Vote for local Tory candidate or spoil vote?

Everything you have beautifully summed up and written about in your excellent post are the exact reasons I’m voting Tory over the other god awful options I have in my area! Thank you x

Domestic Violence.

The last Labour government, introduced children's centres, more than doubled the amount of nursery places. Doubled maternity pay, doubled maternity leave and introduced paternity pay and leave. They introduced the right to request flexible work and strengthened protection for part time workers.

They increased support for carers of elderly and disabled relatives. Brought in new laws on domestic violence and strengthened victim support. They also brought in a national minimum wage – the biggest increase in women’s pay since the Equal Pay Act of 1975. The Labour government also introduced the Equal Pay Act. They invested in public services and had a large number of female MPs.

After 14 years, what have the Tories done for women and why do you want more of the same? The Tories stood by and let women's rights erode, they will continue to do so.

Sunak is extremely unpopular with the party membership and the Tories are ruthless when it comes to defenestration leaders. I can't see Starmer being removed from his position if Labour win. He is credited with turning the party around and making them delectable after JC.

Also, the musical chairs style of government we've seen since 2016 is not normal in UK politics. It's chaotic, detrimental to the country and another reason not to vote Tory. We know Sunak will be out the day after the election and probably in California before the new school term begins. So another Tory leadership contest and change of direction straight after the election.🙄

But surely they barely notice/care that the paper is spoiled and there's no recording of the reasons anyway?

I’m in the same boat OP, I personally know my Labour candidate and he has a history of DV ( once when he was in a relationship with my friend ) he’s now married and they are both “apparently” happy (although she never looks it) but I can’t forgive what he put my friend through and the personal (verbal) attacks he made to me.

I would never vote reform and my Lib Dem candidate is another awful human being so I’m voting conservative and even though a lot of people on MN appear to believe voting Tory is worse than murder I’m glad you’ve done a post on it, my Tory candidate is a great bloke who has done and continues to do a lot in the local area and he fiercely supports women’s rights, everyone in my tiny part of the UK is struggling who vote for with our candidates and a few people that I know want to vote for the “greater good” so are voting Labour but I genuinely can’t think of doing that knowing my candidates history and background and their views on women’s rights

No one - and I mean no one - would say this if a political party was planning to obliterate the meaning of race. Or remove the "indignity" that is non-disabled people not being protected as disabled people by handing them £5 pieces of paper.

We would rightly be horrified.

It's like women are a boring glob of white middle aged "Karens" who we can trample all over and they'll just have to accept it.

No. We are not a single glob and we won't accept it. We are different races and religions, different ages and have many or no children, we are married and we are divorced, we are nursery workers and we are SAHMs.

We are many different things but we are all female and we must be able to say we are, organise and have services and single sex spaces on the basis of our sex, and be able to keep men out. Yes, even those with their special papers.

Over my dead body will I lose these rights.

One of the problems with voting Tory is you don't know what kind of Tory Party you're going to get. Only that you're definitely not going to get Sunak at the helm.

Their next leader could be one of their many TRAs who got us into this position.😬

I'm voting Conservative for the first time specifically because of their clear manifesto support for the implementation of the Cass Review alongside sex based rights.

Labour have also said they'd support the Cass Review but in a much vaguer way along with banning "conversion" (ie holistic /exploratory) therapy which contradicts what Cass says. This leads me to believe that either they don't understand the issues or are planning to fudge them. Either way I don't trust them to get it right.

Evidence based holistic, non-affirmative care for people with gender dysphoria is the most important issue for me. I understand other people have different priorities and that Labour are likely to win anyway but I don't want to vote for them.

My personal view? Never vote on single issues. Vote for whoever represents more of your views than any of the others.

If you've had enough of the Tory party, please either spoil your vote or cast it for one of the opposition candidates. I worry that with all the talk of a large Labour majority, people will decide not to vote for them and we'll wind up with more of the current rubbish.

My advice to everyone, everywhere is vote for who you want, or spoil if you want!

I don't think voting Tory will send as powerful a message as spoiling though (assuming you write on your paper why you're spoiling, rather than drawing a gigantic penis - which you're entitled to do of course...). Nobody will know your reasons for voting Tory, but they will see your reasons for spoiling.

We definitely do. It's never a bad thing to have a strong Opposition.

I will be voting Conservative partly because I don't want a huge Labour majority. I considered voting for the LD candidate who appears to be a sex realist (I haven't emailed but snooping on his TwiX he reposts lots of GC stuff - Rosie Duffield, Stella O'Malley, even Glinner) but it is a straight race between Tories and Labour here in a previously safe Tory seat (Crispin Blunt's constituency). Looks like the Tories will hold it but it's close. Luckily the new Con candidate seems like she’d be a good constituency MP. She's local, a mum of three, and a fan of Maya Forstater (also going by her social media). I'm a swing (pan?) voter so I'm open to persuasion but none of them bother canvassing round here 🙄

I'm spoiling my ballot. I can't vote Labour, can't vote Tory or Green. I hate to feel this way.

Agree.

Plus, I wonder whether we need a strong Opposition that is far more likely to vote against the anti-women and anti-safeguarding legislation that Labour will try to bring in. Regardless whether the Tories actually care about this - with enough public support they will automatically take the opposing view to Labour.

I'm wondering if a couple of previous posters are my neighbours. I don't want the Conservative party given a mandate to continue as they have been doing and would normally vote Labour, but my local Conservative candidate was an MP in the last government, has a track record of speaking out on women's rights, and is in touch with the local population, whereas the Labour candidate is refusing to answer "what is a woman" emails (no point, toxic etc., apparently) and is otherwise untested as a politician. I expect to vote for the Conservative candidate but hope he'll be on the opposition benches if he gets in.

NC for this but as NC suggests I'm going from spoiler to Tory in 2024.

I'm in a safe seat - still projected to be safe this time - and I spoiled in 2019. I was horrified at the idea of self-ID. I'm so angry with Labour. They have not done their job as Opposition and Starmer's handling of this question last night (plus their actual written words in the manifesto!) was confirmation enough for me. He either doesn't give a fuck or he's compromised. He cannot, not understand this. He does understand it and he's choosing to fuck us over.

I've got a daughter who will suffer from their plans. How will she compete in her chosen sport? How will she get changed safely and with dignity? She won't with them at the helm. I've even take to writing to my Tory MP over the last few years - mostly out of despair. And he has engaged and shown he's listened. I know he's tried to help push back against it all.

If we cannot claim ourselves as women then all hope is lost. It could take 100 years to get our rights back. If at all. I look at Canada, Germany and the States with absolute horror. I do not want that here for me or my daughter.

We need a functioning opposition, whatever happens. So this time I won't spoil, I will hold my nose and vote Tory.

I'm in the same boat and am voting Tory, Labour with a huge majority is the doomsday scenario. Parliament will be flooded with inexperienced power hungry TRAs. My Labour candidate is a Councillor who banned Julie Bindal from speaking at a library venue.

If she was elected it would add to the problems. KS will not be able to control them due to numbers so will carry on capitulating.

I tend to put a lot of weight on the quality of the individual MP. It's not just important for the visible stuff in the House or in the constituency, it's also important when it comes to the actual work of formulating legislation, committee work and so on. If there are not smart people there, you will get shitty legislation which will cause problems down the road, no matter how well intentioned.

I wouldn't spoil my ballot, I see that as a waste. The Tories haven't shown themselves to be strong on women's rights. They've been in for 14 years and things are pretty abysmal. I would expect more of the same.

I'm not sure if your Tory candidate was an MP. If so, what was their voting record? Have they spoken out on women's rights in parliament? Any local change that has been beneficial to women?

If I had a 'decent candidate' I'd be voting for them. I had a friend who voted for a party he otherwise didn't support because his MP was an amazing constituency MP who had helped his mother get medical treatment in difficult circumstances. And like you say, it really matters to get good people in Parliament of all political persuasions.

I'm in precisely the same boat as you. I'm resigned (where once I would have been ecstatic, fuck you Labour for making me feel this way) to Labour taking power and pleased they'll have a chance at sorting some of the messes.

But I don't want them to have so much power that there's no way to mount a significant challenge when they start fucking with women's rights.

My local Labour guy appears to be a smarmy wokey brocialist who has failed to address my questions. No faith at all in him to represent me properly.

So I'm holding my nose and voting Tory.