To vote with my head instead of my heart?

[ImNotDaveGorman]

I need advice from random people as I don’t like to talk politics in real life.

I’m in scotland and we have an election next month. The 2 main parties in my area are SNP and conservative. TBH I really dislike them both, but absolutely detest SNP. For reasons I’m not going to get in to I really don’t want scotland to be independent (also, that is not what I want this tread to be about!). I found it so difficult during the last referendum-people were horrific to each other and I want that vote to stand.

So, every time there has been an election I have voted for the party I do like, but every time the results come out the percentages are tiny for any party that is not SNP or conservative! So, basically, I feel like my vote is being wasted.

So....
YABU-vote with your heart for the party you want

YANBU-vote conservative, the lesser of 2 evils (in my eyes) and hopefully we won’t have to go through a second referendum

Again-this is not a thread to change my mind on my reasons for being against Scottish independence, so I won’t be having that argument.

@FeelinHappy they aren't a credible alternative. Domestically they have done very poorly. They asked to be judged on education - it's a mess. There is a more than a whiff of something (lots of things) dodgy going on at SNP party level. We already said no to independence and they won't accept it (anyone aware that an independent Scotland would need to take on it's share of the Covid debt) Their stance on women is appalling. Nicola Sturgeon's own constituency is an embarrassment and she has done nothing to fix the issues. Outside NS herself, there is very little talent in the SNP and often people have been promoted on the basis of being ideologically fixated on independence and not on brains. It's terrifying to imagine Scotland being cut adrift from the UK. The Tories are awful but anyone who thinks an independent Scotland would be a roaring success is deluded, unfortunately. It's a shame it's come to the stark choice of Tory or SNP really.

I don't see the point in voting if the party I'm voting for has no legitimate chance at winning. However, there's never a party I am absolutely 100% aligned with, anyway. (Politicians!)

If I'm bothering to vote, it has to be for someone who has a chance to win. I'd go with the best head/heart combination you can find. Sometimes that means voting for the lesser of two evils.

If its close and you see Conservatives as the lesser evil its a good tactical decision. If ti's not close you may as well just vote for the party you like best even if they have no chance. I am very anti Tory but I can see why people wouldn't like SNP either, it's a difficult choice!

In my view this vote is about doing your best to prevent something you absolutely don't want. So you would need to use your vote in a way most likely to achieve your aim. In this case, that means voting Tory.

@ImNotDaveGorman

To all those that say they can’t believe I would consider Tory....you clearly don’t know what it’s like to have two parties that you are so horrific. We currently have a Tory MP and SNP MSP. We are in the North.

Actually I do, down here we have the Tories and Labour, now there's a real shit show. One's a group of heartless self-serving liars, and the other is... the Tories.

Trouble is, voting for anyone else is a waste of time here, so you have to vote Tory to keep Labour out.

If I were still in Scotland, I would vote Labour if it meant the SNP didn't get in.

In a very similar position... no idea what to do though. Know I can’t vote Tory, can’t vote SNP. Gender policies have taken most out... really trying hard not to spoil my vote as generally I think that’s a cop out... if you have a party you do believe in then I would vote them and stick to your beliefs. I do t think SNP will get as many votes as last time now they’ve brought independence back into the mix. People are tired and just want some stability for a while.

@skirk64 I would rather labour TBH. I have voted for them in the past. They don’t get a look in in this area 🤷‍♀️

It sounds like you think the most pressing political issue is avoiding a 2nd indy ref. In that case, you need to vote for the party that can deliver that.

In your case its Tory. Labour really need to start offering a creditable alternative.

I'm intending to vote tactically to try to ensure the SNP don't get a majority as the GRA and HCB legislation is truly appalling.

It’s difficult when you feel unrepresented, I felt similar in last election.

So yanbu go with your head,

I think that a vote should always be with your head - politics economics and governance are usually about what is and isn't an acceptable compromise which requires evaluation and judgement. Where I live a donkey would be elected if it stood for Labour so my usual decision is to vote Green, not because that is the party I really like but because it does at least send out a message that environmental issues are important.

ATM I'm agonising over who to vote for in the London mayoral elections as I don't really like any of the main candidates but I will probably end up voting for one I really don't like as a person because he has the best agenda.

In this case, I'd probably vote Tory, not because I wanted that candidate but because they are the only candidate with any chance of beating the one (SNP) I really couldn't bear to win.
It really depends how strongly you feel about the SNP not getting elected.

@readsalotgirl63

I'm intending to vote tactically to try to ensure the SNP don't get a majority as the GRA and HCB legislation is truly appalling.

That is a good point but can you be sure the alternate parties won't jump in on the same legislation?

Can't you just vote SNP then vote no if it goes to another referendum?

I can't imagine voting Tory being a solution to anything, maybe if the alternative was BNP or whatever nationalist shit farage cooks up next.

I could never vote Tory and am actually quite afraid of the far right populism that they now represent, members of their cabinet have gotten away with saying things (lies) that have led to colleagues in my profession getting death threats, there is non stop nepotism, a lack of support for devolution, they lied to secure Brexit and I’m sure more lies are to come to prevent independence, I have seen first hand the devastation that the introduction of universal credit and bedroom tax and the two child policy caused, their record on the environment is not good at all and so much more.

As well as being immoral and corrupt they also seem to be really incompetent, like opening the schools for one day after the Christmas holidays and then closing them the day after, ensuring there was a chance for the pupils to spread covid around if they had caught it; like not learning from the SNP’s balls up over the exams which had led to a u-turn and bizarrely just taking the exact same position only to have to do a u-turn of their own; like believing in herd immunity; like launching eat out to help out causing cases to rise; like Boris not going to important covid meetings and inconsistent messaging during the pandemic and way more.

The Scottish Tories are massive hypocrites as they’ll criticise the SNP for something and fail to criticise their own party for doing the exact same thing. Their leader has said that on the environment he wouldn’t work with the SNP like a spoilt child- we all need to work together if we want there to be a world for us to live in going forward.

I like living in a country with a centre left government that wants progression and ensures those poorest have a more equal start in life and more equality of opportunity due to free school meals (including over holidays during covid), free prescriptions, free university education and the bedroom tax is covered by the Scottish government here (when I say free I recognise this is paid for by taxes including mine and I’m happy for that to be the case). I’m interested in the trials of universal basic income, which only the tories opposed. I’m no SNP super fan and I detest Alba, I probably align most to the Greens, but to me SNP are a million times better than the tories.

You can vote no in the referendum, the SNP getting a majority doesn’t automatically mean we’ll have independence.

In your case, I would vote Tory.

Splitting the opposition is an absolute blessing to the major party and I think you sometimes have to vote for the issues that matter most to you more than personality.

So you vote Tory as an anti- SNP vote. And your Tory candidate gets in. That's on you. Doesn't matter why you decided to do it, it's on you. If you can live with that then there's no problem. I couldn't.
It's like all these anti-Corbyn Tory voters. The Tory government is on them. They salve their consciences by saying they hate starving kids and cronyism and Brexit and sleaze. They still voted for it. And so will you. But again if that's your bag go for it.

You can vote SNP then NO in any referendum. I’m not hugely keen on SNP but I’d vote anyone else before I voted Conservative. I mean even their own campaign is less about what good they could do and more about just beating the SNP (probably because they do no good anywhere)

I'm doing the absolute unthinkable on May 6th: Labour first vote, Conservative list vote.

It's because we live in the upside down now, which isn't my fault. The fuckers are making me vote Tory and I hate them for it.

@MorrisZapp no one is ‘making’ you vote anything.

I think I'm in a safe-ish SNP seat but perhaps the SNP MP's travel issues during COVID will go against them, who knows. I'm voting labour as I'm fed up with SNP, would never touch the Tories, Greens are too woke and the Labour guy is campaigning on a key issue for the area.

[quote AlmostInsane]@MorrisZapp no one is ‘making’ you vote anything.[/quote]
Not literally, no. But I feel that when your allies desert you and laugh in your face, you have no option but to show your displeasure.

Who knows? A one off bloody nose might make these people sit up and stop taking the liberal vote for granted.

I put YANBU, I actually thought the Scottish Tories were closer to Labour than the national party?

I believe Tory and Labour have made a good job of running a Scottish council in coalition.

It would actually be better if the Tories contested some seats and Labour other in Scotland.

The problem with voting for SNP then voting No in a referendum doesn't stop the country being torn apart (again) by another referendum, at an economically incredibly fragile time, and with the world in a shaky position both economically and politically (Russian and China and their shenanigans). It would also give the SNP a boost and allow them to continue with their destructive policies, and would send out a signal to people who are on the fence about independence that maybe they, although not wholly convinced, should vote for independence because the majority appear to want it, having voted SNP in this election and the SNP's raison d'etre being independence no matter what the cost.

It's strange, I would have looked at voting Green, but they seem to have moved so far from their environmental remit the party are a farce, and they have some incredibly unsavoury characters.

The last time voters showed their ‘displeasure’ we got Brexit and countless ppl on news reports going ‘oh well I didn’t expect it to actually happen !’