Voting for party or voting for individual MP?

[MajorMischa]

Obviously both are important and ideally would align. But in the real world...

Our local MP is useless. But to be better illustrate my question, we have a really solid MSP here, who has been great at standing up for us, including against their own (governing) party. I would vote for them on this basis regardless of my views on this party. But I couldn't stretch it to Tory, even if they were the best person for the job.

So where's the line? How important is your local MP vs voting for the party you want?

I'm in the fortunate position that my local MP is neither any good as an MP nor from a party I would want to vote for. Easy choice for me. The downside is that they're likely to keep their seat.

I live in a Labour stronghold, it won’t change. I have voted Labour, Conservative and even Lib Dem in the past. I feel my vote won’t count unless we get PR, but the big two will never sanction it.

I wrote to my MP about an issue that is really important to me - her view is completely the opposite to mine so I won't be voting for her. She represents the party that I normally vote for so I will be looking at the other candidates to see if I can support one of them.

My electoral boundaries have changed since last time so I’m not aware of the details about my local MP’s performance but he will get my vote based on his party.

I'm not mad about Labour, but they are standing a really good candidate, and she will win this constituency over Tories as the incumbent (who has probably held on because he's a good constituency MP) is standing down. So a few reasons to vote for her.

I was about to ask a very similar question - I had originally thought I'd vote for the local MP who seems decent enough and has an admirable view on many of the local issues I care about; but, the party they belong to holds views I find abhorrent and wouldn't like to see become law.

I don't know what to do...

My local MP who is a Conservative is a well
motivated and educational man. I don’t know why he is still in the party; he’s been totally ignored for the last five years by his own people. What’s the point of having a local MP who gets ignored by his colleagues? Competence has its limits. You want some influence

My MP is a Conservative and actually does a decent job. I'll be voting for him and not the Labour candidate parachuted in with no links to the area.

I've lived in a couple of constituencies with decent competent Tory MPs but I cannot support their policies. Since they have chosen to align themselves with a party I can't support, I can't support them.

I live in a pretty safe Labour seat and I like my constituency MP.

I live in Ireland and we have PR. I normally vote by party unless I really dislike the person or their beliefs. Where it gets interesting is that we usually have quite a few independents on the list too so I'll throw them a vote if I agree with what they're saying. I often give them a no 1 as they're unlikely to get in but it indictates to the bigger parties that the issue of xyz took 500 first preference votes or whatever. I don't think many people vote like this though. In Ireland it's not a wasted vote as if your No 1 doesn't get in your no 2 choice gets your vote instead.

This is a much better system!

Yes I agree there are definitely limits, and I could never vote for anyone either immoral or stupid enough to stand as a Conservative. However choosing between Lib/Lab/SNP is different as they are closer in terms of social policies.

For me its easy. Its not going to be Labour, nor Tory
All of those standing in our area inc Independents are total rubbish

Looks Like I may vote for the majority in this GE, IE, 'Noe of the above.'

I would like everyone to speak to anyone canvassing/email their local MP and/or join a debate about their plans for education, the police and healthcare. Or stop posting
on mumsnet.

Yesterday I had an ‘angry note’ (no diagram attached) about the fact that my car was parked outside their house and not in the school car park. Despite the fact that it has been IN THE NEWS that the school is falling down with RAAC and the reason we can’t park in the car park is because it’s not safe/full of temporary classrooms. But no, don’t email your MP. Put a note on my car.

At least they know what a woman is, eh.

I'm voting for a bit of a combination. I'm not happy at all with the direction of the party and it's leadership, and the manifesto is largely underwhelming and unambitious. However I have a great local MP with a voting history that I'm happy with who has lead various campaigns that are important to me and my local area. Therefore I will continue to vote for her and hope that this also sends a message to the party about the values/voting behaviour that she holds are still very popular and the party should align closer with them.

My current MP is a pompous ass with a despicable voting record and, historically, a huge majority.

I will be voting for the only candidate who seems to have a realistic chance of ousting him this time.

It's definitely more about the MP himself than his party for me at this stage. He has been my MP for more than half of my life & has been disgraceful (in my opinion) the entire time.

I totally understand people voting for local MP/Councilor during say a Mayoral or local election campaign, but not during a general election where you are voting for the Govt for next 5 years.

This is the exact strategy the Tories are attempting to pull off and sneak back into No10 through the back door. Tory MP after Tory MP are virtually pretending not to even be a "Tory" they have removed the name Conservative from a lot of their party leaflets and you can barely see it in small print at back.

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/tory-hq-election-campaign-strategy-dont-mention-conservatives-3083650

https://bylinetimes.com/2024/04/23/conservative-campaign-takes-surreal-turn-as-party-appears-to-ditch-its-own-colour-logo-and-name-in-fake-newspapers/

Another underhanded trick to cling onto power by any means possible.

Make no mistake a vote for a local Tory MP is effectively a vote for Rishi Sunak and his corrupt and useless Tory Govt.

@paolo2145 I agree sort of. I don't think I could stray too far from my values, but when deciding between more closely aligned parties surely local MP becomes important. In my case, I couldn't vote Tory even if they were the best person ever, but individual MP might be enough to sway me between Lab/Lib/SNP/independent.
It doesn't matter what the parties are though, whether you are left or right wing, it's more about how much difference a really good local MP can actually make to an area.

when deciding between more closely aligned parties surely local MP becomes important.
I don't see any parties that closely aligned, but more importantly, due to our totally outdated system, even if I did know that a particular MP would do a brilliant job, except in a very very small number of places (my constituency is not one) unless they represent one of the major parties there is no chance of them getting elected in any case.

My local MP, Labour Party, has been really helpful to my very unwell sibling in the past and sorted a massive issue out for us. I’m definitely voting Labour because I also agree with their manifesto and values

Our MP is Conservative and really rather good. I like her a lot (don’t agree on everything but she is active, present and achieves a lot).

I am livid with the Conservatives as I think they have behaved terribly recently. But I detest Labour and so I shall probably (still undecided) vote for them only because our MP is good. I feel a bit mixed on the subject though.

Agree; I am voting for my LibDem MP, but would probably vote Labour in a direct election for PM.

The only circumstance under which I could ever consider voting Conservative would be if my constituency was marginal between Tory and a worse party such as Reform. Not likely to happen.

Due to boundary changes we’re in a new constituency now.

Our former MP is standing in the one next door. But he’lll still be one of our local MSPs whatever the outcome of that.

Thankfully, I can still judge the candidate replacing him, as they’ve been on the local council for a while.

I couldn’t vote for either based on performance. Although to be fair our current MP had announced he will have less responsibility at his MSP job soon, so maybe his performance will improve when he has fewer jobs.

The candidate I would like to vote for won’t win, so I’ll vote tactically instead, but knowing that the tactical candidate (based on party) did ok on the local council, so there’s at least some chance they will be competent as an MP. To be fair, that knowledge does help a bit .

There should be an element of voting for an individual, as many issues are not party political.

Hence my preference for the form of PR used in Ireland.