Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To call for a general strike to force a snap general election?

128 replies

TheDCDeserveBetter · 05/11/2023 07:50

I think the state of our country is getting really serious, and I wonder - if we called a general strike, could we force a general election before Christmas?

For context, my GP surgery and local hospital is in struggling badly, so that my own health is now in big trouble.

My DS's secondary school is so short-staffed that my DS, who is super-smart, but has a dual diagnosis, has been having panic attacks and has dropped out. I'm not well enough to home school him, and there are not enough special school places to get him help.

We have had endless trouble with low grade criminal activity in volunteer organisations over the years and no help, because the police are under-funded. This means that our community involvement has dwindled to nothing and he has no social support outside school and our house.

We have enough money, but I have started posting our spare food on freecycle and I get desperate people coming to collect it and asking if we have anything else surplus. I know that at least one of my DS's friends is short of food.

Nothing much is being done about climate change.

Now they're making it illegal to give tents to homeless people?!

Can't we just force a general election now?

The conservatives could organise a snap general election easily enough if they thought it would get them a bigger majority,

I think they should do the morally right thing and call one now to get us a better government.

Posting this in trepidation, because I know AIBU is fierce. What do you think though?

OP posts:
Tinkerbyebye · 05/11/2023 08:41

Waste of time. Strikes don’t work, just look at the rail strikes, no further forward.

and all it will do is make the country worse, take far longer to get back in shape and won’t solve the issue of your gp surgery

as to changing governments, they are all as bad as each other

RudsyFarmer · 05/11/2023 08:42

I just wish there was a strong alternative. Kier is so bloody whipped by the activists. He can’t even come out with a statement about Israel and not change his mind twice within 24 hours. How the fuck are they going to make a decision?!

MintJulia · 05/11/2023 08:42

No. People are focused on providing for their families, paying their mortgages. Looking forward to xmas. It would be a damp squib and do more harm than good.

I wouldn't strike. My team & customers need me and I'm not prepared to let them down.

Firewerk · 05/11/2023 08:43

I would never vote Tory and as the bar is truly in hell anyone would surely be better, but its so disappointing that Labour don't have stronger ideas and aren't in a better state with a strong leader currently.

piscofrisco · 05/11/2023 08:43

Agreed Rudysfarmer. I had high hopes for him at the beginning. But he is so weak. Just fucking stick your neck out mate and commit to...something. I'd respect it, even if I didnt agree with it.

dewclaw · 05/11/2023 08:51

Throwhandsupintheair · 05/11/2023 08:18

You will get Tory HQ on here attempting to increase apathy with their ‘give up!, they’re all the same!’ etc etc but it won’t work. The voting population know how high the stakes are. This country simply won’t survive another Tory administration.

This. Thirteen years of corruption, in- fighting and lack of vision have come home to roost.

TheDisgustingBrothers · 05/11/2023 08:54

Neither party are fit to lead this country and get it out of the shit heap it’s in right now.

what miracles are people expecting the Labour government to perform this time? Only reason they look appealing is because the Tories are so dire.

Crabwoman · 05/11/2023 09:00

VikingVolva · 05/11/2023 08:26

You can't just call a general strike.

Each union needs to ballot its members over the specific grievance at issue, to authorise strike action in that dispute. This is typically pay/conditions inc pensions or safety issues.

These don't happen simultaneously.

So there is little possibility of a general strike

(secondary action and flying pickets have long been banned)

This.

And given the low turnout figures for the NJC paydeal ballot in recent years, the appetite still isn't quite there (across the board) for striking. NJC (GMB, Unison, and Unite) accepted the paydeal for local authority and council staff earlier this week. That is a good wedge of your strikable workforce.

Hypothetically, if we did have a general strike, that would need to be balloted, dates agreed, and a strike called long enough for it to be effective. Then Parliament would have to be dissolved 25 working days before any election it's so we have clearly run out of time to call a general election before Christmas.

OP I sympathise, but practically speaking, it's not going to happen.

Weedoormatnomore · 05/11/2023 09:01

We are screwed the Government has been too badly managed for years. Needs a real overhaul which no party would do as would be suicidal to being chosen again !!

BIossomtoes · 05/11/2023 09:03

MikeRafone · 05/11/2023 07:59

Elections don’t work like that, we have a few more months to wait

They do. Sunak could call an election tomorrow. The Fixed Term Parliament Act has been repealed. Waiting for the next election is slow torture.

Dolphinnoises · 05/11/2023 09:10

piscofrisco · 05/11/2023 08:40

@Dolphinnoises general strikes are illegal. But who sets the law in the first place? They are illegal because they are disruptive and perhaps disruption is what is needed. Because every time I think this government can't get worse they manage it:

Covid enquiry evidence-awful incompetence and the way they all behaved as if they were Gods and didn't really give a shit- but is anyone really surprised?

Failing to vote at the UN for a pause in fire in the Middle East because we can't upset America. How can you justify abstaining in those circumstances?

Sleaze current and past

Rishi sucking up to Elon musk and thinking that's good optics (I mean where is your judgment even? -Elon musk is a clear nutter)

Suella and her racist rhetoric

Billions of quid spent on ridiculous headline grabbing schemes that come to nothing

The degradation of all areas of public life and services to the point where I can't think of anyone thing that works effectively any more.

Floods every time it bloody rains because despite having the knowledge we haven't applied it to climate change or even sensible planning.

For the first time in my life I would happily move from this country if I could. And I say that as someone who has been lucky enough to live abroad and still wanted to come back. Not anymore.

The point is, as they are illegal workers have no protection and could be fired for taking part

Haydenn · 05/11/2023 09:21

As much as I wouldn’t want to i think I would vote Tory. I mean what is the alternative? Keir Starmer? Really? The man is having a shocker. For all the issues you list off in the OP, sir Keir should be storming it is the polls and be riding a wave of popularity. He should be banging at the doors of number 10 with only the timing of an election keeping him at bay.

instead, for all the Tory failures, I don’t know where keir and his front bench stand on issues. What they would do differently. How they would do it differently. They provide no scrutiny.

if you can’t even organise to hold the government to account, how can you organise to form effective government.

Tories I see as better the devil you know. Because after years as leader of the Labour Party, I know nothing about keir. And it takes a special kind of talentless to not be outright winning a popularity contest against the Tories right now.

Flapjacker48 · 05/11/2023 09:23

No - look at the history of the only "general strike" in the UK and that was when there was mass union membership too.

Throwhandsupintheair · 05/11/2023 09:24

Haydenn · 05/11/2023 09:21

As much as I wouldn’t want to i think I would vote Tory. I mean what is the alternative? Keir Starmer? Really? The man is having a shocker. For all the issues you list off in the OP, sir Keir should be storming it is the polls and be riding a wave of popularity. He should be banging at the doors of number 10 with only the timing of an election keeping him at bay.

instead, for all the Tory failures, I don’t know where keir and his front bench stand on issues. What they would do differently. How they would do it differently. They provide no scrutiny.

if you can’t even organise to hold the government to account, how can you organise to form effective government.

Tories I see as better the devil you know. Because after years as leader of the Labour Party, I know nothing about keir. And it takes a special kind of talentless to not be outright winning a popularity contest against the Tories right now.

Edited

TLDR version: ‘I’m sticking my fingers in my ears, closing my eyes and voting Tory no matter what!’

Firewerk · 05/11/2023 09:27

Evaka · 05/11/2023 09:21

No problem. This is a summary of their current plans and will be a basis for their election manifesto. https://labourlist.org/2023/10/labour-national-policy-forum-final-document-summary-policy-manifesto-party-conference/

Show quote history

Nice if they said how these things were to be done, some are already the case as well so curious why they're mentioning they'll change things that are already as they aspire them to be is weird. Again i wouldn't vote Tory but can't say this inspires much hope either.

soddingspiderseason · 05/11/2023 09:27

This government are utterly, truly dreadful but I don't agree with a general strike. We live in a democracy and there are electoral terms for each government. They will be democratically removed at the ballot box not by direct action. You may feel justified now (and that's completely understandable), but what about when people are unhappy with the incoming Labour government?

Flapjacker48 · 05/11/2023 09:28

The election will be 23 Jan 2025 - this is latest that the Government can hold it legally - they will be praying "something comes up".

EasternStandard · 05/11/2023 09:28

Agree with majority yabu

Aydahayda · 05/11/2023 09:29

They won’t call an early election because they’ll lose so in the meantime they’ll get as much out of it as possible. They’ll then use the perhaps 2 terms Labour will get in office to pretend to shape shift into something less ‘nasty party’ and the electorate will vote them again. They’ll then asset strip again, slowly the fringe within will ascend to power because they have a tendency to self destruct, people will go up in arms over the state of society/economy/education/etc, Labour will get it in for some 2 terms, etc etc repeat

is the cycle

Labour doesn’t have the long term answers either, they’ve gone more and more to a position of trying to get soft Tories to vote for them in these cycles and nothing truly gets resolved. Plasters here and there, easily disassembled when the Tories get back in power. Repeat

Flapjacker48 · 05/11/2023 09:29

@Haydenn Just own the fact you are a Tory.

dontbenastyhaveapasty · 05/11/2023 09:37

Haydenn · 05/11/2023 09:21

As much as I wouldn’t want to i think I would vote Tory. I mean what is the alternative? Keir Starmer? Really? The man is having a shocker. For all the issues you list off in the OP, sir Keir should be storming it is the polls and be riding a wave of popularity. He should be banging at the doors of number 10 with only the timing of an election keeping him at bay.

instead, for all the Tory failures, I don’t know where keir and his front bench stand on issues. What they would do differently. How they would do it differently. They provide no scrutiny.

if you can’t even organise to hold the government to account, how can you organise to form effective government.

Tories I see as better the devil you know. Because after years as leader of the Labour Party, I know nothing about keir. And it takes a special kind of talentless to not be outright winning a popularity contest against the Tories right now.

Edited

Astonishing. The Tories took over a functioning country and have turned it into a bin fire, and you’re still planning to vote for them?

There is just no way that the “someone else might be worse” argument is tenable any more. Just go and watch some (any!) of last weeks Covid inquiry on you tube for proof.

My gerbil could run the country better than the current incarnation of the Conservative Party.

NotSuchASmugMarried · 05/11/2023 09:38

TheDCDeserveBetter · 05/11/2023 07:50

I think the state of our country is getting really serious, and I wonder - if we called a general strike, could we force a general election before Christmas?

For context, my GP surgery and local hospital is in struggling badly, so that my own health is now in big trouble.

My DS's secondary school is so short-staffed that my DS, who is super-smart, but has a dual diagnosis, has been having panic attacks and has dropped out. I'm not well enough to home school him, and there are not enough special school places to get him help.

We have had endless trouble with low grade criminal activity in volunteer organisations over the years and no help, because the police are under-funded. This means that our community involvement has dwindled to nothing and he has no social support outside school and our house.

We have enough money, but I have started posting our spare food on freecycle and I get desperate people coming to collect it and asking if we have anything else surplus. I know that at least one of my DS's friends is short of food.

Nothing much is being done about climate change.

Now they're making it illegal to give tents to homeless people?!

Can't we just force a general election now?

The conservatives could organise a snap general election easily enough if they thought it would get them a bigger majority,

I think they should do the morally right thing and call one now to get us a better government.

Posting this in trepidation, because I know AIBU is fierce. What do you think though?

  1. you'd have to have exceptional power and clout and organisational skills to call a general strike? Whats your plan for doing this?
  2. Pointless now anyway because we'll be having an election in November 2024.
  3. In what way is your GP surgery and local hospital struggling? Is it something that would be remedied by a general strike?
  4. Schools are short staffed because we have a recruitment crises. A government change won't solve that. What do you do for a living? Maybe you could retrain and do teaching.
  5. Well done for posting your spare food on freecycle. I DO think a labour government would take steps to end poverty like this. Could you pack an extra lunch for your sons friend?
  6. Too late to tackle climate change. Should have been done 50 years ago and to be honest, it doesn't matter how many soggy paper straws I drink out of, without big corporations doing their bit it was never going to work anyway.
RocketIceLollie · 05/11/2023 09:41

Another set of politicians but wearing different colour ties springs to mind. People honestly believe things will change under a new set of politicians...

Haydenn · 05/11/2023 09:41

@dontbenastyhaveapasty ”My gerbil could run the country better than the current incarnation of the Conservative Party.”

and your gerbil now has as higher profile as keir Starmer. I might just vote for it. I am merely stating given the current circumstances isn’t anyone else concerned by how badly Starmer is performing. It should be a given.