General election tomorrow - who do you vote for?

[IaminRome]

I'm so sick of this government and reading a lot of the posts on here, it feels like on the one hand, so are lots of people, but there are also lots of other people who are very sceptical about labour or lib dem or greens. Added to which, there are so many issues at the moment, I know there's a lot of GC and what makes a woman, that is particularly important at the moment, and cost of living, private rentals, the environment, etc etc

So knowing what you know about the parties, if there was a general election tomorrow, who would you vote for..

YABU - Tories
YANBU - Labour
Comment for a third option

I used to be green, but I'm so not sure any more. So I think I'd vote labour, to stand best chance of keeping Tories out. (What I'd really like to vote for is a more representative government)

I’d vote Labour purely because they are the only ones who have a chance of ousting our Tory MP who has held this seat for 26 years and Labour are a bit less awful than Conservative in my eyes.

If it weren’t for that, I probably wouldn’t vote at all as I don’t respect or trust any of them.

What is interesting is that the Conservative intended vote is dropping, Labour is about static, but the Lib Dem vote is starting to pick up. Looks like the Conservatives are losing the traditional true blue vote to the Liberals.

It's economics that is driving this, mortgages going up for the next 12 months, inflation staying about where it is, and Hunt saying a recession is acceptable.

Truly incompetent - the standard of living in the U.K. for a pretty well off middle England voter is being affected. The Conservatives are finished unless they can address that, and immigration for their red wall vote.

Lisa Nandy's comments were made in February 2020. A whole world of learning and experience has happened since then.

Here is a more recent view from Labour " Steve Reed, the Labour shadow Justice Secretary, gave a good example on Good Morning Britain this morning, declaring clearly: ‘Women’s prisons are for biological women.’ Reed was setting out his view that a transwoman who is convicted of sexual crimes should not be housed in female prisons. "

If you are wanting change @MargotBamborough then it is happening.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/so-what-is-labours-position-on-transwomen-in-prisons/

The Spectator article is dated February 2023.

Honestly? I think the only thing they have learned is that the "female penis" doesn't go down well from a comms perspective and they need to dial down their rhetoric a bit before the election.

So the people who have previously said completely insane things on this subject are shutting up a bit, and people whose reputations aren't quite so tarnished are being wheeled out to say more nuanced things in some sort of damage control exercise.

Have people like David Lammy, Lisa Nandy, Nadia Whittome and Stella Creasy apologised? No. Have they admitted they were wrong? No.

Keir Starmer has moved from saying it's wrong to say that only women have a cervix (presumably his excuse for throwing Rosie Duffield to the wolves) to saying that 99.9% of women don't have a penis. Meaning that when they say they will protect women's spaces and women's rights, they are including the 0.1% of "women" they believe DO have a penis. And that our changing rooms and rape crisis groups must also include that 0.1%.

He has said that Labour has learned its lesson and needs to bring the public with them on this. To me that says he believes Labour are right and the public are wrong but he still needs their votes so Labour will tone it down a bit until they're safely in power. He's also said that self ID isn't a priority, not that they won't do it.

Sorry, but that gives me no comfort at all. Promise me you won't do it, Keir, because it's a really terrible idea, and maybe I'll consider voting for you.

@MargotBamborough you are so entrenched in your view that the Labour Party is actively damaging to women that no amount of evidence is going to change your mind.

Single issue people like you aren't going to change their views on things

Other people don't operate in a single issue world - and I'm thankful that there are people with a wider perspective on what is important for wider society.

I think you're contradicting yourself here @MargotBamborough

You say, "Have people like David Lammy, Lisa Nandy, Nadia Whittome and Stella Creasy apologised? No. Have they admitted they were wrong? No." Then you say Keir Starmer has admitted that Labour has learned its lesson.

This is a humble admission and an honest one. Maybe not the apology you wanted, but apologies are words not deed.

I hope Keir Starmer and Labour continue to listen to people and adapt. If you see that as spin then that is entirely your take and you are entitled to it.

deeds - dammit.

I'm not contradicting myself at all.

I don't believe Keir Starmer actually believes Labour are wrong about this. All he has learned is that "women can have penises" goes down like a cup of cold sick with most of the electorate because they are bigoted and he needs to tone down the rhetoric a bit in order to win. Once he's won, he'll go full steam ahead with self ID.

Damn right I'm a single issue voter. I have every right to be.

All Labour need to do to get my vote is commit to not shitting all over women's rights - actual women, I mean - and they won't.

It's shameful.

@MargotBamborough I don't think the majority of the electorate are bigoted. I think they just need time to think about issues to ensure they and their families are safe and that society is fair.

Past and current evidence demonstrates that Labour's intention is the protection and advancement of women's rights. Keir Starmer was clear in March 2023 that plans for Self ID would require reflection before any action is taken, in light of recent events.

Single issue voting is absolutely your right but definitely ignores the wider picture which is having terribly negative impact on so many, especially the poorest, many of whom are women and girls.

I've enjoyed talking with you @MargotBamborough

I hope Labour can win you and others over with their positive actions as we are in a mess with this current government.

@Colourfingers2 Pmsl. Typical conservative, not liking being told they are wrong, so start acting as though they are above the rules, whilst trying to shut down debate with threats.
This is one reason I won't vote conservative.

My feeling is that we need the tories out ASAP, the country has been robbed enough and I don't like the current direction of travel. If we had an election tomorrow, I would vote labour as most likely to remove the takes cash for fastracking a business with no links to ppe down the vip lane for contracts, doesn't respond to letters and emails until told what to write by cchq, total waste of space MP in my constituency.

My local Labour candidate is a GP so I hope they know what a woman is. I am planning to attend hustings to ask the questions and see the responses when we actually get an election.

The problem is that anything they say on the subject of women's rights is inherently unreliable because they are using the word "women" to mean a mixed sex group which includes male people. As long as the percentage of women who don't have a penis is, according to Labour, less than 100%, the category of people who actually are women and need women's rights is not a category they acknowledge actually exists.

That's why I don't trust them when they say they will protect women's rights, because their idea of what a woman is and my idea of what a woman is are not the same.

If they said, "We are committed to protecting trans people's rights but we also acknowledge that biological women need their own single sex spaces and sports, so we want to ensure that biological women and trans women are both catered for, equally but separately", that would be a game changer.

Of course you have every right to be. I expressed the view that I hope and believe that others have a wider perspective. Personally I have no time for single issue voters and that is my right too.

To be fair to Conservative voters I doubt most of them go to bullying and threatening behaviour like @Colourfingers2 has

Of course that is your right.

But if you actually want more people to vote Labour and have a better chance of getting rid of the Tories, surely it would be a better use of your time to encourage Labour to re-examine their thinking on this issue. Their position is basically that people born without a penis don't have the right to a word for themselves or any penis free spaces or sports, and that a woman is anyone who says they are one.

That renders anything they might have to say about "women's rights" null and void. It makes them untrustworthy. It makes them liars. It makes them not obviously more competent to run the country than the Tories.

If they said, "We are committed to protecting trans people's rights but we also acknowledge that biological women need their own single sex spaces and sports, so we want to ensure that biological women and trans women are both catered for, equally but separately", that would be a game changer.

You've just articulated my position on the trans debate so much better than I ever could. Wouldn't it be great if everyone could just listen to your words and set about redesigning public spaces so that everyone could live their lives?

In terms of being untrustworthy and incompetent I think the Tories are ahead by a country mile, whatever Labour's stance on self ID, so I think we'll have to agree to differ there.

But WHY can't Labour just admit that they know what a woman is, everyone knows what a woman is, women don't have penises and we deserve to be treated like human beings in our own right, rather than just there to validate men who identify as women?

I genuinely do not understand why they have taken this position.

If they actually stuck up for the penis free half of the population then it would be a no brainer.

But once you've seen the misogyny lying just underneath the surface of the "be kind" people, you can't unsee it. I can't pretend that David Lammy didn't make those comments about women, and I can't forget that he made them. So unless he apologises for making them then I have to assume that that's still what he thinks of us, and I can't vote for that.

The only parties I can vote for are the SNP, Scottish Greens, or Alba, so it would be (and will be) one of them. Not that it matters, Scottish votes are worthless in a general election.

As I said, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

I don't think Labour's stance on self ID is that important when looking at the wider picture. It's probably better for them if they simply don't get drawn into any further controversy on the issue leading up to an election anyway. Courting single issue voters probably won't benefit them much when there are other issues at stake.

I genuinely do not understand why they have taken this position

Because most voters aren’t single issue voters
Because their exhaustive market research on the issues voters care most about shows it’s well down the list
Because words are cheap and the Tories have shown for the last 13 years they don’t give a shit about women

Did you know that in the last decade the numbers of referrals to GIDS has risen from 210 a year to over 3,000? What does that tell you?

It tells me we need to be asking serious questions about why so many teenage girls don't want to be women rather than just affirming them and allowing them to make permanent body modifications.

Yes, it's been a shit show under the Tories.

But Labour aren't saying the Tories' trans policy has been a shit show because it has undermined women's rights and child safeguarding. They're saying the Tories haven't gone far enough!

Oh and by the way, Labour should care about women's rights regardless of whether they think it will be a vote winning issue.

It tells me we need to be asking serious questions about why so many teenage girls don't want to be women rather than just affirming them and allowing them to make permanent body modifications.

Why aren’t we asking why boys don’t want to be men? Or doesn’t that matter?

In practice parties don't win elections - other parties lose them. I think the Labour Party is best served in highlighting all the areas of the government's failures over the last 13 years - including the many ways in which they've failed all vulnerable people.