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this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
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UK Politics
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General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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yeah, who are your friends, Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage? Labour are left wing, and mostly/usually socially progressive. The problem with labour is that they support some of the same authoritarian things that the conservatives do, like dragnet surveillance. This is due to the sensibilities of the british population, and trying to win votes, which is why they are attempting to further regulate migration and continue with brexit/keeping the UK out of the EU.
My friends are very much progressive and prefer to vote for Labour or Green.
if they are progressive and vote labour or green, how are they saying the progressives are right wing and conservatives left wing?
Probably just a spread of misinformation in that particular circle. The idea was that the meanings were literally inverted.
It could have possibly come from an older time in politics, or maybe started out malicious and just lost its edge.
I tend to be quite trusting, and I tend to refer to political views more as progressive/conservative rather than left/right, so I never really questioned where the idea came from.
educate yourself by reading some unbiased sources.
I get most of my news from Lemmy, but I welcome suggestions.
start here, read the FACTUAL parts of the ideologies listed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Political_Compass#Political_model
check the sources to see if they are credible, but the text should "mainstreamise" your ideas on how to analyse political parties/movements at a basic level.
If you're talking about just flipping left/right back, that's not a big ask and not particularly hard to do.
I just assumed the current use of left/right was Americanised or something, considering how much of the English-speaking internet is American.
I'm fine admitting ignorance and I'm more than willing to learn and course-correct, but I'm not sure why you're being petulant with me. If I was genuinely unwilling to learn anything and bullheaded, I imagine this type of conversation would just make me stubborn to change.
However, that's just my experience when discussing something with people of a differing opinion. I generally find a calm and unemotional approach to be more beneficial for exploring ideas and perhaps changing views, especially so with conservatives, who consider progressives to be emotionally driven.
no, I'm just linking you to somewhere where you can learn more about how people talk about politics etc. I'm done in this thread to be honest