Anyone else wobbling about voting Labour?

[MaryMaryVeryContrary]

I desperately want to GTTO but the last few years have taught me that ‘any change’ isn’t always good and things can get worse, even if you think they can’t.

I’ve watched all the debates now and Starmer is so… wet. I don’t like him. The first thing he did when women’s rights were mentioned his first thought was men who ‘identify as women’ and how ‘marginalised’ they are. When asked about immigration he squirmed and squirmed before muttering about his role as DPP (who cares? We want to know what you plan to do NOW). When asked about his support for Corbyn he said ‘but I didn’t think we would actually win..’

There’s something about him which is making me very uncomfortable and I just have a bad feeling now about what would happen if he was leader.

Anyone else? If you’re not voting Tory or Labour, who are you voting for and why? I assumed I would vote Labour this time but my gut is suddenly screaming at me not to!

This is what worries me. I will vote Labour this election and I've been 99 percent sure of that from the start. But I'm glad the campaign is coming to an end as I can see Starmer growing a bit tired and I'm in full support of him, so I can imagine swing voters may be put off by now. I really hope Labour get in. The tories need to go now in my view.

Yes, exactly. I've watched some of the live debates. He can speak well, I'll give him that.
A lot of people don't go past that though, or don't read the full manifesto (ie what they plan to do) and just boil it down to he knows how to speak in public well and "well he wants to send the boats back."
Look at the bigger picture.

Honest answer? I don’t think any party is capable of sorting this mess out. Everything is crap. And it just seems an impossible mountain to climb. A combination of the Covid years, cost of living issues - some of which were out of our control and others being a result of poor government. I think big tax hikes are inevitable, but we’ve had this before, where taxes have been increased on the back of promises that public services/NHS etc will improve, but it doesn’t. The increased taxes just disappear down a black hole, and we’re no better off because of it.

The problem is that Starmer hasn't been equivocal about this at all. Part of the difficulty is that when he talks about "women's spaces" he's not being specific in how he defines a woman. He has continued to suggest that trans women are women eg/by saying that 99.9% of women don't have a penis - when we know that stats suggest trans = 0.1%....so in other words, he's included trans women as women. Again.

Then the next week he seems to be more biologically aligned by saying he agrees with Tony Blair who was very unequivocal on the subject of how men and women are defined as a sex class. Blair did unfortunately show Starmer up as he demonstrated just how bloody easy it would be to clear up this whole situation with just a few well-chosen words - ones that Starmer simply won't say.

Starmer has been very clever with his wording to avoid being drawn categorically on this issue which is why so many left-leaning voters like me are utterly frustrated.

The Tories don't give a fuck about women, absolutely agree. Or any other minority group.

I actually think Starmer would make a brilliant PM which is why I'm so irritated he can't come out transparently on this issue.

But will Labour sort out the NHS, schools, public services?

How will we even know if we don't give them a chance?!
5 more years of what we've got currently won't bring any new results.
Labour are the Govt that founded the NHS.
I trust them far more than the Tories or Reform that would be more likely to rather it was done away with via privatising
Health care for all.. Not just for those with money.

I’m old enough to remember the last couple of times they’ve been in power, which is what makes me sceptical. I actually voted for Tony Blair, but regretted it massively. Just really struggling with trusting that they will deliver on anything. They have form for over promising and under delivering.

I’m old enough to remember the last couple of times they’ve been in power, which is what makes me sceptical.

So am I.
Life's felt brighter and more fairer under Labour than it ever has under the Tories.

Interest rates haven’t moved for some time and the Bank of England has reduced inflation. Sunak’s government had nothing to do with it.

I am in my early sixties. The economy was handled much better under labour. Conservatives have traditionally supported business, but not this current conservative government. Unless you are also friends with Rishi Sunak.

I still can not get over Liz Truss crashing the economy. She still wants to be Prime Minister and if conservatives were re elected, she might well succeed. And she will get support. Because a lot of rich people made a lot of money when the markets were crashed. At the expense of everyone else.

This shows what is actually impacting on people's votes:

The phrase womens safe spaces does not appear in any legislation. The phrase single sex spaces does. Why does Starmer insist on using the former? He's a barrister so I doubt he doesn't know the importance of words. It's why many women do not trust him on this.

You claim the poster you are responding to has "cherry picked" three quotes from individuals apparently unaware of the dozens of misogynistic and dismissive remarks made by Labour Party members. They literally branded Women's Place UK, a group of leftie womens right campaigners, a transphobic hate group and many senior party members demanded that any who were members of the should be expelled.

The promise to tackle VAWG seems rather hollow when they have repeatedly denied Karen Ingala Smith party membership because she does not think men, however they identify, should be allowed in women's single sex spaces, especially women's refuge's.

Don't make the assumption that my dissatisfaction with the Labour Party means I'm voting conservative. They're both beyond awful but some people seem blind to the Labour Party's shortcomings.

This doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Women's rights has never been a priority, and I doubt it ever will in my lifetime.

Even the way it's worded centres men. We're not upset about trans rights, we're upset about women's rights being eroded. Women are never bloody centred in anything even when the discussion is quite literally about us.

It's too complex a subject to properly unpick here and now, but it's multifaceted. In part it's because people are more concerned about other issues which are pressing and visible. In part it's because some are not engaged in the feminist conversation and have absolutely no idea what's at stake. In part it's because women are heavily socialised to "be kind" and to act as a shield in a way that men never are. In part it's because many men don't want to hear women talking about our rights and don't give a shiny shit what we need/want. And of course, it's in part because some people simply disagree and think male-bodied trans women should be allowed to go wherever they feel the most comfortable.

We're all in our own echo chambers to a greater or lesser degree. I see a lot of this on MN and also other social media, but that's because I follow a lot of feminist accounts. I am well aware that it doesn't feature as heavily for many other people.

This won't lose Labour the election. And it won't win the Tories re-election. It will influence a small minority of voters who feel this is their number one priority but I don't think other than these people, anyone else really cares. And that's precisely why we're worried because there won't be enough loud voices to protest if Labour allow men into women's spaces. No one will really care. More women will get assaulted (as already has been happening). And the world will keep on turning, being spun by men and their handmaidens. Plus ca change.

I don’t owe anyone my vote, it’s mine to give to whomever I want and I’ll give it to whoever addresses my concerns. Right now Labour can’t safeguard hard won women’s rights, they can’t even decide whether we should have single sex spaces have declined to say they would clarify that gender means sex in legislation. They can fuck right off. I’m utterly furious that pandering to a minority of men means the loss of opportunity and safe spaces for actual women and girls.

This is not a theoretical debate. If your DD spent years training for swimming (insane hours) she could lose her spot to a bloke. Your mum with dementia recieves intimate personal care from a bloke but no-one’s allowed to point out that it’s a bloke regardless of how terrified your mum is because that would be transphobic. You have your smear test, it’s a bloke but you are too scared to say you are uncomfortable with having a bloke do it. You go to a rape crisis meeting and theres a bloke sitting there listening in but you can’t question it. And on it goes. Every single situation where your sex may be relevant an be colonised by men.

Labour can fuck right off frankly.

He seems to think that a trans woman’s needs trump the needs of an actual woman.

Succinctly and accurately put.

I care most about the cost of living and then the NHS. Because unlike many on MN we are low paid and times are hard.

For whatever reason (I don’t care about the reason) Labour are happy for women to feel/be violated. A lot of women don’t realise how bad it is, they need to spend some time thinking about where the end point of this is.

Transwomen present the same risk factors as every other man, they are not a special kind of woman. The truth is we’ve created a special category of men who are exempt from the restrictions and expectations placed on other men to keep women and children safe. There is zero difference between a bloke wearing a dress called stacey and wearing a dress and a bloke called kevin and wearing jeans in terms of risk to women. Zero.

@Chickenuggetsticks so what do you think about the reality that under the conservatives we have trans women women working in refuges, rape crisis, in women's prisons and in the police undertaking same sex strip searches?

Fucking dire, but I trust they know they need to turn that ship around.

Labour on the other hand are committed to making a GRC easier to obtain (and remove the ability of women married to transwomen to anul their marriages) and refuse to clarify sex in the equalities act. they can’t manage basic questions about what loos transwomen should use, kier thinks that 99.9% of women don’t have a penis which conveniently includes the “women” with a penis. Why would I actively vote to make it worse?

I can only see them making it worse. I was one of those caught on the hop by all of this. I was definitely one of the “stop picking on trans people” tribe. Then it slowly dawned on me what the actual consequences were of transactivism (children being pit of blockers etc, Keira Bell broke my heart, someone should have just said “you are fine, you are just a lesbian”) so I’m hardly one to criticise anyone for not grasping the importance late.

I would ask you which alternative party has expressed concerns about any of those things?

Zero wobbles from me.

Even if I preferred the Tory forward direction (which I don’t), I would have grave concerns about them getting in again after the lack of standards and trashing of institutions we have seen from them. It would not be good long term if a party thinks they can get away with that.

Plus, Sunak just doesn’t have the bandwidth or character to be a good PM. Doing deals that essentially force the bail out of RBS for his own huge personal gain, he’s good at. But wider picture and running a country, not so much.

Labour. Have a Tory MP who I dislike immensely but has held the seat forever. I usually vote green but there's a chance our MP called lose his ultra safe seat so I'm going for it. The debate is pointless as they just say what they need to get in. The Tories can't keep saying that labour will increase taxes when the tax burden has never been greater under their government. I'd happily pay more if it means a better health service and infrastructure. The very rich have done very nicely in recent years, time for a change.

I didn't suggest they did. I'm not the one posting pompous, pretentious slogans though.

They haven't considered it because within Labour there's no precedent for it and it's highly unlikely to happen.