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!

@DogInATent "But it's working. You can see it i this thread. The Conservative spin machine lies are taking hold in the public consciousness."

Yep. And that's not because the electorate are thick. It's because most of the electorate are not as engaged with or as interested in politics as the people who post on threads like this are. So they are going to take what credible sounding people tell them at face value. Why wouldn't they? Look at how the £2000 extra tax lie took hold.

It’s not for me to decide how others vote. This isn’t about my vote anyway (as it’s not Reform)

I’m talking generally. The act of using a vote to protest is not new or irrational. In fact a lot of the votes about to be placed are a kind of protest the current gov

In fact a lot of the votes about to be placed are a kind of protest the current gov

If that’s taken to its logical conclusion every vote that isn’t for the Tories is a protest vote, which is clearly a nonsense. A protest vote is to make a point with no belief in the policies of the party being voted for. Personally I think it’s lazy and irresponsible.

You asked why it was "thick".

That's why. Protest vote if you (the voter, not you specifically) wish, but think through the consequences. If everyone "protests" by voting for Reform, or Lib Dem, or anyone else, that's who we end up with.

If you (the voter) is prepared for that to happen as a consequence, great. If not, it's a daft way to do it.

"It's always been done like this" is not a reason to keep doing something. Clearly hasn't worked if it's always happened and this is the situation we've found ourselves in. Let's think it through.

I love the fact that people are saying they will vote Tory to prioritise safety of women and girls.

You don't care about that, you just use it as an excuse to vote Tory and hide your bigotry.

You are just like Tommy Robinson and all his supporters.

The best bit is those surveys proving that all the time you have spent here over the past 5 years, the millions of words on tens of thousands of threads, have made no difference to the majority. Your politicising of this issue has done nothing.

You have achieved nothing.

My post did not say every.

Everyone gets a vote to use as they want. Tg it’s still the case despite accusations of thick or whatever

Er no

You may wish that but men using abuse, threats and violence against women speaking up see it as a barrier to what they want.

It’s very unlikely with our electoral system

Maybe if we had PR there could be more of a connection between a vote and outcome / policy

His legacy will be self-Id. People will look back on a weak, supine man responsible for the cancellation of biological women. He is either a closet misogynist or a deeply wet, unimaginative, handmaiden.

Very unlikely is not impossible. And look what happened with Brexit. People were very easily swayed by Farage's promises, which obviously turned out to be complete crap.

It's time for a change.

There is no such thing as a 'protest vote'.
When you cast a vote it counts as nothing other than support for the candidate you are voting for and their policies/manifesto.

If you want to protest, spoil your paper. The number of spoiled ballot papers is counted, recorded, and reported. That way there's no confusion about your lack of support for any of the available options.

Obviously there is in the minds of the people voting

Even if you don’t or think they shouldn’t, it’s their vote to do with for whatever reason they wish

Oh please. Your “argument” is hardly worth a rebuttal. I smell a a male lefty itching to eradicate women.

Just because that's how they see it doesn't make it the smart thing to do.

Er no.

You don't care about women and girls really, otherwise you wouldn't be voting for a party that actively supports policies which negatively effects millions of them over a policy which will make little to no difference.

But then, as it needs no agency from you, that's why you do it.

Eh. The evidence for that is what precisely? The only place where I feel threatened as a biological woman is in the NHS where women are treated as fourth class citizens in an hierarchy that goes: drs (m and f), nurses, male patients, women patients.

Oh please, I smell a right winger looking for excuses to vote Tory.

Great strawman.

Nothing said about eradicating women.

You'd rather support policies that reduce women and girls quality of life and puts them more at risk, then claim you are supporting them.

And whatever thoughts are echoing around in their minds, when they cast a vote for Reform they're casting a vote that Farage will use post-election to legitimize himself and complain about a lack of representation.

The Conservatives are talking up a Labour landslide to encourage people to think it's safe to not vote Labour (or whichever other party is best placed to depose Conservative candidates). This is very dangerous for the country if they end up encouraging additional support for Reform. There are a lot of traditionally safe Conservative seats that depending which poll you look at could now be 2-, 3- or even 4-way marginals. I live in one of them. Traditionally a shoe-in with >50% of the vote for whichever chinless wonder the Tories parachuted in, and now we've got Conservatives, Labour, LibDem and Reform all in the 20-30% range. This is why protest votes for Reform are dangerous - if you vote for it, you're responsible if you get it, so you better agree with their policies and positions before you tick that box.

You may be more aligned with a minority of men’s wishes but many women do care

Obviously it’s not a pretence but also it’s not for nothing. You can see that with how violently those men react. They feel threatened and lash out, in abuse, court cases, or threats and even punching elderly women

Except when women made such noise about a RAPIST being housed in the female estate that it ended the political career of the First minister?
Standing up for vulnerable women and girls, wanting ideology out of schools, preserving single sex spaces and services, championing women's sports and protecting children from lifelong medicalisation or sterilisation is not bigotry.

Wow.

One thing.

All that bile and venom posted, to all those people who might have supported you but have been put off.

But then you've been banging on about prisons all the time and there are only 4 transwomen in the whole prison estate and there have been no attacks by a transwomen since 2020.

Funnily enough, if you were really bothered about women in prisons there are issues that impact way more of them than this one, but you don't, so it discredits you.

No. Impact.

Don’t they all just say what they want just to get in? It’s not always what they say, but also about what they don’t say. Labour are as much guilty of it as any other party. I’m all for paying higher taxes if it means better living for us, but on past experience it just never happens. We pay high taxes, and end up with nothing better than it was before, because our taxes are just swallowed up by the party’s pet projects or another level of bureaucracy.

Your hatred and gleeful contempt for women absolutely stinks. It's so clear. Why would you WANT to put women at further risk? Says an awful lot about you. It really IS a men's rights movement isn't it, supported by weak minded handmaidens.

Yeah they don't actually care about women in prisons.

And here we go. Wondered how long it would be before people voting Tory would be compared to Tommy Robinson and his ilk. It’s always brought into these discussions when a poster’s running out of steam and throws in some racist accusation crap. Lazy comparison. I’m not voting Tory btw, but I respect peoples right to vote for who they want. Whether you agree with them or not is irrelevant, but the debate shouldn’t descend into personal insults.