Joseph Harker: No. I’d go further and try to avoid all Blairites and Lib Dems too

Laura Pidcock, I salute you! The recently elected Labour MP for North West Durham says she has “absolutely no intention of being friends” with Tory MPs because she feels “disgusted at the way they’re running this country”.

It’s not the kind of language we are used to hearing from our politicians, who for years have happily supped with each other, referred to each other as “honourable members” and in all seem to have attended the same Oxbridge colleges. So it’s heartening to hear a Labour MP say that, because although she will obviously work with the blue side of the Commons, at the end of the day she won’t be socialising with any of them. “The idea that they’re not the enemy is simply delusional when you see the effect they have on people,” she told the Skwawkbox website.

I don’t have a non-Tory rule about my friends; but I simply can’t imagine having a close relationship with a person who believes the strong have no obligation to help the weak, and who isn’t concerned about the atomised, self-centred, me-me-me society that has developed since Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979. I see Tories as working to support, wittingly or otherwise, a privileged elite, and opposing any attempts to rebalance inequality.

Yes, there are exceptions: some people are simply apolitical, voting Tory because that is the overriding message they get from the established media. Others, who I have more respect for, are those racial minorities who believe in self-reliance as a way of overcoming inequality rather than depending on unreliable white liberals: there is a strong conservative ethic within African, Caribbean and Asian communities that still endures despite the harsh realities of Tory Britain.

Yet, the party that gave us Peter Griffiths’ “nigger for a neighbour”, Thatcher’s “swamping”, Norman Tebbit’s cricket test, Michael Howard’s “are you thinking what I’m thinking”, David Cameron’s fantasy immigration targets and Theresa May’s nationalist, anti-Europe posturing should repulse anyone from a minority background.

In fact, I’d go further than Pidcock, and try to avoid all those who have cemented the Torification of Britain since Thatcher: the Blairites who embedded her policies in their 13 years in power, allowed inequality to grow and let the banks get off scot-free when they almost bankrupted the country, and the Lib Dems, who propped up Cameron’s government for five years and gave austerity the green light.

It may leave me with a smaller social circle, but then, it’s always good to know who your friends really are.

• Joseph Harker is the Guardian’s deputy opinion editor. He is a former editor and publisher of the weekly newspaper, Black Briton, and was previously assistant editor at the Voice

‘There are very few of us who don’t find ourselves working, living and playing alongside people with different political views.’

Photograph: Alamy

Sonia Sodha: Yes. I see a big difference between being motivated by ruining people’s lives, and being misguided

Would I be friends with a Tory? For me that’s not a hypothetical question: I can count several people who vote Conservative – or are active within the party – among my friends.

People have the right to define their own friendship boundaries. I couldn’t bring myself to like someone who I genuinely believed was driven by the desire to do wicked and evil things. But I don’t think there are many people who fall into this category, regardless of their political affiliation.

I wouldn’t actively seek out the friendship of senior Conservative ministers enthusiastically pushing an austerity agenda to the detriment of people’s lives. But I’d certainly be more than open to friendship with, for example, a Conservative MP who I knew was arguing against the worst of austerity and Brexit behind the scenes. Not only are they a far cry from evil,they’re vital in getting that argument heard within their own party. It’s not a route to social change that I’d personally choose, but I’m glad there are people doing it.

I suspect we pick and choose our friends less than we would like to think. Friendships arise organically as a result of realising you like and care about someone you’re acquainted with, and there are very few of us who don’t find ourselves working, living and playing alongside people with different political views – MPs included. I wouldn’t filter my friends according to which political camp they put themselves in because I see a big difference between being motivated by ruining people’s lives, and being (what I see as) misguided.

I don’t always succeed, but I try to value the perspectives of friends who think differently to me and accept that sometimes they may be right, and I wrong. Not only is arguing with someone about the big questions more fun if you genuinely like them and believe them to be well-meaning; you’re also more likely to be able to change their minds, and vice versa. At the very least, it helps you understand the perspectives of those you disagree with.

I love and care about people who I think are wrong about all sorts of things – not just politics. Just as I’m sure that a lot of the people who love and care about me think there are certain things about which I’m deluded. That’s surely one of the beauties of friendship.

• Sonia Sodha is chief leader writer at the Observer