How do Catholics vote outside the US? Especially in the UK

[EmilyAlexandra]

The absolute devotion I see on this forum to the Republican Party is not something I can comprehend.

And maybe most voters in Canada are like us, that is why both parties are rather centrist, whereas in the US because most people are so committed to one party the parties are such polar opposites.

I think it’s fair to say that American politics is generally speaking more ideological than politics in many other countries, especially within the English-speaking world. In the UK, for example, Conservative governments between 1951 and 1974 essentially continued the policies of the Attlee government (the so-called “post-war consensus”). Arguably, Attlee himself was in fact continuing a trajectory established by the wartime coalition. Despite their policies of privatisation, Thatcher and Major left the NHS more or less as they found it. Thatcher, in turn, described Tony Blair as her greatest achievement. Indeed, historians of Thatcher’s government now believe that “Thatcherism” was not so much an ideology as a retrospective description. Monetarism, for example, was actually a Labour policy. Our Conservative chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has been responsible for unprecedented government spending during the present crisis.

Sadly the Conservative Party isn’t much different on social issues now, also to the left

One shouldn’t confuse the left with liberalism. Michael Portillo and Alan Duncan, for example, were both rather right-wing Conservative MPs who were also socially liberal. Duncan is openly gay; Portillo admitted to having had a relationship with a man before he married his wife. Indeed, Thatcher herself was something of a contradiction. Publicly, she pursued anti-gay policies, while she was in private remarkably tolerant of homosexuals. She also supported legal abortion.

I couldn’t see the Labour Party ever allowing somebody truly Catholic in it, at least not these days.

One example that comes to mind: Mary Glindon, MP for North Tyneside, a Catholic, vice chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group.

 

[umamibella]

I am trying to digest your stance on the IRA. I would like to ask if you condone the physical force and violence the IRA have done in the past. Didnt they bomb Lord Mountbatten for one.
I am in Australia and being of my age, have known people escaping the troubles or escaping the grip of the IRA.

 

[EmilyAlexandra]

Probably just reflects the bitter political polarization in the US generally at the moment rather than anything uniquely catholic.

I have an American friend (who is a Catholic) here in London who tells me that the Democratic Party is communist. Her family came to US as refugees from the Eastern Bloc in the 1950s, and she always says that she has to be a Republican because of her family background. I have tried explaining to her that Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter were not exactly allies of the Soviet Union, but to no avail. Indeed, she has often inveighed against Eisenhower for his craven failure to take the United States into a war with the Soviet Union. She is always proud to remind me that one of her somewhat distant cousins was killed in the Vietnam War, but seems oddly unaware that the war was largely prosecuted by Democratic administrations. In my experience, it is indeed rather difficult to have a reasonable discussion with somebody whose views are so extreme that she believes that Joe Biden is a communist. Even more oddly, she is unstinting in her admiration for Tony Blair, an actual socialist.

Didnt they bomb Lord Mountbatten for one.

The IRA did indeed murder Lord Mountbatten of Burma together with his 14-year-old grandson Nicholas and Paul Maxwell, a 15-year-old member of his crew. Their justification for doing so was that he was a member of the House of Lords and hence a legitimate military target. This is disingenuous, as being a member of the upper house of legislature clearly does not make somebody a legitimate military target. I assume that they have never tried to justify the murders of the children.

I am in Australia and being of my age, have known people escaping the troubles or escaping the grip of the IRA.

It is obvious that, should there be a resumption of violence, the brunt of it will be borne by the people of Northern Ireland.

 

[umamibella]

I met two people in the outback, a young couple who had escaped the troubles of Israel. They were so traumatised by them they could not speak of them except to say that was why they were in the middle of nowhere in a foreign land.

 

[PickyPicky]

I am trying to digest your stance on the IRA. I would like to ask if you condone the physical force and violence the IRA have done in the past. Didnt they bomb Lord Mountbatten for one.
I am in Australia and being of my age, have known people escaping the troubles or escaping the grip of the IRA

I’m afraid we’re in danger here of rehearsing a thousand years of Irish and British history. This forum is unlikely to provide a useful space for it.

 

[umamibella]

I’m afraid we’re in danger here of rehearsing a thousand years of Irish and British history. This forum is unlikely to provide a useful space for it.

nah, I am not asking that, just a simple question in an effort to understand.
We have probably all seen ‘Sunday, bloody Sunday’

 

[PickyPicky]

nah, I am not asking that, just a simple question in an effort to understand

Well, on your own head be it!

 

[umamibella]

Well spoken!

 

[Inquisitor85]

I’m perfectly fine with a united Ireland and I am under no illusions of the violence committed against unarmed civilians by British armed forces. However I remember the Omagh bombing, the Arndale bombing and I was in Warrington on the 20th of March 1993. If they aren’t terrorist attacks, what on earth are they?

First what it’s worth most Catholics will vote like pretty much everyone else in the UK, geographically. Rural areas typically vote Conservative, the fox hunting ban will keep that in place for a long time. Major cities typically vote Labour. The former “red wall” of large former industrial towns largely switched to Conservative in 2019 “to get Brexit done” which is the defining wedge issue in UK politics.

If you take where I live as an example, i live in the Liverpool City Region, there are 17 constituencies of those 16 are Labour and 1, Southport, is Conservative. Within the City of Liverpool’s 4 constituencies none of the Labour MPs have a vote share of less than 72%.

Oh and incase you were wondering, Southport is pretty much the wealthiest district in the LCR.

 

[PickyPicky]

First what it’s worth most Catholics will vote like pretty much everyone else in the UK, geographically

Yes, but that’s surely only because (and where) geography and class overlay eachother.

 

[Inquisitor85]

Hmm, somewhat, although London is by far and away the richest city in the UK, and is predominantly Labour. Whereas the one of the most deprived areas in the UK, Clacton (which incorporates the infamous Jaywick) is reliably Conservative with 72% (ish) of the vote in 2019. Whereas deprived areas in the North of England typically vote Labour, if we exclude 2019 as an outlier.

Maggie Thatcher is typically despised by virtually everyone in the major towns and cities along the M62 corridor, but is held in extremely high esteem by those in more rural districts like Tatton.

 

[PickyPicky]

Hmm, somewhat, although London is by far and away the richest city in the UK, and is predominantly Labour

I don’t know about “predominantly”, since London has within recent times elected a Conservative as mayor. There are, of course, rich areas and deprived areas in London, and they tend to go the same way as rich and deprived areas elsewhere.

Of course there has been a strengthening trend in recent years of working class support for the Right (in the UK as in the US), resulting among other things in the election of the current incompetent governments in both places. We shall see whether that lasts. In the UK there has also always been, of course, support for Labour among a broadly intellectual part of the middle class.

 

[PickyPicky]

That’s the truth of it.

What we can hope for is a resolution, and that it will be as lacking in mess as possible.

 

[umamibella]

Thanks for replying, mine is a genuine serious question. I wanted to know from your own perspective.
IRA Irish Republican Army, 20th Century era.
I was not planning to go down the road of the ‘how can you justify …’

Do you see Sinn Fein today as the same Sinn Fein as then?

 

[Bluebright]

Well I have commented on here how narrow the voting discussions are because it’s all American and is very much ‘it’s a sin if you vote for this person who supports abortion etc.’ Which it can’t be since all British politicians support the NHS which supports abortion and if as you say they are catholic, it’s in name only as they don’t act like it. In actual fact Boris Johnson is catholic too though of course not practicing. Anyway back to voting, it’s a horrible and awful experience. I do not support any one party at all and think they are all awful and try to vote for the least awful one at the time. I have a disability so my ability to research and understand all those matters is limited both by fatigue and a struggle to understand all their jargon. But I try and do my best, mostly reading online and getting others to help me and of course prayer. There is no right answer.

 

[Inquisitor85]

Thing is this can flip easily, according to IS/AQ ideology then 9/11 or 7/7 are “military operations”, you ok with that? I’d also point out that if the IRA had continued with its mid nineties campaign, the UK government would have got enough public support for a full clampdown. Keep killing enough children and you’ll rapidly lose public support.

 

[F_Marturana]

I was curious, which political party today in Italy is closest to the old Democrazia Cristiana?

 

[Bluebright]

If you are Baptised a catholic you are a Catholic, you can’t change that any more than you can change your DNA…just because he calls himself an Anglican (if he does) does not make it so. God makes us Catholic, us mere mortals cannot change than.

 

[brown_bear]

In Italy there are dozens of parties, but among those that have at least 2% of the votes, in my opinion none remembers Democrazia Cristiana.

Something of the old DC is found in the “Partito Democratico” (left, former communist) and in “Forza Italia” (right, former premier Berlusconi) but the elements of distinction are such and many as to make a comparison unsustainable in my opinion.

 

[Annie]

Oh…

Silly me!