It's possible to have good political views and still be an awful person

 Right. I didn't want to have to write about this subject, but the story isn't going away and someone has to say something, so it looks like it's going to be me.

I have quite a lot of friends whom I agree with on absolutely nothing. Some of them have views that I consider horrific actually. There have been times when it's been hard to separate my personal feelings from my political opinions. There have been times that I've lost friends over political disagreements, although it's nearly always been the other person that's cut me off. This is because I actually like talking to people I don't agree with on things. Not only that, but I think it's vital to. I really dislike echo chambers; I find them exceptionally toxic, and although it can be a breath of fresh air to hear someone say something that you agree with, it doesn't always change very much. What changes things is dialogue. I think all of us can remember a time when someone put something so well that it completely changed how we felt about something.

I also think that if someone has bad views, there's always a reason for that. A lot of the time, it eventually comes back to something quite reasonable. A good example of this is the amount of racism that surrounded the Brexit vote in 2016. There was a lot of harmful rhetoric around that 'all these immigrants came over here and stole our jobs, and we want them gone'. This is a racist and untrue statement, and in addition it didn't have the slightest thing to do with EU membership anyway. However, there is still some kind of logic behind it. The people saying it were generally people for whom the corporatist and capitalist system wasn't working (and in truth, it doesn't work for anyone apart from the super-rich). Their grievances, their lack of financial security, their fears for the future, were completely grounded in reality. The only thing that was wrong with how they were feeling was that they were casting the blame for that at the wrong people. But can you really blame someone for coming to this conclusion, when we have politicians who are scapegoating immigrants to take the heat off their own failures, a broadcast media that's letting them get away with it, an education system that doesn't reward any kind of critical thinking and a financial system that relies on working people so hard they don't have the time to stop and consider the truth of what they're being told? On a psychological level, and particularly if they're surrounded by people of the same social class with similar experiences, it is completely natural for someone to come to these conclusions. The establishment knows this; this is why they scapegoat people so much.

I myself voted Remain, but I was quite ashamed by quite a lot of my fellow Remain-voters, because we spent the following three years antagonising Leave voters and calling them ignorant and racist. Far from an organised campaign against racism, this was one of the most profoundly stupid displays of classism I have ever witnessed. More than that, we really shot ourselves in the foot with that, because the result was a very hard Brexit under the most rabidly right-wing Government the UK has had in the whole of its history. We could have used that time productively, by reaching out to people, establishing what they really want (mostly the same as what everyone else wants) and uniting under a mission for freedom, justice and human rights. We didn't do that, we succumbed to the establishment's desire to make this factional, and now we're all in the shit because of it.

What I'm getting at here is that if someone has awful views, a lot of the time it's not really their own fault. As humans, we are a product of our experiences, and we are all susceptible to believing things that are wrong. I've held opinions in the past that I no longer hold, as has I think everyone. This is why I try to create dialogue. If things aren't antagonistic and we can discuss them openly, we can see one another's feelings a lot more starkly and work together to reach a solution. A lot of people with horrible views actually turn out to be amazing and kind people in their personal lives; they just haven't realised how to extend that to their political actions.

But, of course, the opposite is also true. Just as it's possible to have horrible views and still be a good person, it's possible to hold really good strong progressive views and still be an utterly terrible human being. Over the last week, the case of Russell Brand has permeated UK media. I don't really want to go into the actual allegations about him because I don't think it's really my business to - that's a matter for himself, the alleged victims, the courts, the police and social workers, not for the general public. But what I would like to do is share a story that a friend of mine experienced with Russell Brand (reposted with permission):

'Over a decade ago, when Brand had re-branded himself politically, a few friends and I went to see his show (I know, why?!)

He very disappointingly began the show by commenting on women's breasts in the audience- asking the men they were with what sex with her was like and other inappropriate vulgarities. We began to get pretty angry.

When he came out in to the audience to continue this tyrade of sexual remarks, he walked past our aisle so with the encouragement of my friend, I shouted out "less of the mysogyny Russell". He stopped and said, "you what?", and proceeded to push past people's legs in the aisles to come to where I was sat. He straddled me and thrust the microphone from his crotch in to my face. He then asked me something I can't recall amidst attempts to shame and embarrass me in front of the room. I was trying to formulate thoughts but he grabbed the mic away before I could answer and said I was too late. I stood up next to him and covered my mouth with my hand as I felt silenced.

Most of the room bood me for interrupting their evening, blinded by their idolatry of this sexist idiot, but a small part of the room cheered. As he walked away he commented "well she was brave you've got to give her that" or some such comment. My friend was in a few rows back and her and some other audience members were shouting at him whilst he was doing this to me, and I had a message from a woman afterwards who was there with her 2 sons, who were all horrified at how he treated me.

It was an intimidating act, to tower above me like that and shame me in front of a packed out auditorium because I'd challenged him. But I'm really glad I had the guts to do that. If you don't challenge perpetrators, they keep getting away with it. And that's what happened with him. Years of people allowing him to say such utterly vile things about women live on stage/air. His interview with Jimmy Savile says it all.

No amount of attempts by Brand to suggest this is part of a co-ordinated media attack against his quest for truth-telling, can cover up the very words that came out of his mouth and the very behaviour that he himself enacted. I just hadn't realised how awful it was.'

I can't imagine how upsetting it would be to have an experience like this at a show that you've paid to see, at the hands of someone you'd previously respected. I have so much admiration for my friend for speaking out about it.

Russell Brand has always engaged in awful behaviour. I was a teenager when he and Jonathan Ross publicly harassed then 78-year-old Andrew Sachs (who incidentally, was a Jewish refugee during World War II). I garnered a bit more respect for him in the mid-2010s when he aligned himself strongly with the left - but now I'm a little older and more mature, I've come to realise that someone having similar political opinions to me does not mean I have to like them, just as someone having different ones does not mean I have to dislike them.

Because I have more respect for other people's dignity than Russell Brand obviously has, I'm going to assume that he was truly genuine in the progressive opinions that he expressed. I will say that I appreciate the fact that he was involved with the mid-2010s 'youthquake' that led to the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour Party leadership - a youthquake the political establishment is now doing its utmost to undermine. But that does not mean he is a nice person, or a respectful one. Suggesting that someone can't be a sexual predator because they support progressive policies is just as unreasonable as suggesting that someone must be a violent thug because they voted for the Tories. People's political viewpoints are not indicative of their personalities generally, and never have been.

And incidentally, as a progressive person, I actively do not want Russell Brand representing my cause. I think his support is actively harmful to our chances of success. And, being the cynic that I am, I suspect that this may be the reason he was given such a big platform to supposedly promote our cause in the first place - because he's a terrible person, and having him on our team gives the establishment the ability to say, 'Look at the sort of odious individuals the left associate themselves with.'

We don't have to accept it. We don't have to ally ourselves with violent sexual predators just because they believe in the same thing as us. I actually think a lot of the time, it's more important to call people out who are in our own camp - because otherwise, things just get covered up, and coverups are how most political movements fail.

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