Who are you voting for

My "local conservative" candidate told me today that he agrees with Suella on immigration and that the "illegal immigrants" are taking council housing from local residents. He couldn't answer when I asked him to explain why his Tory controlled council hadn't built any houses themselves for the local residents over the last 15 or so years.

I live in one of the most deprived areas in the SE and the council is Tory run and as corrupt as you could imagine. They are all a bunch of NIMBYs who are trying to allocate all the local housing to a wholly inappropriate area away from where they live.

Can't vote for them or Labour, but luckily there are some amazing local independent candidates so hopefully they will get in. They got all the votes in our house!

Guaranteed that all the locals will vote Tory at the GE... its like turkeys voting for Christmas. They moan about it all and then they get voted back in on issues such as immigration which is a huge issue locally due to our location.

I'll be voting labour. Whilst this issue is very important, it's not the only important thing, and getting the Tories out so they stop fucking the country up is the most important thing for me.

In my constituency, that means voting labour.

Conservative, it's a Labour controlled council but our current Councillor is about as corrupt and useless as you can get, he's independent and the tories have the best chance of removing him

Labour. I believe Starmer has quietly peaked in the last year or so, and won't push any additional gender nonsense into law.

Pasty politics is big for us Cornish!

Spoilt ballot papers will not be pored over by local election candidates. Our local Tory candidate will be re-elected because he organised and put up the flags for the coronation. He wouldn't understand what you are upset about. It's not really a local issue unlike wheelie bins, ASB and pot holes.

I've voted Labour because I've voted on local election issues (and they seem to be the only visible party in my area).
However I'm hoping that national Labour party sort themselves out (by the time the ge is called) on this issue because tactical voting at the ge is what will keep out the tories and I'm going to need to vote Labour for that to happen.

Labour

Independent- our incumbent is Independent and great (former Conservative).

The locals I’m fine with, the general not so much.

The election for our ward has been postponed as one of the candidates (the one I was going to vote for) has sadly died. I believe there is another Green Party candidate so I expect it will be that one that I vote for now.

Can confirm it's 100% possible to moan about the state of things whether you spoil your ballot, vote four times, or eat the ballot paper.

Rubbish. I shall spoil my ballot with a message saying that I would vote Labour if they knew what a woman was.

No local elections here, so it's a moot point, but -

Views on feminist subjects vary widely within the parties. Almost all of the parties have people within them that I'd vote for. So I'd be likely to base decisions on the individual person, rather than the overall party policy.

And yes, as noted, local elections should not have any connection with party politics, all councillors should be independent, imo.

I feel really torn too. On the one hand, this is the LOCAL elections, so it's about local issues and I'm loathe to let national issues and culture war stuff intrude on what's important for my local area, but on the other, how can I vote for a party that doesn't know what a woman is?

The LDs are in charge here - both our MP and our local council are LD and they aren't bad. When we had a Con MP and a Con-led local council they were shit - the MP didn't even live here, she voted for Brexit when this area was the most anti-Brexit area of the country apart from Scotland and parts of London, and the Con council gave the go-ahead for a huge infrastructure project that will be an unmitigated disaster for this area that local people have been fighting against, tooth and nail, ever since.

I really hate voting for a party though that doesn't believe that women, as a biological group, exist. At a national level, that is the hill I've chosen to die on, but locally? I honestly feel I have to put local issues first, but argh!!!!

Conservative.

My (councillor) independents are absolute shite, I'm not going to vote for someone who hasn't been seen or heard from in 4 years, until a shiny leaflet drops through my door at election time.

We have the same problem, but with Labour. They just take our votes for granted despite the absolute shit storm that is liverpool council

My constituency is Tory and one of the most likely to swing to Labour.

Nope. Spoiling your ballot is not ‘pathetic’.

I was a life long Labour voter but will not vote for a party that supports self ID and gives more credence to TRAs and TROONs than women and girls.

They don’t represent me so they won’t get my vote.

I'm not sure I can vote, I can't find my driving licence photo id (which was definitely in my bag) and it's too late to apply for a Council I'd. I'll keep looking, it has to be somewhere. I'm not too fussed though, there's no one I want to vote for, I would probably spoil my ballot. If I find it and the commies have fielded a candidate, or the sdp, I might vote for them.

To vote is important, but if the only candidates that are available are fundamentaly opposed to something you very much think is important - then how can you, in good conscience, vote for them? You can't!

It is not pathetic to have integrity and to take the vote seriously. And spoiling is sometimes the only option.

I live in a Labour city with a Labour mayor. The Labour party in my city is a total basket case: corrupt; incompetent, full of cronyism and even Labour voters in the city want to see the back of them.

I sat in the council chamber a few years ago when the Labour mayor screamed abuse at us ( a group of women who had been invited to speak about womne's issues in the event of them wanting to pass a bill that would make all toilets 'gender neutral' in council owned buildings going forward) and the assembled counciillors stood up to applaud that abuse.

My local Labour MP refuses to meet with her constituents on the issue of women's righst and protections - we've been told we are "wasting our time".

I'll probably end up voting Lib Dem ( in local electcions only) in order to ensure that Labour is weakened in the city ( they have the best chance locally) - even though I'd never dream of voting Lib -Dem in a general election.

The last few elections I've been spoiling my ballot - with specially made stickers.

Yeah I fully agree with where you’re coming from, I’m in a labour strong hold where I live too. But maybe there are other ways of trying to get the message across other than wasting the one way we have to change things perhaps? Everything’s such a shit show at the minute I feel at a loss completely haha!

Pasty politics

I'm voting independent and Tory. My local labour candidates do fuck all around here - I've known one of them for years and she has zero interest in the town, she's only interested in her own political career. I know both the independent and Tory candidates and they both do massive amounts of work for the community.

I don't care about pasty politics when it comes to local elections.

I think for me I am willing to forego the women’s rights issues to try and improve everything else the tories are destroying. I might be shooting myself in the foot as a woman but there are more of my basic level needs not being met and I’d be willing to see labour as the lesser of 2 evils.

Yes to be honest under these circumstances I probably wouldn’t vote at all, but maybe I’d be out protesting or trying to do something to be pro active in a different way. I know not everyone has this option but you’d have to try an do what you could.

I'm in a safe Labour Council area where the libdems have 2 seats. My vote won't "get the Tories out". I want Labour to listen to women. Spoiling my ballot won't make one iota of difference to the result, but if someone has to read the message, maybe it might start sinking in that women's rights will be the undoing of Labour's chances of winning the next election, like antisemitism was for Corbyn. I want Labour to win the next general election, but they risk not doing so if they don't start listening to women. This issue is an open goal for the Tories which they will exploit mercilessly in the run up to the next GE. Labour had a tin ear about antisemitism and seemingly now has a tin ear about women's rights. So no, it's not "pathetic" to spoil my ballot.