Voting to 'Get the Tories Out'

[DewHopper]

Pro Labour posters are all over this platform telling posters to vote for whoever gets the Tories out. It does not seem to matter who it is as long as voting for them gets the Tories out nationally.

It's a worrying voting strategy from my pov but I tend to vote at constituency level. If I had an excellent Tory MP who cared about the things I cared about and served their constituents well, I would vote for them. Similarly Labour ( I would absolutely vote for Rosie Duffield) or Independent.

Do those people who will just vote for anyone as longs as this will oust the Tories - and what could be a very good MP - ever consider the effects of this locally? They may have got the Tories out at a national level but saddled themselves with a useless MP who does nothing for the locality.

Take for example women's rights. I am a gender critical woman and care very deeply about the erosion of women's single sex spaces etc. I am sure that many of the 'Tories out at all costs' people feel the same. The pro Labour people keep telling us that Starmer will be better for women's rights BUT if you vote on a single issue - getting the Tories out - you may well elect a hopeless constituency MP who is TWAW and who will be standing up to every pro woman move that Starmer makes. I worry that there will be a lot of these in the next parliament.

So should we be voting on the single issue - get the Tories out? I don't think so - AIBU?

I am in Scotland and lots of us have been voting this way for years, voting for whoever is best placed to give the SNP a kicking. Over the past few elections I have therefore voted Lib Dem, Labour and Conservative.

Yes it's a single issue but when you have one party which is hellbent on separating your part of the UK from all other parts of the UK, that issue far outweighs any other issue. Self-ID or taxation or any other policies can be reversed, not so much independence. So yes, at the general election I will be looking at the websites which advise anti-SNP tactical voting strategies. In my constituency for the general election, that'll probably be Lib Dem. For the Scottish parliament elections, probably Labour.

You are not quoting me when you say Labour 'will further gender ideology'.

I am disappointed THEY won't reverse it when it is plain as the nose on your face that it harms vulnerable women because there is now evidence that it harms women.

They could protect single sex spaces for biological women AND do other great things if they actually put women before males.

Thats not what you said, You said no woman can have a penis, well they can & thats the problem with language, people would have been pointing this out to Starmer, which is why he said 99.9%, he is a lawyer after all, so detail matters?

Of course no one change biological sex but you ve done it again, Language! a GRC legally makes a man a woman and vice versa.

Oh and as was pointed out to me (everyday is a school day) Born in the wrong body is totally incorrect, its Gender dysphoria, a medical condition.

Enough tactical voters will.

jasflowers - There was a man called Dennis Avner who had surgery 14 times because he wanted to be a cat. So in your world does that actually make him a cat?

Do you really believe that?

@lifeturnsonadime is right with this

I don't mean plastic surgery to make something that looks like a penis. How ridiculous.

He wasn't referring to women with reconstructed penises.

He was referring to men born with penises, who identify as women.

It is not me who is the one who is mangling language. Penis is male genitalia. A piece of skin used to construct something that resembles a penis is not a penis!

It is not necessary to have a diagnosis of any medical condition to identify as trans.

Happy to be corrected but I can’t think of a societal movement that has affected a political party to the point that it won or lost them parliament. Why is the current gender argument any different?

I don’t want to hear any politician nailing their colours to the mast over gender issues because it’s an issue that’s incredibly emotionally divided amongst people who all have an equal right to be represented by their politicians. Politics is generally influenced by society not the other way round surely?

Gender identity needs proper dispassionate discussion away from the desperation to win votes, I’m glad it isn’t leading the subjects up for discussion around the GE because it doesn’t need turning into any more of a circus than it’s already become. Demands to turn it into a political issue is doing neither side any favours.

How does that even work in practice anyway? I support women only spaces but what lengths are we talking about going to in an attempt to ‘prove’ that someone is in their approved space? Do people want a government approved genital checker on duty at every public toilet?

And as for the GRC, it needs repealing. No human should be given the rights legally to be the opposite sex. Women were not consulted on this piece of legislation which gives men additional rights at our expense.

It's absurd that this has been allowed to happen in the first place.

That’s not entirely true though is it? A lot of controversial literature is aimed at biological women who identify as men not the other way around.

I’ve no idea why ftm identifying people are so often ignored in these discussions.

How about we revert to the original social contract that for the safeguarding of women we get single sex spaces?

Decent men know that.

It should not be too much to ask for them to do the right thing.

What's more important the safety of women or the feelings of males who are told they can't get what they want?

I was replying to your point about hyperbole, not quoting you
I will say again, the Labour position is: "We need to recognise that sex and gender are different – as the Equality Act does. We will make sure that nothing in our modernised gender recognition process would override the single-sex exemptions in the Equality Act. Put simply, this means that there will always be places where it is reasonable for biological women only to have access. Labour will defend those spaces, providing legal clarity for the providers of single-sex services.”

I'm not sure how much more clearly you need them to say they will protect single sex spaces before you hear it.

I understand many women don't trust them to do what they say, I am entirely sympathetic to that, but you and other posters are misrepresenting them and that's not OK.

I don’t get this. I want a vote on this. If we’re going to have legislative change and we should then let’s decide

Women are unfairly impacted currently, not everyone will agree though so let’s use a democratic vote to decide if we should use sex or gender

As for men staying out of women’s spaces @lifeturnsonadime most people of whichever sex are decent and will be law abiding

Ok, but how are you proposing to achieve this?

The genie isn’t going back in the bottle so if we’re saying that women only spaces are being infiltrated by men who are only identifying as women for nefarious purposes how are you proposing to ‘fix’ this through legislation? Proving gender before purchasing clothes and grooming items? Proving genitalia before being granted access to designated spaces? What does this actually look like in practice? Is this the kind of power you’d be happy to grant to politicians to write legislation for?

I want a vote on this. If we’re going to have legislative change and we should then let’s decide

Fair enough but there’s not an MP offering this is there? There are opinions being offered but no one is actually motivated to put the question to a parliamentary or public vote.

What about those from other parties? 56 MPs are currently being investigated for sex offences. 56!

As in pp Kemi Badenoch is on it, from a petition response sent 11/23.

‘On 21 February 2023, the Minister for Women and Equalities (MfWE) sought advice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on the benefits or otherwise of an amendment to the Equality Act 2010 on the current definition of 'sex', as she was concerned that the Equality Act may not be sufficiently clear in the balance it strikes between the interests of people with different protected characteristics, particularly in the case of the protected characteristics of ‘sex’ and ‘gender reassignment’.

Having received that advice, the Minister for Women and Equalities has asked officials to undertake detailed policy and legal analysis, as per the EHRC’s request, to understand the impact of its advice on various protected groups and related issues arising.’

If people care and want sex based rights write say so. It all helps

The EqA amended to mean biological sex is pretty much the solution (bar repealing the GRA which I doubt has enough support currently)

Excellent post.

The gender debate always makes me think of this quote by Professor Brian Cox (https://twitter.com/ProfBrianCox/status/1682708828880531458)

"I don’t like this sort of politics. Societies are made up of individuals with different backgrounds, opinions, economic interests and moral and philosophical positions. The primary job of politicians in my view is to at least try to navigate these differences (guided of course by their own hopefully well-thought out political philosophy) with the aim of building a stable consensus - a necessary foundation for a well-functioning and prosperous society. That’s very hard of course, but it should be the desired destination. Nobody gets everything they want in a democracy, because a free society is a collection of individuals who hold different views, but also nobody should feel absolutely defeated. This is not compromise in a wish-washy sense of the word - it’s the very essence of and indeed the guarantor of our freedom as individuals. As Feynman memorably said, democracy is based, like science, on a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance; running societies is very hard, and nobody really knows how to do it, so we regularly change direction whilst building on the achievements of the past. Understanding this requires humility, and the instinct to unify rather than to divide. Seeking division therefore runs counter to everyone’s interests because it undermines a key idea underpinning democracy itself - the idea that individuals have legitimately differing views."

I think Starmer is trying to achieve this position and Sunak absolutely isn't. I think the idea of votes on controversial issues is directly against this idea - and it doesn't work. See how divisive and vitriolic the Brexit debate was, and recent polling suggest that despite it veing "the will of the people", almost 90% if the population now think it was a bad idea.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/30/britons-brexit-bad-uk-poll-eu-finances-nhs

In the interests of factual accuracy I would like to point out that the Tories are also worse on women's rights.

I couldn’t disagree more.

I think people get worried women can actually vote on something that impacts them.

Sex or gender is a big change, which impacts me and dd. Plus my dc actually. I’ll take a vote

Kemi Badenoch wants the Equality Act repealed and Britain out of the ECHR. Anyone who thinks repealing the equality act is a good idea needs to look at how disadvantaged groups, including women, were treated before it was put in place.

She is not doing this for the benefit of women. Don't fall into the trap of "useful idiot" by supporting her.

@EasternStandard have I understood correctly your position on an earlier thread on the subject that changing the status quo with respect to the GRA is far too difficult for the Tories to do, but that you want the Labour party to do so, because they will be much more competent at being a government?

The equalities act already allows for segregation by biological sex.

IME the only people who say otherwise are lobby groups who want to replace "sex" with "gender" in the legislation, and those who are desperate for the support of said lobby groups.

There is no complicated legislation needed - just enforcement of what is already there and removal the endless and inaccurate "guidances" stating that chosen gender should be the priority and affirming that sex takes precedence by default. ie the case has to be made to justify removal of sex based spaces, not to justify their existence.

Its no accident that removal of sex based protections is so popular amongst the liberal middle classes and pony club feminists like Nokes. The bulk of the victims are disadvantaged and minority women and children, not MC professional women.

Before I answer are you going to moan as you did last time this topic was being discussed?

yes or no..