WTF won't Labour, Lib Dems (& potentially the Greens) endorse tactical voting?

[Pipsquiggle]

This is obviously prompted by the by election result in Uxbridge. If there was no Lib Dem candidate, Labour could have won that seat (assuming their votes went to Labour).

I'll make no bones about it. I really dislike the Tories and want them out ASAP. Their policies have embedded generational poverty in so many parts of the UK. I reside in the home counties, a Tory stronghold seat - my middle class neighbours have zero clue how hard it is to grow up in a poor part of the country and thrive.

I want Labour to win a huge majority with other left leaning parties also getting seats. I would love electoral reform - PR and mandatory voting. The first past the post system is just shit and doesn't represent how the country voted.

YABU - Political parties should not endorse tactical voting, it's fine as it is

YANBU - Tactical voting should be encouraged as the FPTP voting system is shit

I love the patronising style. It’s a real treat.

And you’ve confirmed it’s a bad decision anyway 🤷‍♂️

Fine by me.

It would certainly increase electoral fraud. It’s a terrible idea.

I'm not really in a position to confirm that or not, because it's a matter of opinion and priority. It's not like with, say, the ability of governments to pass non-manifesto legislation which is just plain fact.

Me being concerned about the risk of multiple changes to the electoral system in a short period doesn't mean it would be a bad decision for, say, the Lib Dems. Or a good one either.

Well we’ll see. If they do hopefully the backlash will surprise them.

They might want to shore up their own political success but best to ask the electorate if they support it first.

In FPTP the big parties steal the popular policies of the smaller ones to prevent them getting bigger. Smaller parties are kept out of parliament, but still have an indirect effect on policy. UKIP basically forcing the Tories into offering a referendum on EU membership is a good example of this. IIRC UKIP only ever had one Westminster MP.

In PR the smaller parties are much more likely to gain seats in the HOC. I think if we had PR UKIP would have got a significant proportion of the seats in one election as they got a significant fraction of the vote (but only 1 MP) so they would have had a lot higher visibility in the UK in general, which may have worked in their favour, and may not have (because although they had some good politicians, they also had a fair few that were completely batshit).

My view is that PR gives higher visibility to smaller parties. So yes people might be pleased with the higher visibility of say the Greens, the flip side to that is that in order to get that there is a likelyhood the visibility of other extremist parties will also increase. So to me its a matter of being careful what people wish for.

You reduce this to a man using a loo. But think about your young daughters using loos and changing rooms in schools with boys using the opportunity to bully and voyeur. Think about them being injured in sport because they are forced to play against male bodies in opposing teams, or losing opportunities to further their achievements in sport.
The vulnerable women who need a woman for intimate care and are told that their need comes second to the man's need for his self ID to be respected. Women who need counselling for PTSD as a result of DV told they have to share their sessions with men who identify as women.
None of this is minor. It reduces women and girls to people who exist to be a support service to men's ideologies and whims.
Do you want schools to support your daughter in wearing binders which are medically dangerous and not tell you? Or socially transition your child and put them on the path to irreversible medical damage?
I worry about all the things you do, but it doesn't make me think any of this is trivial. I just don't have a solution to how to protect women when it comes to an election, but I don't trust Labour, and I wish I could.

I also wish I could trust Labour.

I think red wall will go back to Labour, SW and rural Lib Dem, and the far right nutters will go reform. All in all, I still don't think that will give Tories a chance as they really are disliked by everyone apart from the very wealthy now.

Not sure about Scotland and how that will go now.

Hung parliament most likely. To be honest, given what has happened in this last majority government and the shit that has been voted through, I'm not that keen on any party having a majority now anyway.

Has anyone mentioned about Tories knowing what a woman is yet? 😂 Even though they are also aware of very low conviction rates for against violence against women. I love it when a bot tries to derail a political thread with this and it goes tits up.

I don't think there is any evidence of bots on this thread. I don't think Labour and LibDems can officially endorse tactical voting as it's an insult to their local parties if you say you won't stand a candidate. They will be working towards having their candidate elected for years and to say the leadership will support another party's candidate instead would be unworkable. It's also an insult to your voters to not put up a candidate. Labour and other parties with expel anyone who campaigns for a candidate in another party. It will be interesting if Corbyn stands as an independent as any Labour MPs campaigning for him will be expelled.

Not campaigning hard or spending a lot in a constituency is the best they can do and rely on individuals to vote tactically without any official endorsement.

I agree with @RobinStrike especially the last pararaph!

Has anyone mentioned about Tories knowing what a woman is yet? 😂

This is usually the line from the Labour lot.

Women who are concerned are more likely to discuss eroding women and girls’ sex based rights

The bot argument is also well worn by same few. I don’t see how it’s gone ‘tits up’ anyway as there’s a multiple posters who agree with the first to bring it up,

I just want our children to taught reality. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

I just assume that people who aren’t worried about the gender ideology, just haven’t researched it yet. Once you see where it’s going, it’s terrifying.

Great post. Ex LP member here and I am so upset at what the party has become and the horrible misogyny that it appears to support. I would struggle to vote Conservative and am really scared that Labour will win. It's a horrible place to be.

Yes I think that those who scoff and mock have genuinely no idea of the reality of this appalling mess.

am really scared that Labour will win.

Whereas I’m really scared they won’t.

Well being afraid of a Labour victory is not something I ever thought I would think or feel having been a member and having voted Labour almost every time in the past but here I am. Gender ideology and misogyny now permeates the party - Starmer thinks that a percentage of women have penises FGS and I cannot vote for such idiocy.

And the new MP Keir Mather labelled the marvellous Germaine Greer an 'abhorrent transphobe' for knowing that biological sex is real. I do not want these people in power.

FPTP is a very undemocratic system. 6 out of 10 people vote against you and you win a landslide victory.

I remember telling my TD ( MP) how I enjoyed listing candidates in order of preference and my vote actually counting for something. He replied that it's a stressful system for politicians because ' you might only be elected on the fourth or fifth count - there are no safe seats. '

Cry me a river! PR is no magic bullet but I'll take it over being at the mercy of 'swing voters' in a minority of seats. When I lived in London I was a union rep and once suggested supporting the Electoral Reform Society to my fellow members. You'd think I called for death of the first born children. It was 18 years of Tory government that time....

Same here

I just think if we had a more reflective voting system I wouldn't even have to consider tactical voting. I am done with FPTP

To everyone who is bringing up gender ideology, I get that this is your hill to die on but the Tories are loving all the 'noise' - it creates a diversion from all the other shit they are creating.

This issue just isn't that important compared to others. No reason to keep Tories in

If that is the case, why are Labour and LDs and Greens clinging onto reforming the GRA as if their lives depend on it? Why don't they give up on this so women can actually vote for them in order to get the Tories out if this is the most important thing? It seems to be quite important to some people other than GC women too, no?

To everyone who is bringing up gender ideology, I get that this is your hill to die on but the Tories are loving all the 'noise' - it creates a diversion from all the other shit they are creating.

Why don’t labour just seize their chance and say what a women is, and that they will protect women’s spaces etc, then? No brainer, surely…. Unless they truly don’t think this?…

@Igneococcus cross-post

Our problem in the UK is that we have a United ‘right’ (Conservative Party) and a split ‘left’ (everyone else, pretty much). It seems to me that an informal agreement for parties on the centre-left to step forward/back in every seat would be the most effective way to deal with the electoral behemoth of the Tories.