To feel politically lost?!

[MissBax]

Since being able to vote I have always been a labour supporter, but in more recent times I'm feeling more and more at a loss with who I feel truly represents me. The whole Lily Madigan Women's Officer saga has been the final straw. I just can't get on board with this bullshit and feel let down by this runaway PC brigade (which I admit I used to be a part of)! Anyone else feeling the same?!

I agree make. My point was how those comments are being received by leavers and how that will make it even harder to get a swing in opinion on the issue.

So people can't vote Labour because trans. And can't vote Green or WEP because trans.

The WEP webchat on MN didn't really get off the ground because trans.

People vehemently refused to join the Women's March last November because trans.

Because of an an aggressive trans movement that has appeared from nowhere and gained enormous leverage in a very short amount of time, showing a high degree of organisation tied to twitter armies and legal muscle. A scenario completely unlike the decades of battle by gay people to even be decriminalised, despite there being large numbers of gay people in every position of power from the Royal Family to the courts to Parliament to industry.

I feel like I'm being played. And not by someone concerned about the welfare of trans people, never mind the welfare of women.

I'm not saying anyone ought to support the WEP, btw, or ought to have joined the Women's March. You might just disagree with them.

But it really struck me that the reason so many people gave was "because trans".

YANBU OP but not just for the Trans issues - I am in the same boat. Would never vote Tory, would consider (and have voted in past) Green, Lab and Lib Dem. Currently have no political "home" - but people in my constituency keep voting Tory so my vote is worth fuck all anyway.

Me too. I would love to have someone to vote for but unfortunately not much chance of that happening.the chance was lost when we had a referendum on avr.

the chance was lost when we had a referendum on avr.
I voted in favour of PR - for what that was worth :)

That's an interesting thought, perking. Where do you think such a "plan" would come from?

My point was how those comments are being received by leavers and how that will make it even harder to get a swing in opinion on the issue.

It is a quandary.

It's so depressing & for the first time I don't even want to vote. I'm a lib demmer but feel let down by them & voted labour in the last election. But i'm getting more & more turned off by the labour MPs (Tulip) although I don't mind Corbyn. DH has always voted Tory although he has been put off by the severity of the cuts. He argues that you know what you get with the Tories & who's interests they protect whereas labour are hypocrites.

We need a new party that's more to the centre.

This is some of the shit that went on before the US election:

In a report issued by Albright and covered by The Washington Post, just six of the bogus, Russian-sponsored Facebook pages—under such diverse handles as Blacktivists, United Muslims of America, Being Patriotic, Heart of Texas, Secured Borders, and LGBT United—were shared 340 million times.
[...]
Many of the Facebook ads were posted by wholly fabricated Russian users, often posing as nonexistent Americans, seeking to highlight racial and religious conflicts, anti-immigrant tensions, and radical-right points of view, either designed to excite Trump-leaning Internet users or depress and alienate Clinton-leaning ones. Others simply picked up and recast or exaggerated existing American opinion through posts and memes.
[...]
'On a more serious note, the TV Rain report quoted a former employee about IRA[Internet Research Agency]’s work: “There was a goal—to influence opinions, to lead to a discussion.… There was a strategy document. It was necessary to know all the main problems of the United States of America. Tax problems, the problem of gays, sexual minorities, weapons.”'

www.thenation.com/article/russian-trolling-of-us-social-media-may-have-been-much-greater-than-we-thought/

Suppressing the vote is an important tactic in influencing elections - persuading people to stay home or "waste" their vote on any tiny party.

Some of my own US family did this, repeating what I kept seeing on social media: "I can't vote Hillary. I just can't." And now they've got Trump. Fine if they'd wanted him - but mine really didn't.

So I'm a bit concerned when I hear similar here in the UK: "I can't vote for X, I just can't."

Is X any worse than they used to be? Are the other parties any better? If there's a big differential, fair enough. If not, why am I suddenly finding this a line in the sand - but only for X?

And who benefits?

I haven't been happy with the offering from any UK party for years. I've gone for "least worst", and put whatever tiny efforts I could into changing the ones I felt closest to, rather than walking away and leaving the election to those I liked even less.

BeyondAssignation, take a look at this thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3090164-Google-women-killed-in-2016-you-won-t-believe-the-result?pg=1

I absolutely don't have all the answers.

But I do know that "Boston antifa", the Twitter account which posted this, was shortly afterwards outed as being not from Boston and not antifa. Opinion is split whether they were directly Russian trolls or far-right trolls in the US (sometimes connected to Russia).

Fake antifa Twitter account fools media on right and left
Right-wing actors appear to have taken their trolling game to another level.
thinkprogress.org/boston-antifa-russia-tweet-adb3b2ab4918/

There is some seriously weird shit going on under the surface, and I don't think we've got a handle on it yet.

AVR isn't a form of Proportional Representation. The Lib Dems ought to have said, 'the deal's off' when that is what they were offered.

We need a new party that's more to the centre.

*butterflynight^, I'd happily see that, too. Then I'd look carefully at what it was actually offering, vs the other parties.

All too easy for a wolf in sheep's clothing to saunter in, all shiny and new, when we're fed up with the old.

I have no idea who to vote for either. I'm in an area where my vote counts for nothing.

As I currently see it:
Labour - Spends too much and not wisely so we get into more debt

Conservative - Doesn't spend enough, so we have issues with underinvestment and for that reason economic slowdown

Liberal Democrats - can't be trusted. They turned tail on their biggest policy (student loans)

We need a new party that's more to the centre. No - we need to move the centre to the left a bit to get it back to where it was.

Labour - Spends too much and not wisely so we get into more debt

A total myth that isn't losing any currency at all despite being extensively debunked and not backed up by any stats. Tories are very good at propogating this - but it's an utter lie.

Conservative - Doesn't spend enough, so we have issues with underinvestment and for that reason economic slowdown

See Labour - the Tories have in fact borrowed way more recently than anyone else, ever. They are spending it on the wrong things though.

Liberal Democrats - can't be trusted. They turned tail on their biggest policy (student loans)
Surely they had bigger policies - sad that everyone forgets we'd not have had the big rises in the personal tax allowance (taking many more low paid workers out of tax) without them.

All three are shite though.

I was on a thread discussing this very issue.

makeourfuture is a Momentum bot who will cheerfully and disingenuously parrot the party manifesto and commnications ignoring the Lily Madigan shit show, the Brexit shit show, the infiltration and take over of the Labour Party by Momentum shit show, the anti-Semitism shit show etc.

The Tories have in fact borrowed way more recently than anyone else, ever. They are spending it on the wrong things though.

Another one who thinks the country resets itself after a new government takes hold.

Do some background reading on Deficit, also see that government borrowing was trending downwards before Brexit, this would go up rapidly under Labours economic plan

he Tories have in fact borrowed way more recently than anyone else, ever. They are spending it on the wrong things though.

Perking, I hadn't looked at that thread since I initially assumed it was due to personal algorithms. Wow.

As far as I'm concerned, the Lib Dems threw most, if not all of their policies under a bus to sit in power with the Conservatives.

Politicians should realise that they are public servants who are voted in on their policies.

The Lib Dems showed their power hunger and lost respect and votes.

BeyondAssignation, yeah.

Another one who thinks the country resets itself after a new government takes hold.

Another one who thinks they can map their prejudices and opinions onto other people and "debate" is actually sneering at others.

So many of us now feel politically homeless .

makeourfuture "This kid had nothing at all to do with Jo Cox's murder. There is no connection at all between the two."
Bit of a tangent there, don't you think? Nobody said Madigan had anything to do with Cox's murder. (Side note - is that an example of a strawman argument? I do struggle with the concept.) I am pissed off that a program aiming to get more women into politics is being sabotaged by giving places on the program to men - Anna Lee and now possibly Madigan. It is simply wrong for that to happen, and for Labour to not just allow it to happen, but to celebrate in it.

I'd love Labour to be worth voting for; I've never been a member of any political party, but I have mostly voted Labour. It comes hard to see the party brought so low, and from the inside too. But they can't win my vote by continuing to shit on women.

PerkingFaintly rightly draws attention to how fast the translobby has gained influence in comparison to how long it took for LGB. I also think social media has been an accelerant of this influence.But it's not just the media itself, it's also the reactions of those in power to that media.

People in power have until recently been fairly insulated against contact with their electorate. Letters, face-to-face, even petitions - with only 24 hours in the day, there's just a limit on how much contact can take place. But with social media they are under a deluge, and unlike with letters and face-to-face, it's all in public; scrutinised and commented on in a cascade. They don't know how to deal with it, because there's no real experience to fall back on. No norms. And that seems to have led them (more than ever before) to be like headless chickens, afraid not to jump on the bandwagons for fear of backlashes (deselection?). If they feel under siege, they're acting accordingly. Whilst I pity them for now living in a goldfish bowl of relentless criticism, I cannot excuse their craven lack of political backbone.

The electorate are paying a high price, with no party now worth a damn.

Look at the values each party generally stands for. For me it's Labour and always has and will be.