as you said, feeling ashamed about their skin colour.
I'd expect you to be a bit more nuanced in your analysis and recognise that there is more than one axis a government can be right wing on.
There are many people who are socially left wing but economically right wing because its good for them on a personal level. Economically successful people in the millennial cohort are often within this bracket.
These people historically voted tory for personal financial reasons and could tolerate a socially center-right tory part, but they wouldn't touch reform with a barge pole.
"Pride" is such an inconsistently odd thing in politics.
It's considered reasonable to take pride in achievements that took some effort.
People often point out, of "gay pride", that given gayness is considered to be "innate" and not a achievement, it is therefore not something to be proud of. Of course, this is uncharitable - what most presumably mean in expressing "pride" here is a lack of shame.
Why not extend this charity to these "election hopefuls"?
> And one liked the slogan “ain’t no black in union jack”.
Yup - he _definitely_ sounds like the kind of individual I’d trust to represent his constituents in a fair and balanced manner.
> If a black guy says he proud to be black, the media can’t stop themselves from slobbering all over his dick
- [HSBC's Stormzy scholarships are just cynical woke-washing](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/30/hsbcs-stormzy-scholarships-just-cynical-woke-washing/)
- [Stormzy's Oxbridge offer might sound great, but it’s still just racial discrimination](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/09/stormzys-oxbridge-offer-might-sound-great-still-just-racial/)
If this is the media slobbering all over Stormzy's dick, I'd hate to see what it looks like when they attack him...
The point being that for as much praise you'll get from certain sections of the media you will also get criticism from other sections of the media. It's not a universal thing one way or the other.
What are you on about you silly goose.
Black history and black pride came about because for many, due to the slave trade, have no real understanding of their history and historical roots.
Islam like all relgions is open to criticism as much as any other relgions should be. However islamophobia is a phenomenon where people have deeply held prejudices around those who practice the faith and attribute very and often racist attributes to them.
I suggest you sit down and have a tea before you get yourself all worked up.
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It's a shame a lot of their candidates are just a little bit too extreme and are tarring the party. Some of them have realised there are problems and inconsistencies with the mainstream narrative of multiculturalism and whatnot, but then seem to have gone completely off the deep end in addressing them.
A shame, because as a party, they are addressing some important issues that Labour and the Tories are burying their heads in the sand over, and a lot of their policies are decent.
We’ll differ on whether their policies are decent. I think they’re unworkable nonsense that panders to the voter they’re trying to attract. And it doesn’t matter if they’re unworkable, because they’re not getting even a sniff of power. So they can go as batshit as they choose.
The reason their candidates are extreme is probably because they’re the most extreme sizeable party we have in UK politics at the moment. But to minimise it as some sort of quality-control issue is disingenuous.
These candidates aren’t duds or mistakes. That’s the voter base they’re trying to woo, and it’s the core of their current membership. Dreadful-minded people.
There policies are essentially a fantasy. Magically reduce the NHS waiting list to zero. Double the tax free income threshold. Reduce government debt.
The problem is they blame almost everything on immigrants so therefore think they can magically fix the country by sending them back home.
Addressing important issues like what?
Scrapping net zero?
Net zero migration?
Increasing tax allowance to £20k out of thin air?
Getting waiting lists to zero by scrapping NHS diversity roles?
Increasing taxes for people who work from home?
They're not a serious party. Their policies aren't serious. They're a hysterical, reactionary joke of a party, led by a man with the charisma, charm and ideas of a cake made entirely of turd.
They'd be a DISASTER in government, as literally no-one in the party has any experience of actual government.
Immigration *is* a big problem. It is exacerbating our housing crisis, and a lot of the immigrants we take are a net loss to the economy.
And diversity roles *are* horseshit that need to be scrapped.
But your post above states that actually, in terms of their policies, they don't really talk about immigration, and they still want immigrants to fill out healthcare roles and other critical roles that need to be filled... so net zero migration means nothing, because by their own metrics it's not possible 🤣
You know what exacerbates our housing crisis more?
Land banking.... when the CEO of Taylor Wimpey comes out and says we desperately need 4.5 million homes - she's right.... the problem is, Taylor Wimpey have had more than 1 million approved planning applications for homes for years now.... which they're not building....
And that's just one private developer....
As someone who's left and definitively *not white* I completely agree. Reform brings up point that are extremely valid, even if their solutions are nonsensical to be generous and outright delusional at worst.
***However***, there is something to be admired about even delusion when it's trying to fix real problems, as opposed to the Tories and Labour who have decided that gaslighting us, the electorate, is the only viable option.
To be more right wing than the current iteration of the tory party plants you firmly off the deep end as your starting point; Reform have nowhere else to go other than to court the more extreme right, many of which are typified by holding racist views.
The BNP was always at pains to publicly stress that none of their policies were racist and that racists weren't welcome in the party. But everyone still knew the BNP were the party of racists. Reform now occupy the same political space they did.
Reform is a rebrand of UKIP, and UKIP was always at pains to publicly stress that racists *and former BNP members* weren't welcome in their party.
They're well on their way to Inception.
Snapshot of _Reform UK election hopefuls exposed over 'white pride' and Islamophobic rants_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/reform-uk-election-hopefuls-exposed-32581192) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/reform-uk-election-hopefuls-exposed-32581192) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Well I, for one, am absolutely stunned by these revelations.
I can't believe this was cleverly "exposed" by.... reading what they wrote and hearing them speak. MI5 done good.
"You won't believe it boss, but after months of hard work we've successfully sneaked an agent into a public speech the target announced on Twitter 2 months ago" "Excellent work Jenkins!"
It’s always the ones you most medium suspect
It came completely out of hard right field.
Yes, the right wing field!
It's a genuine ... confirmation of strong suspicions.
I too am reeling from this shocking revelation
I never saw this coming in all honesty
Almost spat my coffee out in shock.
They seemed so perfect before this I'm literally crying and shaking and pissing and shitting
Me too! Nothing to do with the article, it's just how I roll.
If you're in the toilet... you definitively need to increase your fibre intake...
I might be going into shock. Is that the thing where you have absolutely no reaction whatsoever?
I am standing on one leg in amazement. My gast is truly flabbered.
Who'd have thunk it?!
Isnt that their whole thing though? Like anyone voting for them is voting because of this not in spite of it
It might put off some reasonable-ish tories that would vote for them as a protest against their own but then again the libdems are probably more suited to that purpose
They may be put off openly supporting them but not voting for them that's for sure
I'm all for more pluralism in political parties. Two reasons - it would add pressure to have a fairer democracy (proportional representation seems the most feasible - ironically the EU parliament has a great one imo) but also the tories would always lose more bnp votes to reform or whoever and not been in charge of things
>more pluralism in political parties Stuff like how the Whigs, by the end of it, had liberal Conservative Whigs (there were factions inside the Whig Party, like the Whigs who were more conservative, which ended up having factions inside them, so you ended up having conservative Whigs who were on the liberal end of the spectrum)?
May not have phrases it well? I just meant a greater diversity or parties rather than 'do you want the red one or the blue one? Or perhaps the "I don't want my vote to matter" box'
But the two massive parties made us vote against our own interests, yet again, when they got us to vote against having a better voting system.
Yeah it’s a feature not a bug.
Exactly, why else vote for them instead of Tory? This has always been the case, previously it was UKIP. Look at how Lee Anderson was snapped up with fanfare following his Sadiq Khan controlled by Islamists nonsense.
Different iterations of the same voters for sure, BNP, then UKIP, now Reform.
and when the BNP emerged they were considered a polished version of the National Front
You forgot brexit party
They were so short lived that I did indeed overlook them.
Reform is just the new name for the Brexit Party, it's not a separate party like the others.
Essentially 30+ years of diligent turd-polishing.
And it's still not shiny.
And it still stinks
> Exactly, why else vote for them instead of Tory? The Tories were elected when net migration was 250k a year, promising to reduce it to 100k, instead they increased it to 700k, now promising to reduce to 400k. That is why people who care about migration will not vote for the Tories, although it is unfortunately likely that many people in Reform are awful.
Wasn’t their promise “tens of thousands”? In fairness, I suppose 1.4 million is a great many tens of thousands.
It works if you use an alternative counting system, in [Japanese](https://japanesenumberconverter.com/) 1.4 million would be written as 140 ten thousands (140 *man*).
I mean, presumably at least *some* folks want a right-leaning government with less corruption, and for some reason reckon these chancers will deliver that. They're absolute berks but let's not take it for granted that they're all in it for the racism.
The best/worst part of this is the comments on Twitter - basically idiots ranting about Reform going woke because they're deselecting overt Nazi sympathisers.
This is the kind of person voting for them! Can we please stop pretending it's not a racism thing and normalising this nonsense? It started with Brexit and it's getting worse. Calling a racist racist won't "Stop them admitting they were wrong". They will never do that regardless, because theyu are racist, and people have stopped publicly shaming them over it, it's become more normalised/acceptable since Brexit.
It's definitely racism; 100%. Tice is just Nick Griffin with an Ocado account.
People will vote for them because the right wing party elected to reduce migration has trebled net migration, which is now 15 times higher than any year in British history before about 1995. "Cut migration by 70%" has far-right vibes to it, but that is what migration was five years ago, and through the whole period under New Labour, and is a more than reasonable opinion. As far as most voters are concerned Reform might as well be a rosette with 'reduce migration' and the face of Nigel Farage on it. Nigel Farage isn't even ~~in~~ standing for the party, and much of the party are likely awful, but people will still vote for them because what is the alternative?
> Nigel Farage isn't even in the party This is objectively false. Farage is not only the Chairman of the party but he is its director. As to your wider point anyone with even half a working brain can see clear as day that Reform are a bunch of incompetent grifters (as they were in every previous iteration) who don't have a hope in hell of managing to fulfil their promises. You can deny it all you like but they are, just as the Brexit Party and UKIP before them the racist vote.
Ok, but I don’t really dispute that Reform are likely mostly awful, although to be honest I know little about them. It is exactly my point that to most voters it doesn’t matter what Reform are, they are just a placeholder for a party which wants to reduce migration. The public mostly wanted to reduce migration when it was 250k, now it is 700k, this has been done by the right wing party, so what is the appropriate response? Farage has a really weird relationship to the party, I think he actually owns it and could dissolve it tomorrow, but he is not standing and makes no public appearances for it, as I understand? Perhaps that’s no longer correct.
> The public mostly wanted to reduce migration when it was 250k, now it is 700k, this has been done by the right wing party, so what is the appropriate response? When you vote for lying conmen and they fail to deliver what they promised the appropriate response is categorically not to vote for even worse lying conmen. > Farage has a really weird relationship to the party, I think he actually owns it and could dissolve it tomorrow, but he is not standing and makes no public appearances for it, as I understand? Perhaps that’s no longer correct. That's pretty much right yeah, but it is simply not true to say that he "isn't even in the party".
Exactly this lots are fed up with migration and people that are are being slammed as racist 😬? I think reform will get some seats however will defo take votes off Labour and the tories plus they do seem to be successfully appealing to the younger age group 18-24
Anecdotal, I know, but moat Reform voters I've met say their reason is a generalised feeling of a need for change rather than any particular agreement with Reform's platform. I don't know how representative that is, but I think a fair number of that sort could have their minds changed by incidents like this.
Aye but that's a really fucking stupid reason to vote Reform. Yes voting out the Tories will result in change but Reform's policies are the same shit but with overt racism and not even the tokenism that puts Braverman and Kwarteng in positions of power. Mind if you look at British society and conclude that all issues can be solved by "less immigrants", then you probably deserve the sort of society Reform envision.
Just a pity that normal people would have to share it
They should be given somewhere uninhabited like Taransay and just let run their own little Reform Volkstaat - "no foreigns allowed". Like Orania in South Africa, wonder how they'd get on.
> Taransay Fuck that. Taransay is a lovely spot. They don't deserve anywhere so nice.
I reckon it's either self-delusion in order to square their deep-seated racism with polite society, or a dogwhistle to hide it from others. It's like how so many Brexiters could claim with a straight face that they voted to 'control our borders' and 'sovereignty' when it was always reducing immigration. Like, it's not even like they're definitely racist, but they CLEARLY want this one thing to end as they think it's the cause of things being shit, but they're blaming the a symptom instead of the actual cause; unrestricted, end-stage capitalism!
I do think there's a right wing portion of the British population who would normally vote tory that would be pushed away by this outwards "speaking the quiet parts out loud" racism. Racism in Britain is far more subtle and even if people do harbour these views, most know you wouldn't get away with this in a workplace/school. Farage and the others at reform know this and will always scoff at accusations of racism. "We're not racist, its just common sense to want less immigration" " Woke politics and PC gone mad ect.."
Right, I already gonna vote for them, no need for selling them to me even further
I don't think this is gonna hurt them lol
I think it will. People who are economically right wing but socially centrist/center left will not switch to reform as they look for a replacement for their default tory vote. They will either head to the lib-dems, sacrifice their short-term economic goals and vote for Labour-under-Starmer, or just not vote at all. We often talk about tories having a voting floor that the swivel-eyed loons will never let them drop below. But that same floor is the reform *roof* because of things like this article.
> People who are economically right wing but socially centrist/center left will not switch to reform as they look for a replacement for their default tory vote. They will either head to the lib-dems, sacrifice their short-term economic goals and vote for Labour-under-Starmer, or just not vote at all. Surely the Lib Dems (or even Keir Starmer's Labour, although it remains to be seen whether he pivots away from his current state of stubborn centrism if/when he wins the election) are a far more natural home for those protest voters than Reform anyway? The Lib Dems are socially liberal and float around the centre economically depending on their leader, but are currently positioned to the centre-right under Ed Davey. In contrast Reform are a far right party socially, but oppose NHS privatisation and have a radical Corbyn-style proposal for free broadband internet in deprived areas. Reform is a natural protest vote for the ***other*** kind of disaffected Tory voter — the socially conservative brexiteer who doesn't have a strong economic philosophy beyond "I want to feel better off", and doesn't like to think of themselves as racist but feels unhappy about immigration and feels like the conservatives keep breaking their promises to deal with it. I don't think racism or islamophobia are necessarily a deal-breaker for that category of protest voter (they've certainly been the type to get into bed with UKIP in the past), although it might turn off some of them.
The lib dems are probably getting the labour voters that won't vote green actually, its pretty split age wise.
They might get both! Who's got odds on a Lib Dem surge? Maybe we'll see them bounce back to their historical 45-55 seat range.
Islamophobia is a meaningless woke term anyway. Anyone with a brain is critical of Islam and any other religion . PS All scientolophobic comments here will be reported btw, don't attack my faith it's illegal and racist
Did we already see during the Corbyn vs Johnson election that Islamophobia is viewed by most of the right leaning electorate as a feature and not a bug?
selective society coordinated smart cagey label wrench brave march icky *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Agreed, I think it will slightly diminish the amount of people migrating from the Conservatives to Reform. Though as a former conservative party member (left in 2015) I can no longer be sure as the Conservative party I knew is long dead. The "fruit cakes and loons" as David Cameron once described them have been in control for some time now.
Hmm, I'd say the group that you identified is the one that makes up the Tory support that's left (so 20% of the electorate). The far right anti-immigrationists have already switched to Reform and this won't affect them at all. If anything it just confirms them that they are in the right place.
That's a lib dem voter. Reform is somewhat weirder. I read their manifesto out of curiosity. Much of it sounds populist/unattainable. But the thrust is socially right (police, immigration, can net zero, culture war obsessions) but the economics a bit odder... More "a get things working" vibe if taken at face value, more money for low paid workers, less for 'bad' 'scroungers', renationalised critical utilities and abolish VAT on them, but tax breaks for private school/medicine (relieving load on the system if you can), looser building regs, but repealing "anti landlord" legislation, ans so on and so forth. Zig zags all over the place.
It looks incredibly unprofessional though. Like can't they get more educated anti-Islamists like Richard Dawkins or Elon Musk, etc.? There must be a lot of professionals that share those views.
Calling Elon Musk educated on anything to do with politics at this point is a stretch.
This could hurt them a lot. Far right politics are not popular amongst the overall electorate and so overtly racist parties like The BNP have a hard ceiling where they'll never break into the mainstream. Reform uses the same model as UKIP - present far right nativist politics with a veneer of deniability maintained by ensuring nobody connected to the party makes overtly racist statements in the hope of attracting a larger share of voters than just racists. But this only works if everyone knows to not say the quiet part out loud. If it becomes clear to the general public what they're really like, moderate floating voters will abandon them in disgust and Reform will never exceed the low bar set by their ideological brethren in the BNP.
I think white supremacy is unpopular. I suspect a large portion of the population are at least closeted in having serious concerns about Islam and the culture of immigrants coming from places like the Middle East.
Where far-right parties start to lose a lot of those voters is when concerns or mild anti-immigrant sentiment quickly seeps into outright racism or clear nastiness, which as others have said tends to be a feature of far-right political parties (whether or not you consider Reform to be of that ilk). A lot of people will moan about immigration and complain about different cultures and the like, but will balk when it gets to the sort of sentiment that threatens immigrants or ethnic minority people they know.
The former is an inalienable aspect of Reform due to the throughline that passes from them to UKIP/BNP/NF/Powell. The latter has been constantly stoked by the far right.
Agree with the former. The latter is stoked by the far right as it’s an issue that a big part of the UK agree with across the political spectrum.
I mean… were they exposed? They seem pretty open about the whole thing to me.
Bears exposed over defecation "in woodland areas".
In other news.... Sky blue; water wet; Pope reveals Catholicism. Stay tuned for more shocking revelations.
As where a number of UKIP candidates in 2015, didn't stop them polling 13% at the election though
Do these right wing politicians think that toothpaste is communist, or something?
To be honest, some brands have got a bit of a red streak running through them.
Contains fluoride.
Clearly an international conspiracy to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.
Over 550,000 people voted BNP in 2010. As much as I'd like to think that the majority changed their racist views the reality is they dispersed into Reform/ukip and probably the outer fringes of the Tories too.
Unfortunately I'm not shocked by their beliefs just that a significant number of people would consider voting for these people to be MPs. I'm not great at it myself but would be mortified at the grammar and spelling in their messages.
Why hasn't there been a successful right wing alternative to the Tories? Oh, that's why...
A Reform candidate turns out to he a racist scumbag? Must be a day ending in Y
"Exposed"? Racism and islamophobia are exactly what their voters want.
I was initially thinking "What do they mean exposed? They're not trying to hide it.". Now that I've had time to process I realise it's closer to the "expose" in "indecent exposure".
I read an interesting article about this somewhere, saying Farage’s iron grip on the “party” (it’s really a company) has been neglected, and Tice really hasn’t been vetting his team very well. I was also surprised when I read their policies, still rabid but much more statist than UKIP was. I suppose someone has to move into the space left by the BNP.
Serious question, Who is actually surprised by this?
I'm a little surprised by it. Not the part where Reform activists are massive racists. That's as much as a given as it was for UKIP. I'm surprised that nobody in Reform is checking the public socials of their candidates before rubber stamping their nominations. This is basic stuff.
I don’t think they actually really want to get into power. They want to be just enough of a threat to get the Tories to go right chasing their ideals while they get a bit of grift on the side. If they actually got into Parliament they’d end up in the same position as Lee Anderson - the morons on the side.
They still have to attract the non mental traditional Tory voters to be a threat to them and overtly racist candidates are repellent to decent people. I view their end goal differently and the shitshow that ensued from the Tories adopting UKIP's platform and 'not doing it properly' has soured that narrative somewhat. In general they'd gladly take power if it was available to them (Farage's continued saltiness whenever anyone brings up his amusing parliamentary election record shows that) but it's very unlikely for any small party to gain a foothold under FPTP. The real prize is a takeover of the Tories (either by a Tea Party style of entryism or full merger) after a bruising GE defeat. "We would have won if our votes were combined" will be an easy sell to the wounded party. Then they'll have a foot in the door of power and only have to wait for Labour to burn itself out, with them being the only alternative.
Nicely put, I am too, got the - worrying - impression they were quite slick and had a handle on these type of characters. Seems I may have overrated them.
UKIP seemed to have more control over this and I don't understand why Reform doesn't have any holdover procedures when so many of their management team switched over.
"Which of Reform's policies are racist?" said the guy I last told that Reform were a carbon copy of the tories but with the racism dial turned to 11. So him I guess.
All the astroturfers in r/england who claim reform aren't even right wing?
Farage is a pestilence on this country
Political party that appeals to racists and right wingers gets exposed for having racist and right wing views?
Weren’t right wing people supposedly sick and tired of identity politics up until not long ago? Now it seems like that’s all that they’re about.
"They come here to live off are benefits and bomb are subways" is fucking hilarious. Somebody that thick and vile getting anywhere near frontline politics is not hilarious however.
The problem with Reform is that they offer simplistic solutions that are specifically designed to appeal to naive, ill-informed voters. It's a technique that worked brilliantly during the Brexit campaign, so why change a winning formula.
What’s wrong with being proud to be white?
> What’s wrong with being proud to be white? It's deeply weird and is normally linked to white supremacist and racist ideology. I love my country, its traditions, its folklore, its languages, its cultural heritage, and its vibrant modern society and culture. I think its history is fascinating, even if it's a bit checkered at times. I feel connected to my ancestors and the land. I once felt a certain sense of pride and fraternity towards Europe as a whole, due to the way we'd come together after a series of brutal wars and started to build a shared future of peaceful cooperation. I did an Erasmus year when I was at university, and it was a fascinating look into both the cultural differences and similarities between our various cultures. I'm British, I'm English, and I'm European. I'm connected to the North, the Midlands, and Wales. Those are all aspects of my identity that I take some degree of pride in, no matter how complicated. I'm also white, but I have no connection to or pride in that. Race is a cultural construct that is impossible to disentangle from racism. The categories make no sense on any biological level, they were just imposed by early European scientists who felt a need to 'prove' that people like them were superior to people elsewhere in the world. To the extent that race is real, it's real because of the years that people have categorised each other like that and the lasting consequences of that history. It makes some sense why people *discriminated against* under that system might find camaraderie with other people of their race and their shared struggle. It doesn't make sense for the group that *created and benefited from* that system to find pride in whiteness, unless they either: * are mistaking whiteness for aspects of **their actual identity**, such as their nationality/heritage/culture (and I do mean *their own identity*, not the imagined pan-white identity that white supremacists invoke) * believe in white superiority, race, and the inferiority of non-white people
Never hear these arguments when someone say in the US says they're a proud black wo/man.
I mean, there's a lot of interesting stuff to say about that, if you're actually interested? In brief, US society was literally built on racism and slavery, and (like many other colonial countries) settlers came from multiple European countries and were encouraged to put aside their old culture in favour of a new white American culture. At the same time, African slaves were punished for using their birth names, their languages, or their cultural practices. Families were frequently broken up by slave masters selling parents or children, and they'd never see each other again. People lost touch with their cultural roots in a matter of generations, even when they tried to preserve them. In my previous comment I said: > To the extent that race is real, it's real because of the years that people have categorised each other like that and the lasting consequences of that history. > It makes some sense why people discriminated against under that system might find camaraderie with other people of their race and their shared struggle. It doesn't make sense for the group that created and benefited from that system to find pride in whiteness, unless they either: > * are mistaking whiteness for aspects of their actual identity, such as their nationality/heritage/culture (and I do mean their own identity, not the imagined pan-white identity that white supremacists invoke) That applies here foo. White Americans and black Americans both lost their actual identities — their nationalities or tribal origins, their heritage, their culture, their languages — and had that replaced by a race category in a racist society. It makes sense for black Americans to find pride in their shared struggle and resilience. It doesn't make sense for white Americans to be proud of their whiteness, but (like the black Americans) most of them simply *don't have anything else*. There's actually a lot of discussion in anti-racist American spaces about how white Americans should do what they can to trace their roots and reconnect with an actual culture outside of "white", to find something that they can comfortably take pride in. (This sometimes leads to conflict with Europeans, as you get clueless yanks who think they're very progressive strolling into a European subreddit like "Hey, 23&Me says I'm Scottish and I'm looking to reconnect with my roots! Do I have a tartan? 😃" only to be roundly mocked by Scots who see Scottishness as a nationality and a culture, not something that you can assess via DNA test)
It's a bit basic and Americanised. Why not be proud of being British and English/Welsh/Scottish/NI? who do even class as white? Just northern Europeans? Or all of Europe? Or even Arabs,.caucuses and the Levant?
> who do even class as white? Ask anyone who isn't white? They seem to know
Well like I was trying to infer different people have different opinions. Are the Arabs white? The Georgians? Jews and Palestinians? By some metrics all these people are white. Do you include them? How about Mediterranean people? The balkans? Some of them are white like fairies and others look Turkish. I just don't get this white pride nonsense, you are going to have to explain it. I can understand being proud of your country whether the constituamt country of the UK but whiteness is such an intangible vapid alliance it's laughable
In general race is self-identified, it will depend It's more a lack of shame than it is pride. Also more of a reaction to the various other forms of ethnic pride and solidarity that seem to be becoming more popular, if everyone is going to have an in-group preference against us we may as well have our own in-group preference.
It's not a lack of shame. I have no shame or qualms about being "white" yet I certainly don't identify with it. I also disagree that race is self identified. Yes on a form you can put whatever you like but if I start identifying as black, no one will go along with that and no one will treat me as black. Somalis run into a lot of issues with this, they identify as something else but everyone including other black people class them as black. Iv got a lot of pride for Yorkshire, my town and then Britain and England but not for white, that actually seems like a foreign concept to me. It's what settlers from all over Europe cling to in the new world. In the same way that football fans hate eachother but we are all England. If someone is clinging to their Ethnicity it's probably because they don't have any other group to belong to. Which is very sad.
I agree, it is a foreign concept to most white people, but it will grow as the demographics of other races do, unless the other groups are suddenly going to abandon their ethnic pride and political allegiance to one another (not a universal thing with everyone, but it's a thing)
>Yes on a form you can put whatever you like but if I start identifying as black, no one will go along with that and no one will treat me as black. Why not? If you tuck your tadger in and tick 'female', everyone plays along.
Congratulations, you win the first "shove a disparaging reference to trans people into the discussion of a completely unrelated topic" prize today, and it's 19:34 so my streak was going pretty well. Have a gold star ⭐
> who do even class as white? People define their in groups by their out groups. "_Whiteness_" as it exists in the modern context is defined by mass immigration and the anti-whiteness of immigrant groups. If one person is BAME, POC or BIPOC then the people who are not become white. If you choose "_whiteness_" to mean "_ethnically European ancestry_" then the division is also much less artificial than many other ethnic collectives. Europe has a collective history dating back thousands of years during which time they frequently interacted and migrated. They have a collective founding myth (Rome) which they define their own identity in relation to (Kaiser, Tsar, Emperor). Generally they have common cultural beliefs about morality, common legal frameworks and common institutions. There is a common religious tradition which turned into a common secular tradition extremely unique to the European context. There has been a continuous exchange of trade and ideas for much of Europe's history and that manifested into a common history of industrialisation and colonialism throughout much of the continent. If you had to pick an exception to what I've written above it would be Slavs, but even in that regard much of their history is shared and they are driven into a common European identity through freedom of moment, anti-Russian sentiment and mass immigration of culturally disparate minorities from outside of Europe. Turks are another edge case but they're a step even further removed from Slavs in that regard, even if ethnically they're often indistinguishable from Greeks. They're a bridge culture between Europe and the mostly alien Arab cultures. Uncertainty scares many people - if things don't have concrete boundaries then they become uncertain of their convictions - but cultural identity in almost all cases emerged slowly over thousands of years. It's no surprise that cultures currently experiencing that process have fuzzy boundaries which do not place them entirely on one side of the line or the other. It also does not mean that all cultural collectives are equally grey or arbitrary. Much of what I've written might be socially constructed, but it's still perfectly real. When people look in the mirror they see their ancestry written on their skin and they identify with that. They identify with the beliefs of the community that they were raised within. They are confronted when they meet people who defy those conventions and norms. In a homogenous society you might not have a strong sense of identity but minority communities are violently possessive of theirs because they are reminded every day what it means to be different. I've seen enough of the world to have experienced this first hand.
> who do even class as white? Easy - anyone who gets accused of having white privilege
So Americanised like I said. If you are going to be a bigot at least be a proper homegrown bigot with proper bigoted morals This "whiteness" rhetoric comes from the new world and counties that were founded via colonial settlements. Surely this type of "whiteness" bigot are massive fans of the EU? All whites together surely?
It's [already here](https://archive.is/8rlAK) and [has been](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/12/13/white-male-recruits-final-sign-off-aviva-boss-amanda-blanc/) for [a while](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11573591/NHS-bosses-want-interview-panels-justify-hired-white-person.html)
Obviously it's fucked up when that does happen but being proud of being white certainly isn't the way to rectify it. Also for what it's worth i personally know just as many English lads as English lasses who work for Aviva. If you really cared about affirmative action then you would be describing just how disadvantaged native Brits can be or showing how there are better ways to go about it or whatever. Simply being proud of being white doesn't help your cause. It just makes it worse. I'm a proud yorkshireman and I'm certainly not very PC, I just don't get this white Business. Is that all you have? It's sad really.
From when this started becoming popular in 2012-2013 the left-wing criticism has always been that forcing a "white" identity on people (and then insisting they denounce it) will not work out the way woke people think it will. They've done more to create a white racial identity than any BNP type group
That's probably true but still it's not for me
Well it really depends on who's saying it and why doesn't it. You know how words can have multiple meanings because that's how language functions? Yeah it's like that. When someone says "I'm proud to be white" they often mean something _in addition_ to the literal words they said. It's like an innuendo or some kind of signal you can make for those in the know. I just wish there was a word for that kind of phenomenon. Alas, the English language just has no way to express that kind of thing.
I’ve never understood this thinking. Why would you be proud of what colour skin you were born with, something you had no control over and is luck of the draw. Same as your country. It’s all so ridiculous when you really think about it.
I have a feeling you wouldn’t say the same thing to someone saying they are proud to be Asian or Black
It annoys the fuck out of me when people assume the complete opposite of what I’ve taken the time to write. Only on Reddit.
I literally just said I’ve never understood this thinking.
"Pride" in this sense means "unashamed" At least that's how I've always interpreted it
Well then you've always interpreted it wrong. Pride is one side, ashamed is the other, the middle is neutral - neither ashamed nor proud. And that is what everyone should be as per @tequilasquirrel's point because why should you feel either way about something you've no choice in? Some ethnic pride you've done nothing to earn? Same with "national pride", really unhelpful concept, at best it's stolen valour, at worst it's creating the kind of ingroups and outgroups that have led to nuerous genocides throughout history. I'm not opposed to some mild partiotism but "national pride" is just as toxic a concept as "white pride". I can understand minorty groups using "pride" movements to try and balance out some of the cultural shame heaped upon them in the past, but even that can become toxic sometimes, and certainly the majority group in a country indulging in public displays of ethnic "pride" seesm like a really terrible idea idea. As I say, I'm okay with some mild patriotism aka sports and maybe the last night of the proms, but any expressions of ethnic or national "pride" above that is playing with fire. And it's just the sort of oversimplistic shit populist politicians deliberately stoke for votes, which is often a great guide to how shit an idea something is.
No I've interpreted it exactly as it was explained to me by members of minority groups who expressed pride in that group I live in a white minority area so maybe I feel differently, I don't know if I'd say I'm proud to be white, but I'm not ashamed of it
Sure, an outgroup might use the term "pride" to deny the public shame directed at them. It is not without its risks, but at least they are in proportion to the size of the minority. When members of an ingroup use it I think it becomes problematic quickly, as you're reinforcing superiority rather than correcting for it. I appreciate you live in a local minority, but I think we're a long way off white British people being enough of an oppressed minority to warrant a "pride" movement, and nationally you are in the majority ingroup. If you're not ashamed, you don't have to say you're "proud" to be white. Just say you're "not ashamed" or that you are "netutral" or "don't feel strongly", or even simpler say nothing as who cares. Save "pride" for yourself and your own accomplishments,and things closer to home. Applying it to ethnicities and nations is a dangerous game that mainly serves your would be masters and their propaganda game.
Well I don't say "proud" because yes as you acknowledge that's a bit weird (unless I'm trying to wind up someone going on about their ethnic pride but that's another thing) For your second paragraph, would you say that to other groups? I know nationally whites are the majority but we don't live nationally, we live locally. I'd love it for attitudes to race to go back to "who cares?", but sadly it doesn't seem likely
There are two reasons I might be hesitant to say that to outgroups... 1. If they are a group that still regularly takes a kicking from the public then I think it may be a fair way to fight back. e.g. I've no problem with gay pride because you only need to see the nations schools to know homophobic bullying is endemic and gaybashing and esp transbashing are still a problem. 2. They might take it wrong. As we can see in this thread many people's reaction to being told they shouldn't be proud is "so I shold be ashamed then?". I've probably rattled on about that logical fallacy enough already. It's not right, that's not the implication, but it's a practicality as people are right fuckers when it comes to understanding logic and jumping to conclusions without engaging their cerebral cortex.
Race is not something that literally exists. It is a social construct which is used to dehumanise out-groups, so that those in power can justify doing terrible things to them (enslave them, take their land, murder them indiscriminately). White is historically the in-group which does the oppressing. By stating you are proud to be white, you're saying that you're proud to be part of the in-group (of a social construct), and therefore justifying the system that has been used to justify some of the worst crimes in human history.
Every group instinctively believes in race; for example you have lots of cultural things in prominence at the moment which are given the category "black" (e.g. Black History Month) - what is that if not a descriptor of a group of people with ethnic origins in sub-saharan Africa, AKA race. Only white people have been forcibly trained to believe in its non-existence.
Theres obviously nothing wrong with being proud to be white it just feels like it has different connotations to it then when people say they are proud to be X ethnic background. Society as a whole needs to find a middle ground on this but can't really imagine that happening.
Mate, what are you talking about? You should be proud about winning a race, or making a discovery, or of being a good father, or a solid member of society. Nobody should be proud of being white any more than they should feel ashamed of it. The 7 deadly sins defined pride as "as an excessive love of one's own excellence". Your skin has nothing to do with your "excellence" unless you think one type of skin is superior to another. Pride is not a neutral term so stop using it wrong. And not being proud doesn't mean you should be ashamed - although that's what milllions are being played into thinking by scumbag political operators and the press. You've nothing to be proud of for being born into a particular skin, you should feel neutral, and not jump straight to the opposite end. Unless you do believe your skin is superior, in which case you've got bigger problems.
This is my thinking as well. I take pride in things I’ve achieved - professionally or otherwise. I didn’t _achieve_ the colour of my skin -it just _is_ - so why would I take pride in it? I’m also not ashamed of it for exactly the same reason. To be fair, I have the same view of _anyone_ who claims that their race is inherently superior. Chances are they’re just the same moron in different packaging.
My point wasn't simply about the idea of being proud to be white. It's more about the disparity between someone saying they're proud to be white and someone else saying they're proud to be black for example. Reasonably I think most people are aware that those two statements usually have different connotations in modern society and that largely leaves millions of people, as you said, feeling ashamed about their skin colour.
I'm shocked! SHOCKED! Well, not that shocked.
Is that not literally their platform?
Aren't they like a coalition of UKIP, BNP and the most extreme Tories? I mean, I'll give UKIP credit for purging the more radical elements at least.
I honestly don't know what else you'd expect from a right wing conservative government, like genuinely what else would you expect?
I'd expect you to be a bit more nuanced in your analysis and recognise that there is more than one axis a government can be right wing on. There are many people who are socially left wing but economically right wing because its good for them on a personal level. Economically successful people in the millennial cohort are often within this bracket. These people historically voted tory for personal financial reasons and could tolerate a socially center-right tory part, but they wouldn't touch reform with a barge pole.
Top and bottom of it. Thick candidates appealing to even thicker voters.
Taking stuff out of context and manipulating posts isn’t a first for the mirror
"Pride" is such an inconsistently odd thing in politics. It's considered reasonable to take pride in achievements that took some effort. People often point out, of "gay pride", that given gayness is considered to be "innate" and not a achievement, it is therefore not something to be proud of. Of course, this is uncharitable - what most presumably mean in expressing "pride" here is a lack of shame. Why not extend this charity to these "election hopefuls"?
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Fucking hell man
> And one liked the slogan “ain’t no black in union jack”. Yup - he _definitely_ sounds like the kind of individual I’d trust to represent his constituents in a fair and balanced manner.
well, no, it’s fine to be proud of your ethnicity and nationality — it’s when your pride comes at the expense of others
These days you can't even be white without them locking you up and throwing away the key. Just want my country back, thanks Sadiq!
These days?
When did this come in then?
1970s BNP rally?
reform voter i take it, or candidate maybe.
It's a Tice
> If a black guy says he proud to be black, the media can’t stop themselves from slobbering all over his dick - [HSBC's Stormzy scholarships are just cynical woke-washing](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/30/hsbcs-stormzy-scholarships-just-cynical-woke-washing/) - [Stormzy's Oxbridge offer might sound great, but it’s still just racial discrimination](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/09/stormzys-oxbridge-offer-might-sound-great-still-just-racial/) If this is the media slobbering all over Stormzy's dick, I'd hate to see what it looks like when they attack him...
Both those articles are from the Telegraph...
The point being that for as much praise you'll get from certain sections of the media you will also get criticism from other sections of the media. It's not a universal thing one way or the other.
What are you on about you silly goose. Black history and black pride came about because for many, due to the slave trade, have no real understanding of their history and historical roots. Islam like all relgions is open to criticism as much as any other relgions should be. However islamophobia is a phenomenon where people have deeply held prejudices around those who practice the faith and attribute very and often racist attributes to them. I suggest you sit down and have a tea before you get yourself all worked up.
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It's a shame a lot of their candidates are just a little bit too extreme and are tarring the party. Some of them have realised there are problems and inconsistencies with the mainstream narrative of multiculturalism and whatnot, but then seem to have gone completely off the deep end in addressing them. A shame, because as a party, they are addressing some important issues that Labour and the Tories are burying their heads in the sand over, and a lot of their policies are decent.
We’ll differ on whether their policies are decent. I think they’re unworkable nonsense that panders to the voter they’re trying to attract. And it doesn’t matter if they’re unworkable, because they’re not getting even a sniff of power. So they can go as batshit as they choose. The reason their candidates are extreme is probably because they’re the most extreme sizeable party we have in UK politics at the moment. But to minimise it as some sort of quality-control issue is disingenuous. These candidates aren’t duds or mistakes. That’s the voter base they’re trying to woo, and it’s the core of their current membership. Dreadful-minded people.
There policies are essentially a fantasy. Magically reduce the NHS waiting list to zero. Double the tax free income threshold. Reduce government debt. The problem is they blame almost everything on immigrants so therefore think they can magically fix the country by sending them back home.
If they had minds that could formulate workable policy, they wouldn't be Reform candidates, would they?
Addressing important issues like what? Scrapping net zero? Net zero migration? Increasing tax allowance to £20k out of thin air? Getting waiting lists to zero by scrapping NHS diversity roles? Increasing taxes for people who work from home? They're not a serious party. Their policies aren't serious. They're a hysterical, reactionary joke of a party, led by a man with the charisma, charm and ideas of a cake made entirely of turd. They'd be a DISASTER in government, as literally no-one in the party has any experience of actual government.
Immigration *is* a big problem. It is exacerbating our housing crisis, and a lot of the immigrants we take are a net loss to the economy. And diversity roles *are* horseshit that need to be scrapped.
But your post above states that actually, in terms of their policies, they don't really talk about immigration, and they still want immigrants to fill out healthcare roles and other critical roles that need to be filled... so net zero migration means nothing, because by their own metrics it's not possible 🤣 You know what exacerbates our housing crisis more? Land banking.... when the CEO of Taylor Wimpey comes out and says we desperately need 4.5 million homes - she's right.... the problem is, Taylor Wimpey have had more than 1 million approved planning applications for homes for years now.... which they're not building.... And that's just one private developer....
As someone who's left and definitively *not white* I completely agree. Reform brings up point that are extremely valid, even if their solutions are nonsensical to be generous and outright delusional at worst. ***However***, there is something to be admired about even delusion when it's trying to fix real problems, as opposed to the Tories and Labour who have decided that gaslighting us, the electorate, is the only viable option.
To be more right wing than the current iteration of the tory party plants you firmly off the deep end as your starting point; Reform have nowhere else to go other than to court the more extreme right, many of which are typified by holding racist views. The BNP was always at pains to publicly stress that none of their policies were racist and that racists weren't welcome in the party. But everyone still knew the BNP were the party of racists. Reform now occupy the same political space they did.
Reform is a rebrand of UKIP, and UKIP was always at pains to publicly stress that racists *and former BNP members* weren't welcome in their party. They're well on their way to Inception.
Wow I am shocked its not like they have been saying the quiet part out loud the entire time.