Lifelong Labour voters: how are you feeling?

[VerlynWebbe]

I ask because DH and I were discussing this last night.
He is of the opinion that he'll do anything that gets the Tories out, even if he has to hold his nose a bit.
I can't do it, though. I can't get over their inaction over the genocide in Gaza. Like, I can't imagine walking into a polling booth and setting aside that massive abdication of morals.
But I know things are fucked in Britain as well.
I really find it upsetting and wondered if anyone else feels the same.

As a Scot who's currently having to live with the clusterf*ck that is the SNP Govt propped up by the Greens - I would wholeheartedly say you absolutely do not want this.

The Greens are incompetent and unfit for their current role in Govt.

No danger of that. Labour’s 26 points ahead now.

True. Also we've got Thangam Debonnaire who is pretty ensconced so it'd be a wasted vote tbh!

This is madness. If people do this it will split the anti Tory vote.

A vote for Green etc is a vote for the Tories.

You have to be cleverer than this!

In the run-up to the 97 election Tony Blair was Labour leader & the party had a big poll lead over John Major’s tories. Blair was given some advice by his mentor Roy Jenkins, a centrist Labour grandee & former Home Secretary.

Jenkins said Blair’s position was like a man carrying a priceless Ming vase across a highly polished floor. The precious vase which mustn’t be dropped represented the prospect of a Labour government after 18 years of the tories. The slippery floor was the political hazard which Blair had to successfully get through without making a massive mistake in order to win. Starmer is now in the same position that Blair was back then, which is why he is so obsessively cautious about screwing up & smashing the precious vase.

Thanks @MuggedByReality good old Jenkins!

What do you think they would actually do about Gaza? They are not in Government there is nothing they could practically do making statements won't make the slightest difference to the people in Gaza.
If you want to get rid of this Government then you should vote Labour. If people don't and by some extremely unlikely event the Tories get in again then it will be the Government the country deserves .

The most important thing is to get rid of the Conservatives. No one can afford to indulge their finer consciences or play silly games voting for minor parties because Starmer is 'dull' or you wish the Labour Party had done/said more on X , Y or Z. They are not in power. They cannot be responsible for the grim state we are in.

All the problems we've had, the Labour Party in Wales being grossly underfunded, the Local Councils being grossly underfunded eg Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Manchester etc etc, the awful transport system, the awful NHS, the awful attack on women ( fall in rape convictions, men's access to women's safe places, men in women's wards, prisons etc ), awful education, huge rise in child poverty, crisis in housing, zero hours contracts, have ALL happened under the Tories.

Because the Tories wanted it. They want a vulnerable people with no security.

The only way of being sure to get rid of the Tories is to vote for the party which has the best chance of getting a bigger vote than them ie the Labour Party.
A vote for ANY other party splits the anti Tory vote and risks the Tories getting in.

We know that the NHS was MUCH better under the Labour Party. ( The Labour Party founded it in 1948 under Aneurin Bevan.)
We know that the Labour Party reduced child poverty hugely.
We know that the Labour Party opened Sure Start Centres and that they had a huge positive effect on the poorest children.

They have form for improving the country especially for the most vulnerable and for women therefore.

The Lib Dems have form for abandoning their policies and siding with the Tories ( Nick Clegg abandoning his pledge to abolish student fees in exchange for being deputy PM, sponsoring the Gagging Bill to stop charities speaking out in the year before an election, voting for austerity and multiple attacks on the poorest etc. etc.)

The Tories have form for enriching themselves and their friends at our expense.

Neither care too hoots for the people of this country . Their leaders belong to an elite which owns most of our Press, have off shore funds, will lie, connive, say or do anything to keep power.

We all need to see the bigger picture. We want the Conservative party to collapse so it can NEVER be in power again.

Vote LABOUR.

I refer you to my last paragraph - where I am is a safe Labour seat so I have the luxury of using my vote to show my dissatisfaction with Labour. I honestly don't know what I'd do in the OPs position.

I cannot imagine the state this country will be in if we have another five years of the Tories. I'll be voting Labour.

This poster was put up in our Somerset town yesterday.

And this is how Labour loses seats because its voters are lulled into a false sense of security. No seat is safe if its voters vote for another party don't vote 'because it's a safe Labour Seat'.

Voting Green is a risk too far wherever you live. The country can't afford voters to indulge themselves in this reckless way.

Will you be happy the day after the GE when many people have followed your advice and voted Green in Labour 'safe seats' to split the vote so we have eg another rightwing Con/Lib Dem coalition?

Someone on MN said recently that they were politically homeless. Summed it up for me. The calibre of MPs is grim. You can add councillors to that pile too

There is no such thing as a safe seat - we saw that in 2019, and in 2007 in Scotland.

We saw it happen with the Brexit "protest" votes, the US saw it in 2016.

Protest votes/3rd party (that have zero chance of getting anywhere near a coalition) votes tend to blow up in people's face.

A vote is a direction of travel. You will never get a direct taxi service door to door. It's a bus service - you get the one that takes you nearest to where you want to go.

You really can't tar all MPs /Councillors with the same brush. Plenty of Labour MPs and Councillors ( and others) eg are great doing their very best in very difficult circumstances where their funding has been repeatedly cut so that they can barely carry out policies they have to do legally.

Spreading disillusion in politics like this is playing into the hands of the Tories.
They want 'ordinary' people to not vote ( because they'll not vote for them, the Tories.)

We need to encourage people to engage with politics ie speak to their MP/Councillor to influence them, indeed to stand themselves.

I'll be voting Labour but fear that they are going to find their hands seriously tied due to a severe shortage of money to fix anything. I'm hoping that Reform will help to destroy the Tory vote for at least a good few years as Labour will need at least two terms to try and get things rectified.

Not sure how what I've said has been read as giving advice?! I was purely stating my position, I've at no point told anyone what to do - unlike others on this thread...

Many of my relatives work in the NHS and I'm fully aware of the impact of the Tories have had. I hate them and everything they stand for. I have been a lifelong Labour voter. But I no longer believe they offer that much of a difference - let's face it, privatisation of the NHS started under a Labour government.

The thing that clinches it for me that Labour are very different from the Tories is remembering how bloody optimistic, hopeful and positive everything was when Labour were last in power.

There is a list here of all the things they did from banning fox hunting to setting up SureStart, the cleanest rivers and air ever, more police, nurses and doctors to the longest period of low inflation since the 1960s.

What have the Tories done in 14 years?

I honestly can't think of one thing that has improved the life of the ordinary person in the street.

That they are all the same is not true. The times we lived in and live in prove that.

https://www.shrewsburylabour.org.uk/labours-top-50-achievements/

The Labour Government used the private sector to reduce waiting times*. It may have to do the same next time ( hopefully the LP will be elected) to serve the people of this country who are desperate.

The Labour Party founded the NHS to provide free medical care for the people The Tories campaigned against it.

You cannot compare this* to the Conservative Party which is politically opposed to the NHS and wants to privatise it / sell it off to their pals to make them richer by the exploitation of the (not so) 'ordinary' people of this country.

I'm a Labour Party member but will be voting Lib Dem as they are the only viable opposition to the Tories in my seat. I think Starmer is sensible and competent, something severely lacking in our govt at the moment.

Thank you for that link @Churchview

Me. I don’t mean I said it but that’s how I would (& have) described myself.

I just ask everyone who comes to the door campaigning what their view is on same sex spaces for women and girls. On the basis of their responses last election:

labour: this is fabricated nonsense you are a bigot! (Shouted across my lawn)
tory: of course women need single sex spaces. You can’t change sex
Lib Dem: my friends son is trans and he is a woman! (Actually got this in an email)

I will vote Tory.

I will be voting Labour. As awful as the Palestinian conflict is - our country is fucked and will get more fucked if Tories stay. I would say, sort your own home emergencies first and worry about world problems after.