An old school friend recently contacted me asking to meet up, after rarely being in touch over the last two decades. Although I’d like to see him, I’ve seen his online posts announcing that he ran as a candidate for [far-right party] Reform UK, and criticizing ‘toxic ideology in schools’ – presumably referring to LGBTQI+ inclusive education and decolonized history.
It’s hard to square my memories of him with the movement he has aligned himself to, and skating over our political differences would feel like betraying my own values. Should I simply make my excuses – or meet him and argue it out? Or is there something more genuinely productive I can do?
Your letter brought to mind some unlikely political friendships over the years, such as that between veteran left-winger Tony Benn and racist right-winger Enoch Powell. Later, London’s Black socialist trailblazer Diane Abbott made a then-Tory MP, Jonathan Aitken, the godfather to her son, and in Ireland, everyone remembers the post-Troubles bonhomie between republican Martin McGuinness and his ultra-loyalist opponent Ian Paisley. As for the US Supreme Court, liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg used to spend family holidays with conservative justice Antonin Scalia.
Perhaps being in high politics requires keeping an open mind to your opponents’ views, or maybe politicos just get bored of being surrounded by their ideological bedfellows. But it does strike me that many progressive standard-bearers have seen wisdom in maintaining politically plural friendships. It’s now the norm to draw ideological red lines in our own lives, but can we on the left really claim to have benefitted from that process?
While I strongly believe no one should tolerate hate nor fascism, I increasingly worry that by vetting our interpersonal relationships so harshly, we only cause more estrangement and division. We identify into political camps because we want to feel respected and understood in our own circles, but we forget that that’s happening on the other side too, to pretty disastrous effect. These days, when I open X (formerly Twitter) for as many seconds as I can bear, it’s clear that those on the right are radicalizing fast, reinforcing one another’s beliefs while a poisonous algorithm feeds them ever more outrageous ones, without providing a credible progressive counterweight.
So, I hate to ask it, but what if those old politicians and judges had it right? Shouldn’t we try to bridge these gaps, even if it is uncomfortable? Mightn’t this man need a reasonable voice like yours in his ear, reminding him that LGBTQI+ education in schools is a modest corrective to the rabid homophobia most of us remember from our days at school, or that an England-first curriculum will no longer do if we want our children to properly understand the varied world around us? Even if you don’t manage to get him to ditch the turquoise rosette, you may be able to take the sharpest edges off his views, or at least offer a perspective from outside his echo chamber.
There are clearly hard limits to such an approach, chief among them that some people are beyond reasoning with, or have views so troubling that they must only be stigmatized out of polite society. So you must use your judgment. There’s also the question of what this man means to you. Human relationships are highly contextual: many will begrudgingly sit through the right-wing views of a beloved grandparent, but first-date rants about small boats will be a dealbreaker for anyone with a heart. With this old but once-dear friendship, what are you prepared to smooth over?
Don’t be a martyr: I don’t think this man would appreciate a political bust-up over coffee, and I don’t think the coffee shop would either. But if you still care for this person, and could hold true to your convictions in any disagreement, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a catch-up. There’s even an outside chance that you could do some good.
