Several months ago I discovered that my brother watched GB News and got a lot of his information from YouTube.

Since then we have avoided talking politics – it’s hard to know that somebody you love supports a political movement that opposes one’s own rights.

This time we talked in more detail. Personally, of course, he fully supports gay rights. He is not a supporter of trans rights, which I find difficult. He told me that a pupil got disciplined for misgendering a trans teacher. I’m not clear on whether this was at his boy’s school or something that he read on social media. I need to check that.

He also used the “I want my country back”, which made my skin crawl.

I was irritated and fearful. What does that even mean? Back from whom? Or back to when?

I made the slip of assuming that he meant Muslims and brown people. I knew that was what he meant but that’s not the same as him saying it, but he caught my assumption – “I never said Muslims”. Later on there really was no doubt that’s what he meant.

He started talking about his kids being the only white kids in the school. “So what?” was my comment.

I said that I wasn’t afraid of immigrants because they’d never hurt me. I was afraid of white men in suits. Section 28. Being bullied at school with teachers finding out very difficult to protect me.

I forgot to mention that it’s white guys shouting homophobic abuse out of car windows. Or that I was once roughed up by a bunch of young white guys as I was leaving a restaurant. These things happened to me – they are not some video from an untrustworthy source.

He’s afraid that immigrants don’t understand consent, and he talked about attacks on women and children, referring to videos he’s seen. I wasn’t clear on where these videos had come from, but I do know that social media and the internet reward you for your activities by presenting more of what you look at and search for.

I also wondered how easy it would be to deepfake a video. The news channels that he gets his information from are not moderated or otherwise quality controlled – is it possible or likely that what he is being exposed to isn’t real?

Then there was the boats – a big thing for him. However, I pointed out that immigration coming via that route is down – and that the far right are turning their attention to the disabled – which are described as benefits scroungers. That worried him because one of his sons is autistic, and the other is likely on the spectrum. It’s not known yet, but they may need more support as they grow older and might have learning difficulties. That worried him.

A few times he said that things were “too woke”. I took a bit of an exception to that: I am proudly woke – I take it to mean kind and considerate. “That’s not what it means,” he said. I think there’s the problem: “woke” has become a term of abuse on the Right where consideration (and sometimes accommodations) are made for other people’s sensitivities and needs above and beyond what they regard as reasonable. From the perspective of a few days after the conversation, I am wondering how that word can be reclaimed and restored? I think that it has become a big black bag to put all the politics of equality into when one doesn’t agree with some (or all) of the rights of others to be treated fairly?

I got a little conspiracy theorist myself. I nearly quoted Cicero at him “quo bono?” (who benefits?) pointing out that Musk and others are weaponising their platforms to push an illiberal far right agenda in order to distract from their obscene wealth. In my opinion, no person should be richer than the State (here thinking of Henry VII and his “the kings my predecessors weakening their treasure made themselves servants to their subjects” observation).

There was agreement there! Interesting.

I said that the desire to remove flags from public buildings upset me because of the safety that they communicate to me. I reflected again on how I felt in Spain seeing the Pride flag and why I feel that’s important.

From that, I talked about the protest I attended and the lady with the Palestinian flag and the confusion over messaging. Not because I don’t believe that Palestine isn’t an issue to discuss and seek a peaceful resolution to, but because it muddled the message if the protest that I was attending.

That moved into a discussion about Palestine and what happened there to provoke the Israeli response. I gave a bit of a history lesson of the Middle East and the land of Palestine/Judea/Israel and the role of the British in creating the current mess. He seemed to appreciate my knowledge and insights here.

Returning to that “I want my country back” thing – I want the country back if 2012: the year London hosted the Olympics with a celebration of unity and multiculturalism and optimism. Before Brexit and the permissions that it appears to have given people to be racist, misogynist, Islamophobic, trans~ or homophobic.

He recognised that moment, and maybe he agreed with me.

As we talked, it was difficult, but we love each other and this was something we’d avoided – which actually made our relationship less authentic.

It also occurred to me that the apparent polarisation in politics makes political discussion very difficult – so legitimate concerns are not being heard, answered, and addressed.

We both have fears and they should not be dismissed. I know that my brother is a rational human being and he isn’t stupid. I have to hope that I’m not too. He certainly doesn’t want any bad happening to me. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him or his family. Which means that discussion, no matter how difficult, is the only way to stop my family … and my country … from flying apart.

I’m minded of Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequels “this war represents a failure to listen”.