“I think it’s tragic how we’ve seemingly lost the ability to engage in healthy debate and political discourse without hatred, which is being reflected in Westminster.”

This. People willing to debate based on fact and reason seem on the decline. Name calling can close down a debate, but it can’t win it. If you close down a debate, stuff gets missed.

I am a lefty, due to my work most of my colleagues (some of them friends) are pretty much the opposite.

We can debate political topics and no harm is ever done.

If one of my friends turned out to be a neo-nazi (and I somehow wasn’t aware of it) I would no longer talk to them as don’t want friends like that. In the same way I wouldn’t try to find friends by going to a neo-nazi rally.

It depends.

Some of my friends have different political views to me, but we’re able to discuss politics in a mature and sensible fashion without any histrionics.

However, social media has proved to be divisive for me. An old schoolfriend started posting Britain First related drivel and a couple of others have been sharing stuff that’s blatantly prejudiced. I guess that’s the line in the sand for me. I don’t have much time for people who loudly proclaim an allegiance to a political party but who are unable to articulate exactly why, or describe any policies which they support/oppose.

I’ve often found that my acquaintances’ newspaper of choice is an effective barometer of their capacity for reason.

I’d tend not to be friends with the sort of person that would have a radically different political opinion to me. I am friends with a couple of Conservative voters, but not many and not great friends. Similarly I’m not friends with any brexit voters.

Unfortunately a lot of my mum’s family are the stereotype brexit voters- racist, selfish, ignorant. They are all happy to argue for hours with my immigrant wife about how all immigrants are awful. There’s not much I can do about them, they’re family so I’m stuck with them, but it’ll be our first Christmas in the UK without them this year. We’ve avoided hanging around with them too- while they weren’t the most morally upstanding people for a person with an immigrant fora spouse to hang around with before the referendum it has given them the green light to air their views as they see fit. And I’d rather not listen to them to be honest.

Well I expect most people have friends and family with differing views. Democracy only works because of that, with occasional swapping back and forth between governing parties.

I won’t lose freinds over that.

Being a member of BNP, Britain First, or EDL, and calling me a traitor and being non-patriotic for not realigning my opinions to back the views of the majority is a different matter.

Friend count went down by 2 in late June of this year (although neither were what I call close friends).

Forcing opinions on people is the job of Mugabe, Kim Jong Un, et al. not friends.

Yes I still have freinds that voted the opposite way to me. No I don’t have any Britain First friends (any more).

Clearly this thread is really about Brexit, so here’s my anecdote:

A very old friend of mine, who I’ve known for nearly two decades and was my wife’s chief bridesmaid, voted “leave” in the full knowledge that this was a vote to effectively cripple my business (it’s complicated, but basically if we leave the EEA then at least three quarters of our work will dry up pretty much overnight – obviously it’s not happened yet, although we have taken a few kicks in the teeth already). My wife is too ill to work, I’m the sole earner, so she effectively voted to royally **** two of her oldest friends over. Several others of our group are likely to be very negatively affected by Brexit too, it’s not just us. She can’t even give a coherent reason why she voted that way, she just ‘felt it was right’ or something, and was very upset when most of her mates were shocked and angry with her.

I’ve had misgivings about some of her personal and political views for a few years now, but this confirmed to me that she’s actually changed a lot since we met, and our view diverge so much that I can’t understand her anymore. I would have still counted her as a good friend not that long ago, but I can say that’s definitely not the case anymore. It’s not just the referendum vote informing this, but it was the final factor that flipped my opinion of her. My wife still considers her a friend, I think, so in the interests of harmony I won’t cause any bother, but if I’m civil to her that’s the most I can manage I’m afraid.

My mother-in-law also voted leave, but then she’s got incipient dementia so that’s more understandable…

A friend of mine was very pro Brexit – fine, but I disagree.
He was very anti-immigration – ok, I’m not for completely unlimited immigration.
Then he started justifying this by banging on about Racial IQ.

Haven’t spoken to him since.

If I had any friends to talk to, I probably would, yes.

No, not for differing political views. I quite like discussing different political ideas with friends.

I’d draw the line at extremist views eg racists etc. Funnily enough i have a good few friends on both sides if the brexit argument. Which according to many on STW automatically makes the leave friends raging racist, uneducated Nazis. Which I can assure you they ain’t!

As far as I’m concerned were all entitled to our own views. Often interesting to hear the background to their leanings. Esp when most of your associates are all of a certain demographic/wealth level etc.

Not for having different political views, but if they turned out to be bigots or idiots I wouldn’t want much more to do with them, and that might be reflected in their political beliefs.

I try to avoid arseholes, ie people who do not care about others, and all political groups have those.