Lifelong Labour voters: how are you feeling?

Thanks @MuggedByReality good old Jenkins!

In the run-up to the 97 election Tony Blair was Labour leader & the party had a big poll lead over John Major’s tories. Blair was given some advice by his mentor Roy Jenkins, a centrist Labour grandee & former Home Secretary.

Jenkins said Blair’s position was like a man carrying a priceless Ming vase across a highly polished floor. The precious vase which mustn’t be dropped represented the prospect of a Labour government after 18 years of the tories. The slippery floor was the political hazard which Blair had to successfully get through without making a massive mistake in order to win. Starmer is now in the same position that Blair was back then, which is why he is so obsessively cautious about screwing up & smashing the precious vase.

This is madness. If people do this it will split the anti Tory vote.

A vote for Green etc is a vote for the Tories.

You have to be cleverer than this!

True. Also we've got Thangam Debonnaire who is pretty ensconced so it'd be a wasted vote tbh!

No danger of that. Labour’s 26 points ahead now.

As a Scot who's currently having to live with the clusterf*ck that is the SNP Govt propped up by the Greens - I would wholeheartedly say you absolutely do not want this.

The Greens are incompetent and unfit for their current role in Govt.

I am tempted to vote Green, in case there's a chance of a coalition...

What is this Ming vase analogy?

Keir is meh and deeply uninspiring but the alternative is worse. So I'll continue to vote tactically (for Labour).

My husband is voting Green.

Both lifelong Labour voters. My husband's is a protest vote essentially.

I’m not risking another term of the Tories. I just can’t do it.

Given the polls I don't think there a chance in hell of another Tory government - they will be lucky to avoid total annihilation.

I suspect it's all more going to be how big the next Labour majority end up being.

Or they could all just tell us what they really think.

I’m guessing he doesn’t want to be accused of being anti semetic

I agree with @CambridgeCat about the Ming vase.

I'm a lifelong Labour voter, apart from 2019 when I abstained in protest at Corbyn's disgusting antisemitism. I wanted Keir Starmer to be leader from the day he was elected as an MP - I don't find him at all dull, I think he is a properly decent man with an excellent track record who will make a good, competent PM. He's inheriting an omnishambles though and I'm worried that one term won't be enough to start turning things around.

Agree with pps who point out that lefties refusing to vote Labour over Gaza shows how insulated those people are from fourteen years of Tory policies. Remember how enthusiastic the British public were about Corbyn's "bold" manifesto in 2019?

On women's rights, I think that's been another Ming vase situation and the Cass Report will give Labour the path back to a sensible position on this issue. The spectacle of Keir Starmer squirming over the trans issue has been awful to behold and I wish he had had the guts to stand up for truth, but I kind of understand why he fudged it.

Then they will definitely be voting that list of MPs out.

I’m hopeful that the Tories will be out at the next election, but not hopeful that anything much will change. There’s absolutely no feeling of optimism at the thought of a Labour government, which I’m sad about.

I don't know how i'm going to vote but I know it won't be labour.

I've resigned my party membership - I cannot vote for a party that cannot agree on what a woman is. They are tying themselves up in knots - i've no respect for the party anymore.

@CambridgeCat but what if the electorate DO have morals?

First and last hopefully - and probably short lived!

Lee Anderson jumped ship @Motheroffourdragons

I am deciding which champagne to save up for, and look forward to getting it chilled ready for October(?)

Those of you saying Tories will win in your constituency so it makes no odds, don't be so sure. I live in Dorries Land. Now Labour. That was a huge majority.

But Kier Starmer, actual human rights lawyer, could have spoken out when it became clear that there's a case for genocide, and could have challenged government over arms sales. Instead he's hedged his bets with a wan call for some sort of ceasefire - the barest of bare minimums. I'm disgusted.

OP you've no doubt heard the Ming vase analogy. Starmer is in a precarious position. We desperately, desperately need a new government and realistically that can only be Labour, but until recently the party was split and utterly toxic, much of the arguments relating to their response to anti-semitism and Corbyn's approach / views surrounding this. It's an absolute minefield for Labour / Starmer and very very difficult to navigate as as soon as he calls out genocide the Tories will cry antisemitism and compare him to Corbyn, say the party hasn't changed and possibly lose the red wall voters who will hear Corbyn being mentioned on repeat.

You might believe he should take a more principled position but realistically at the expense of the election, when he knows he can only affect actual change if he gets elected? He's not going against his morals, he's just trying to tip toe towards the finish line with the vase intact, which ultimately is going to be the more effectual outcome.

He had to discipline them and that idiot Sam Tarry was behaving the way he was out of spite.

I don't agree that they should have been banned from supporting in the first place though but I can also see why Starmer feels like he has to avoid falling into the usual Tory trap. I've just said in my own post that I am trusting that the pandering to the Tory voters is just for the purposes of being elected but I'm starting to be concerned that it may not be.