Originally Posted by
anthonykay
Yes, politics has definitely taken a turn for the worse in the last decade. And it was a decade ago that the Brexit debate was hotting up. The problem is not due to the issues of EU membership; it's how the Brexit campaign was fought.
An example: there was an interview on the radio with two female MP's, one Leave and one Remain supporter, at a time when there was a lot of concern about the abuse that women in politics were getting. The Remain supporter gave a catalogue of the abuse that she had been getting, and then the interviewer turned to the Leave supporter, who said that actually she had got hardly any abuse.
Another example: here in Loughborough we had an excellent Tory MP, Nicky Morgan, who worked really hard for the constituency. But eventually the abuse she was getting from Brexiteers got too much for her, and she resigned at the 2019 General Election (and was quickly sent to the Lords, in recognition of her abilities). She has been replaced by someone who is pretty useless (she had been a Borough Councillor, and that is about the limit of her competence).
So I place the decline in the standard of our politics firmly at the door of Nigel Farage and his cronies in Reform UK, and I am getting quite distressed at the apparent increase in their popularity. It is they who have created the present polarised and abusive conditions, where common sense, decency and competence seem to count for nothing.