If a general election was called, who would you vote for?

But (a) there's obviously a difference between voting for a communist party that stands no chance whatsoever of even getting one MP elected, and voting for a proto-fascist party that is almost certain to form the next government, thereby helping to solidify that certainty.

And (b) communism is not by definition totalitarian. I'd need to know the policies of the party in question, and what exactly they mean by communism, before judging whether they're democratic or not.

I have no idea. I don't want to vote for any of them.

Conservative... mainly because they know I'm a woman...

Just an aside-

And I mean threads move on obv that's cool

Just realised that the sex/ gender thing didn't really get much airtime!

It's interesting though to read.

I find some of the comments so odd.

This board regularly has posters chastising posters for voting Tory usually when no one has said anything to do with that!

The assumption that on this board that will cause doubt in views about sex/gender is bizarre.

Why assume all posters on this board are long term total lefties?

Why think that saying you're 'aligning' with MEANIES will shame posters into compliance with labour including gender > sex?

Why is can't vote for anyone I've always voted labour taken as... I'm totally voting Tory!..????

And anyway aren't we all supposed to be hard right Christian fundamentalists?

It's all a bit desperate tbh.

Geezo, sorry for the essay.

They are introducing photo ID for voting, to solve a supposed problem with impersonation that doesn't exist. Which will likely reduce the number of poor, young, itinerant, migrant etc. people able to vote. Who tend to vote Labour. What a coincidence. As well as overseeing boundary changes to increase the already-existing extent to which the Tories need fewer votes than Labour to win more seats.

I don't know enough about the ID thing. The boundaries are dubious, yes.

They are steadily challenging and undermining various structures that exist to call the govt. to account and provide legal checks and balances upon them. From the electoral commission to the parliamentary standards authority.

Would like to hear more on this, please.

They are interfering with the supposed impartiality of the BBC and getting Tory donors and high supporters into key positions. They already have direct contol over most of the rest of the media, but that's not enough apparently.

Some might say the BBC was previously 'captured' by the left. I actually feel it does a fairly good job of pissing everyone off for most of the time, which is what it ought to do. Also, did they succeed in getting donors into those positions? I thought thingummy's bid had failed?

They are introducing the police crime and sentencing act to place far greater restrictions on the legal right to protest and effectively give police the right to prevent people protesting for the flimsiest of reasons.

The right to protest has been massively undermined since the Iraq war protests, millions marching and no fucking effect. Kettling and other tactics have quashed and hampered and de-toothed our right to protest already. Those were brought in under Labour. So, while I share your concern at a more authoritarian police approach, I don't thikn this is a Tory issue so much as a neo-liberal one.

They have massively abused the power of government to hand publicly funded contracts during the covid epidemic to their own mates, many with no due process of tender or monitoring of value.

Yes. This is straightforward crookery. I don't see that as fascism.

I did say "voting for the DESCENT INTO fasicsm", not that it was actually a facsist government already. But abuse of democratic process to make the government effectively dictatorial without meaningful chance of being removed; the focusing of all power in that government without a meaningful legislature to contain its excesses; government control of the media and dissemination of information; the repression of protest; not to mention the use of minorities (benefit claimants, immigrants) as targets for popular aggression to unite enough of the populace behind them - these are the absolute, classic features of fascism. They are basically the definition of the word.

I think you're mixing some tendencies of neo-liberal/late capitalist societies all up and blaming them on the Tories. I do share concerns about civil liberties and agree they need to be rigorously defended. If only we had an organisation like Amnesty or Liberty who were still actually clear-headed enough to tackle them instead of spending time telling women they are second class citizens with no right to complain.

What would you call it?

Opportunist disaster capitalism?

Also 15, the conservatives have been in government loads.

A LOT of people vote for them.

It's really juvenile to point at ALL those involved in or who voted for them and say BIGOTS. It's the current equivalent of a 6yo saying 'you all smell'.

I recommend a book called 'don't think of an elephant' by George lakoff.

It's about USA but I found it really useful a couple of decades ago to help me with a long-term puzzle I couldn't solve.

IE why do so many lovely people I know vote for a party I see as appalling in every way?

It's was a really difficult question for me. As like you I was very goodies/baddies when I was young.

Bottom line is. You can't effectively oppose those you disagree with if you don't understand why they feel as they do.

Yelling that they are all basically evil is not the best strategy. (And for niche groups who you think basically are evil I'm not sure it's worthwhile even bothering to do that.)

Why shouldn't people vote for who they want?

I mean the Communists aren't going to get s landslide are they! So I mean so what.

Plenty will vote for farage. Nothing you can do about that. And it's up to them isn't it.

I've voted all sorts. I mean I'm in a very safe Tory constituency been Tory i don't know but at least 40 years.

So if I vote for (and given safe seat would have not quite old enough!) the natural law party (anyone remember them?) then that's what I'll sodding well do, thanks.

Really pisses me off when posters do that.

All the people, the history between the countries, the ongoing issues.

To some (a pretty good amount) of people in Scotland, Wales and NI.
To do this is insensitive, ignorant, annoying/enraging and also England/London centric.

Like, you know. The Tories. Who go as far often as forgetting about anything or anyone north of Oxford university.

'Given that it looks like I'm going to have to be governed by bigots for the forseeable future on this strange little island, I'd probably prefer these bigots to the current bigots.'

Just interested in your wording, are you from UK?

Why strange?

And you've forgotten that we are not an island. Also about devolution.

We are more than one island, I mean apart from all the islands in Scotland. Northern Ireland is in UK.

Scotland NI have different political parties in power. Scotland and NI have loads of their own laws etc.

If you're going to throw around bigot, then you really need to NOT overlook that the UK has 4 countries with own culture identities etc and it's really crappy to overlook that.

I'm not aware of ever having said anything to condone it

No you haven’t said anything to condone it. However I think 3 people on this thread have said they are going to vote communist at the next election and you haven’t, afaik, objected to this.

Fifteen.

You have recently reiterated that you know people have different political views.

Given that I posted earlier about this topic attracting loads of women- from different countries, with different politics, backgrounds, beliefs about loads of important topics. Which I think you acknowledge.

Then it's a given there will be women who are/ have been long-term conservative voters.

And voters who are not allied to left or right and go with what they think when it's election time.

And tbh women with no interest in politics one way or the other but are interested in this issue.

Given that, I don't understand why you are so totally pissed off and confused and feel betrayed if any/ many of those women vote Tory.

This issue is about women.

Politics is the board or AIBU if you want to have a good old fashioned row with Tories.

Although to be fair, having had a look at the Reform UK website, I don't actually find them any more offensive than the Tories. I loathe the anti-immigrant rhetoric, but the Tories have fully embraced all that anyway. They have a lot of positive points about reforming the system itself - proportional representation, abolishing the House of Lords etc. - that I strongly agree with. On the key issue of preserving democracy that I mentioned earlier, they're opposite to and far better than the Tories.

Given that it looks like I'm going to have to be governed by bigots for the forseeable future on this strange little island, I'd probably prefer these bigots to the current bigots.

I was just curious - if people could find a party that really, definitely, drew the line against wokedom, identity politics and trans rights: would they take the same attitude of voting for it regardless of what its other policies are.

Are you thinking of a UK equivalent of the Republican party in the US?

@CheeseMmmm - they're certainly not a viable choice for me. But I'm not advocating voting ONLY on the basis of trans rights vs womens' rights and ignoring all other concerns.

Various posters on this thread have said (words to effect that) they don't care about anything that's wrong with the Tories on any other issue. They're the only party with any semblance of sanity regarding womens' sex-based rights, so they will vote for them.

Now, the Tories are not that distinct from other parties on that issue. A bit more "traditional", but it seems to vary a lot from one MP to another. I was just curious - if people could find a party that really, definitely, drew the line against wokedom, identity politics and trans rights: would they take the same attitude of voting for it regardless of what its other policies are.

If not, why not?

I bet there's groups off the mainstream radar who are keen to protect (their) women.

I reckon with a bit of effort I could find a contact or 2. Got TOR etc. And a very very large local network. Someone always knows someone.

Would that be of interest 15? I mean if you'd vote for farage crew you're only s step away from I'm guessing a LOT of groups who like farage thoughts but think don't go anywhere near far enough...

Bloody hell.

Had a look this is farage and co.

You genuinely think they give a flying fuck about women's rights?

Have you got them mixed up with some other people?

If you want to know their views on this then I'm sure you can Google.

I did cos couldn't remember what they about.

Thought georgie g discourteous sex gang but no.

HAVE YOU HAD ENOUGH OF BAD SORTS DESECRATING OUR HALLOWED SHORES?

oh yeah right them.

I'm surprised they should be a viable choice for you. But your vote up to you.

Let us know what you find.

I'm just here for the deletion message

But in loads of 'democratic' countries, it boils down to pick a or b.

In USA the right is to Brits super hard right and the left is right. More or less. Socialism is a dirty word. Frying pan or fire?

A or b is - power stays with one of these two groups that switch who in charge sometimes. You can pick enormously wealthy old white geezer who is A, or enormously wealthy old white geezer who is B. (Exceptions... Very rare).

That's not a system which is responsive and open to anything in the way of serious change. Obviously.

Short of revolution, it's a fixed system.

And as for general public. Big change vv scary. Things trundle on. Wave flags for A/B. Have lots of impassioned bickering all over the place. Get A/B. Illusion of choice.

States have massive leeway to do what the fuck they all like anyway. And wtf courts, supreme court is POLITICAL. Erm...... Ok then

It's all shit.
It's all an illusion.
A bit better for X group. B bit better for Y.

Everywhere... I think pretty much? Not my area tbh.

And the point with this issue is that WOMEN are not really on the radar. Of any of them. Say nice words. When there's loads of bad press/ massive anger from women. Consider a sop to shut them up.

Or not. Nothing done is often the answer even when outrage is massive.

This issue will not get better unless women as a group act. That's to me at least, just a fact.

Out of interest, does anybody know if Reform UK have a policy on trans rights vs women's rights that would be amenable to people here? They seem like the sort of party that ought to.

Would people consider voting for them to put pressure on the mainstream parties to adopt such a policy, in the same way votes for UKIP led to Brexit?

Fifteentoes - do fascist dictatorships allow citizens to vote?

Sometimes, yes. The fascist government in Italy for example was elected in 1924 (with the help of a system guaranteeing a majority of seats to the largest minority party as long as they got 25% of the votes, so not unlike the distortion of our First Past The Post), and then went on to hold further elections in 1929 and 1934.

It's quite common for dictatorships of all stripes to "allow their citizens to vote"; it doesn't mean those votes are actually meaningful. People were allowed to vote throughout the history of Soviet Russia, for example.

The ruling classes of modern western "democracies" do of course have more subtle means of retaining hegemony than imposing a literal one-party state, which is one reason we don't quite live in a literal fascist dictatorship YET. But noone acquainted with the history of voter suppression in the USA, for example, could believe that the difference is that cut and dried.

And if you think attempting to elide the weaknesses of how democracy is enacted with actual fascism is hyperbole, I return to my earlier point about the USA. Trump, supported by many elected republican politicians, and a large number of the population, attempted and very nearly acheived an actual, real, Latin American fascist dictatorship style coup. As in armed thugs literally surrounding the white house like Mussolini's blackshirts. In the country that has always called itself the bastion of the free world.

The Tories are upper class Brits with long experience running an empire, so would never have Trump's crassness. It wouldn't work here and they don't need it. But that's just presentation, it doesn't mean the substance isn't the same. It's perfectly possible to "allow a vote" in which you've predetermined the parameters of that vote so that you can't possibly lose.

Things you are objecting to such as restricting protest and controlling the media are also practised by Communist governments - or is communist rule ok because it’s left wing?

I don't know where this is coming from. I abhor totalitarianism of all kinds, communist included. I'm not aware of ever having said anything to condone it.

It's about male supremacy.

Sounds extreme?
Look how fucking far it got behind the scenes before many even had this on their radar. Look what's already happening. Happened. Sometimes has been happening for years. Quietly.

Males in women's prisons. For YEARS.

Males in women's NHS wards. For YEARS.

Totally inappropriate teaching materials in schools, mixed sex bogs sport etc. Schools not blinking an eye. No parental consultation often just done quietly.

Charities running things related to this inviting age groups like 13- 25.

All the things we know. Know now.

How do we know? Not because told, asked, informed. We know when someone somewhere FINDS OUT somehow. That's outrageous.

Arguing politics is easy. Ready made arguments accusations it's almost a script. Getting stuck in is familiar ground.

Focusing on women and girls, no framework, no go to arguments etc. Is REALLY HARD.

But if we're going to get anywhere then fuck red blue rich poor etc everything. It's about ALL women and girls irrespective of anything like that.

It needs to be done though or we are utterly fucked. Women and children. Always paired. For s reason. Because things like this women are the ones who say just NO.

sorry for rant.

Rhcp your brexit post is interesting.

This was another massive issue that was NOT party political. Leave/ stay opinion cut right across the political leanings of the voters. All the way through society.

The para that starts with the cnp bit below I find v strange. It reads as an interpretation of what happened based on individual view (bias) and a lot of it is just ???!!!.

'That’s what happened after Brexit when the politicians refused to do as the majority wanted and deliver Brexit. In order to get Brexit done......'

This is not a thread about brexit.

It's not even a thread where red/blue rights/ wrongs makes sense.

This issue is not party political.

It's about WOMEN AND GIRLS. All of us. ALL of us.

And it's up to us to keep on at it. Brave women speaking out. Bringing court cases. Getting info that the press will be interested in. Not letting up on any of it, from losing our ability to even reference us as ONE DISTINCT GROUP to not shutting up about prisons, hosps, schools, any of it.

Turning this, as we are so often prompted to for not good reasons, or we totally naturally move onto ourselves.

Is a DISTRACTION.

Political landscape in eg Sweden, USA, Canada, Germany are TOTALLY DIFFERENT.

This situation is ALREADY a disaster for women and children. In ALL countries it gets traction.

Whether broadly socialist, communist, nationalist, heavily influenced by religion, capitalist/ free market/ low tax... Etc etc.
This ideology FUCKS women and girls totally. With a big side helping of a whole load of shit across all sorts of things.

This is a distraction.

I'm English and I KNOW that none of the mainstream parties are interested, have our backs.

Because we're just women and girls. The envelope stuffers, the organisers, the army for the grunt work. Expected to toe the line, clap in the right places, wax lyrical when topic is something to do with caring, children, VAWG, all that stuff.

Thinking any party here will do anything other than not get involved at best, to actively screwing us at worst. Is naive. I know that's strong but there it is.

Much to the bafflement and annoyance of my family, who think Lisa Nandy talks a lot of sense apart from on the trans issue and can't understand why I won't overlook it.

Well. Because to lock rapists up with vulnerable women on the grounds that they 'identify as' women, you're either sociopathically callous, contemptibly cowardly or worryingly stupid.

All of which mean you should be nowhere near government IMO.