Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel completely disillusioned with the Labour Party?

261 replies

user6776 · 04/12/2023 10:19

I've voted Labour since I've been able to vote. Come from a working class family of Labour voters also and I'd never vote Tory, but I'm feeling so disillusioned by Labour at the minute.

Wasn't really a fan of Starmer to begin with, but even less so after his comments about Margaret Thatcher. I really don't want to vote for them at the next GE.

AIBU to just not vote at all?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
Bluemacaroons · 04/12/2023 18:00

MissyB1 · 04/12/2023 10:28

Please vote. I totally understand your disillusion but we have to get this criminal shitty Government out.

For the first time in my life I will not vote Labour I will vote Liberal Democrat, and anyway in our town the Lib Dem guy is the only guy who can knock the Tory twat out of his seat.

Hertfordshire market town by any chance?

MissyB1 · 04/12/2023 20:20

Bluemacaroons · 04/12/2023 18:00

Hertfordshire market town by any chance?

Show quote history

No, I’m in Cheltenham. We have the joy of the Justice minister Alex Chalk as our MP sigh……

cardibach · 04/12/2023 20:25

missmollygreen · 04/12/2023 16:52

The point isnt to vote for someone you think is going to win. It's to vote for someone you want to win

Show quote history

With FPTP it’s also about voting against someone you don’t want to win. I really don’t understand how anyone would want the current shit show to be re-elected…

Papyrophile · 04/12/2023 20:30

All incoming governments are somewhat hamstrung by the economic legacy left to them. It's how they manage their way past it that distinguishes the above average. Blair's landslide victory in 1997 came on the back of Ken Clarke diligently assembling an economy ready to boom back to health, despite the travails of the early 1990s and the shitty corruption scandals (on both sides of the HoC) from the mid 1990s.

Aishah231 · 04/12/2023 20:30

I'm considering not voting Labour for similar reasons OP. I don't feel comfortable giving my vote to a labour leader who praises Thatcher and won't condemn laying siege to the entire population of Gaza. Also a leader who has broken every promise he made to members and tramples all over democracy in the party. I'll probably vote for a party unlikely to get anywhere but to the left of Labour. I'm hoping the message will get through and the party wil adopt a less corrupt and right wing leader. If the Tories get in again so be it. I'd rather that than be stuck with more of the same but from Labour this time

cardibach · 04/12/2023 20:33

Aishah231 · 04/12/2023 20:30

I'm considering not voting Labour for similar reasons OP. I don't feel comfortable giving my vote to a labour leader who praises Thatcher and won't condemn laying siege to the entire population of Gaza. Also a leader who has broken every promise he made to members and tramples all over democracy in the party. I'll probably vote for a party unlikely to get anywhere but to the left of Labour. I'm hoping the message will get through and the party wil adopt a less corrupt and right wing leader. If the Tories get in again so be it. I'd rather that than be stuck with more of the same but from Labour this time

He didn’t praise her.
He’s made it clear that he thinks the bombing of Gaza should stop.
Vote for the Tories (or someone who will let them in) if you like, but don’t do it because of nonsense made up by the media.

Papyrophile · 04/12/2023 20:36

I don't have a political affiliation, and never have had. Given the national situation, and my situation, I vote for my best interests. Currently, I tend to think the Tories are out of ideas and Labour is the better option. Interested to see what Wes Streeting has to say about reforming the NHS when he returns from his research visit to Australia.

MargaritaThyme · 04/12/2023 20:40

Starmer’s Thatcher comment would have been extensively tested & focus grouped. It was obviously targeted at people who voted Tory in 2019, but feel disillusioned by the government’s failures. The fact that he made the comment in a Telegraph article tells you all you need to know.
This is the reality of electoral politics in a two party system under FPTP. Swing voters in marginal seats are the only ones who really matter. Boris persuaded millions of them to vote for him in 2019 which is why places like Stoke, Blackpool and even Mansfield are currently represented by Tory MPs. Starmer’s job is to win them back, and he’s currently making a very good job of it.

santasknackered · 04/12/2023 20:56

CasperGutman · 04/12/2023 10:30

You need to vote for whatever party is least bad. Please. Parties aim at meeting the needs of those who vote. Presumably their thinking is that you don't win elections by appealing to non-voters!

Currently we've had a series of successively more right-wing Tory and coalition governments, and that's shifted the "Overton window" way to the right of what you want.

The current Labour leadership is pitching itself just to the left of the Tories, as that's where they think they need to be positioned to capture as much of the vote as possible in our stupid First Past the Post two-party system.

If we vote in a few successive Labour governments, we'll hopefully find a choice between a more recognisably socialist Labour party and a Conservative party that's trying to pitch itself as a sort of Blairite democratic liberal grouping.

Of course, a more representative electoral system could also be something to try, but I'm not holding my breath!

Edited

This is spot on and exactly why you need to vote OP.

EatMyHead · 04/12/2023 21:01

YANBU

Starmer represents the establishment's ultimate infiltration and capture of the Labour party and its reconfiguration to make meaningful change impossible. Our electoral system - a blunt instrument for the expression of popular will at the best of times, due to the perversions of First Past The Post - is now nothing more than a rubber stamping exercise to make the public complicit in its own economic and cultural decline and helpless before the challenges of climate change.

I won't be voting for this exercise in mass delusion, in either of its (largely identical) manifestations.

mumda · 04/12/2023 21:25

user6776 · 04/12/2023 10:27

How is voting Green not a wasted vote though?

It's beyond bad.

They're really not sensible as an option.

Vote independent.

Camerasforinthehouse · 04/12/2023 22:38

AgnesX · 04/12/2023 17:13

Even if Labour gets in not much will change. It's hamstrung by the massive borrowing debt that the Tories have left behind.

So much else is a side issue when you look at economics. It really does affect the rest of policy eg the NHS, taxes, public spending.

I agree about significant change in economy and public services but what would change is that we would have a semi credible leader who has values, acts with integrity and is intelligent. He is strategic. His training means he has the ability to articulate himself well. He seems compassionate. After the string of self serving, law breaking, corrupt aresholes we have had recently I’m up for all that.

mamma65432 · 04/12/2023 22:41

I'm voting lib-dem because our local candidate works his backside off as a local counsellor, I have no clue who our labour candidate is.

newnamethanks · 04/12/2023 22:48

If you've read what Starmer said then YABU. If you've read what others say he said, and swallowed it, then still YABU. If you want to continue the cycle of defunding and dereliction embarked upon by what currently passes for a government than I wish you joy of it.

notquiteruralbliss · 04/12/2023 22:48

Just vote for whoever is most likely to beat the Conservatives in your constituency.

Tactical voting in an election after our longstanding MP died meant the LibDems won what had been considered a safe Conservative set

ilovesooty · 04/12/2023 22:50

cardibach · 04/12/2023 14:17

Exactly @ntmdino
It keeps being reported as 'praise'. All he said was that she changed Britain, which she did. He's also clarified he wasn't suggesting the way she did it was good. I've no idea what people are getting so het up about.

Neither have I. Some people really seem determined to read what they think he meant, not what he said.

Starmer bashing has become quite the sport on here. If it's not what people think he's said or hasn't said, it's the manifesto (which hasn't yet been published), or his voice, or his background, or his lack of charisma.

Not to mention beer, curries and whether he knows what a woman is.

And 'but Angela Rayner'.

mamma65432 · 04/12/2023 22:54

I listened to a long interview with Starmer recently and he sounded very very depressed, I'm not convinced in his longevity as party leader, I'm voting for the local candidate who I know works hard, tries to help and tries to understand the bigger picture, he happens to be Lib dem and I have no idea who the other candidates are, if he was labour, green or conservative I would still vote for him.

Cupcakekiller · 04/12/2023 23:06

I hate the Tories more than I support Labour so I'll vote Labour. Lib Dem's teamed up with the Tories, I'll never forget that.

Zonder · 04/12/2023 23:17

mamma65432 · 04/12/2023 22:54

I listened to a long interview with Starmer recently and he sounded very very depressed, I'm not convinced in his longevity as party leader, I'm voting for the local candidate who I know works hard, tries to help and tries to understand the bigger picture, he happens to be Lib dem and I have no idea who the other candidates are, if he was labour, green or conservative I would still vote for him.

Which interview was that? I haven't had that impression on any I've listened to.

Mind you, he's being given a poisoned chalice. He will inherit a massive mess and when he doesn't wave a magic wand and sort it out in the first 6 months he will be branded a failure.

It will take a long time to pick up the pieces of the last 14 Tory years.

BIossomtoes · 04/12/2023 23:23

Can you share where the interview was? I’d like to listen to that.

mrscatwoman · 05/12/2023 06:23

Never heard Starmer sounding depressed.

Another day, another 'aren't Labour shit, I couldn't possible vote for KS' thread on MN. All while the county falls apart about our ears under the Tories and Labour continues to soar ahead in the polls. I just can't fathom it 🤔.

Kokeshi123 · 05/12/2023 06:26

The comment about Thatcher was fine. She wasn't the devil incarnate, she was a woman who was wrongheaded about quite a lot of things (but of course you can find some sensible and necessary things that she did too, if you look at all the many different things she did).

Your post sounds a bit adolescent, to be honest. He's a grown up politician with nuanced views on stuff, just like most middle aged people.

SerendipityJane · 05/12/2023 07:27

The comment about Thatcher was fine. She wasn't the devil incarnate, she was a woman who was wrongheaded about quite a lot of things (but of course you can find some sensible and necessary things that she did too, if you look at all the many different things she did).

You have to remember what she followed.

TheClitterati · 05/12/2023 07:30

For all those saying "vote green " the Green Party are now full on gender ideology clowns.

This bloke was a conservative candidate not long ago. Now he has new name, some shoddy wigs & lippy and he's a Green Party candidate.

Vote green my arse.

x.com/aja02537920/status/1731751511267381431?s=46

To feel completely disillusioned with the Labour Party?
TheClitterati · 05/12/2023 07:33

This is what the Green Party think of women:

x.com/aja02537920/status/1731935734813118513?s=46