To ask what stops you voting for the tories ?

[Icandothattoo]

For me
The unending shite that is brexit
Corruption and dishonesty, especially during the pandemic but not uniquely. And not just Johnson.
Making already deprived areas compete against each other for levelling up money whilst perfectly affluent tory voting areas are handed it on a plate (looking at Richmond N yorks Rishi ! ). Funny that 80% of constituencies getting levelling up funds are tory...
Whole culture war. Singling out certain minorities to attack for purely political gain. In the 80s single mums, 90s benefit claimants, 2000s refugees, immigrants. FWIW I'm fairly gender critical but disliked the way they toadied round Trump and his abhorrent opinions/followers who pretty much wrote the culture war playbook.
So what stops you from voting for them ?

Common decency, common sense and coming from Liverpool.

Why even have a referendum at all if you're stacking the deck in favour of remain that much?

How do you think people would have reacted if Leave had won but not by the margin necessary in order to actually leave?

The problem is that politicians spend so little time around the general public that they had no idea so many people would vote leave. In their little bubble, everone was in favour of remain. And they extrapolated their bubble and assumed the rest of the country was largely the same. But their bubble is a very small number of people, and not at all representative of the country as a whole.

If facts, having a plan and having a vote on the result are stacking the deck for Remain then maybe Brexit wasn't a great idea?

Just saying..

If facts, planning and democracy are against it...

If the majority of the public just vote of newspaper headlines and the politician's know more about the world and political arena, then why give the public the vote on issues that are that important if the public have not studied the topics in detail?

Why even have elections at all if the public cannot be trusted? Just let the politicians decide what is best, they know better than all us plebs.

Was there an referendum with a supermajority required for us joining the EU or EEC as it was then? If "join" had won, would there then have been another referendum two years later setting out the plans of what would happen if we joined, and giving the public another chance to reject it?

Because representative democracies - like ours - work better than plebiscites. They can flex, they can compromise, they can muddle their way through complex situation. Referendums give you a big Yes or No and then demagogues can claim to be the voice of the Will of the People. So Brexit became a call to leave customs union and single market even though that wasn't anywhere on the actual ballot paper.

Westminster didn't have any issues with stacking the deck in their favour during the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, which was rejected despite being won by the yes campaign, so it's not like there wasn't a precedent for doing just that.

I do not know what this has to do with voting Tory anyway. I will not be voting Tory in the next GE and I fully expect Labour to win. I live in a fairly safe Labour seat (Chesterfield). I do not expect things to change a great deal for most people with Labour in power. Just some tinkering round the edges.

The Brexit referendum was a far more important and politically significant vote than any general election. People aren't stupid. They know that Labour and the Tories are pretty much the same people, from the same small sector of society. They are just put there to give the illusion of choice.

All referendums should require a simple majority. Scotland should be allowed to leave the UK should they wish. As should Wales, as should Northern Ireland, as should any region of England that wants to secede and govern themselves.

Can you honestly tell me how many people know who out elective officials are without googling.
Give the majority television, pop charts, daily life etc,

Would democracy be better utilised if the majority of the public studied the various political issues the way they study football, their favorite TV series, etc

@Florenz

There was a plan, the pros and cons were explained

We joined, and then had a confirmatory referendum two years later to see if we wanted to stay in.

We did.

Most of the Leave politicians didn't understand the consequences of what they were suggesting.

They didn't think they needed to.

No one thought enough of the country would be stupid enough to vote for it.

So it was never going to happen.

It was just a power grab to them.

They just had to keep repeating the focus grouped slogans and talking points Dominic Cummings gave them.

Of course it would but that has never been the case. Probably not in any country in the world. You can't force people to be interested in politics.

Exactly, which is why important decisions should never ever be given to the general population to decide upon.

We have a GE, vote in MPs who either are experts or have access to them and form a Govt, they decide foreign, financial and national policies when/if they mess up, we vote them out & if they don't we keep them in.

People had no idea what they were voting for in 2016, Remainers or Leavers

The Tories inflicted the second worst of all possible Brexits on this country.

Tories lied to our parents and grandparents about how good Brexit would be for Britain.

Tories promised Brexit would give us cheaper food, clothes, shoes, energy prices and save the NHS.

That's what Brexit has to with voting Tory.

And the parties are not the same.

Public services such as education and the NHS got better under Blair and Brown and worse under Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak.

The NHS waiting list has never been 7.4 million. It was 2.2 million in 2010.

Political parties are not the same.

Some govern.

Some use the power to take the country's money and assets and give it to their mates.

Of course it would but that has never been the case. Probably not in any country in the world. You can't force people to be interested in politics.

That's why you don't let uninformed people make these monumental decisions.

Nobody who understands Brexit would inflict it on their own country.

17 million of our most gullible voted to put Britain on a downward trajectory based on the lies they were told by Tories.

And the other 50 million of us have to live with it for at least a few more years.

Then live with the damage.

We're all poorer because of Brexit.

Everything in this country is worse because of Brexit.

And the Tories did it to us.

So why even have democracy at all? If the people are "uninformed"?

You can't compare what Labour did in 97-10 to what the Tories did in 10-now. The circumstances are a lot different. Labour didn't have Covid to deal with, the population was a lot younger, Britain in general was a much different country in 2010 than it was in 1997, In 1997 a lot of people were hopeful and convinced things could get better. By 2010 they were jaded and cynical and sick of lying politicians. Why is (partially) why Brexit happened.

People have always been sick to death of lying politicians but its a new incoming Govt 's job to lead us away from that, not pander to cynicism.

Austerity did for the UK, almost all the problems we all see, roads, education, health etc are down to underinvestment, no other comparable country slashed public service like the Tories did for 10 years (3 or 4 at most) one reason Covid has left such a terrible mark - i mean over 10% of the population on waiting lists and 5m on long term sick, we aren't that much older than 1997.

Well we certainly have less democracy since Brexit.

Why don't I vote Tory?

Today it's the news that interest rates are going up again.

Our economy is fucked.

And the Tories fucked it.

A general election can't come soon enough.

Yeah, yeah covid and Ukraine.

NHS waiting lists were already double what they'd been in 2010, lonnnng before Covid.

And Labour got us through a global economic crisis better than most of our peers.

The Tories have delivered a situation worse than everybody in the G20 due to their economic mismanagement and Brexit.

Who says we have democracy to start with ? You ?

@verdantverdure I don't want to derail this thread but you seem to think if we rejoined the EU our troubles would be over, but there are issues all over Europe.

Portugal has a housing crises: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65485908

Spain has high unemployment and soaring food prices: https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/17/publicly-owned-supermarkets-left-wing-party-sparks-debate-in-spain-as-food-prices-soar

There's growing child poverty in the EU: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/03/07/devastating-one-in-four-eu-children-at-risk-of-poverty-says-ngo#vuukle-comments-2219052

And the Eurozone has sunk into recession especially Germany and Ireland: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/08/eurozone-sinks-into-recession-as-cost-of-living-crisis-takes-toll

The UK is not perfect, but please take the EU-rose coloured glasses off and peddling the idea that our situation is catastrophic and way worse than the EU. The UK is not in a recession.