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.

I'll be voting green if there's a candidate in my area. If not then I'll hold my nose and vote Labour. The direction that Labour have gone in since Kier Starmer has taken over is monstrous to me. Even Tony Blair did many things that deeply offended me, but at least the country wasn't a complete disaster back then.

I agree.

The problem with privileged middle class lefties refusing to vote Labour over the party’s position on Gaza is that it’s a self-indulgent luxury belief. They virtue-signal about foreign wars but won’t compromise their precious principles to vote to improve the lives of working class British people in Stoke, Hartlepool, Mansfield etc etc who need a Labour government more far than they do.

@ElizaMulvil you're not wrong. I suppose I'm lucky in that I live in an absolute Labour stronghold. Like Kier Starmer would have to be exposed as a puppy hating paedophile before people even considered not voting Labour, so I have the privilege of pondering which bits of their policies I do and don't agree with safe in the knowledge that they'll definitely get in anyway nobody mention blyth valley!

I never have and never will vote Tory, I can't vote Labour, Greens or LD after the level of child abuse exposed in the Cass report. It all happened under the current government but has been cheered on and supported by Labour, Lib Dems (took hundreds of thousands of £ in donations from Ferring Pharmaceuticals, who make the puberty blockers) and the Greens. I will be voting for Party of Women, provided there is a candidate in my area. I know Labour will get in but I intend to register my protest.

I will preface this by saying I am voting Labour.

But caring about the world stage and world politics is not a luxury belief. You sound a bit like the people who say Hamza Yousuf should 'care more about Scotland' if I'm honest.

Plenty of Labour voters are non white and many are Muslim.

Ah yes. Middle class lefties. The term as apparently used by that little weasel Wes Streeting in the Sun this week about the NHS.

Well fuck them. I'm out.

I agree with this. Plus look how ridiculous it sounds if you turn it around. At the next Israeli election to you really think there’s going to be voters saying “well I’d love to vote Labour but I just don’t think they’ve condemned the UK government’s stance on sending immigrants to Rwanda strongly enough.”

In an odd way it’s really arrogant of hand wringing lefties in the UK to think their view on a conflict thousands of miles away and that doesn’t affect them should carry much weight.

True blue area round here but we seem to be leaning Green at recent local elections, so my vote will have to be carefully considered but will definitely be tactical.

My Tory MP has been very comfortable (and utterly useless) for a long time but boundary changes have put us in a new constituency and Labour have a real chance now so they'll be getting my vote. It doesn't mean I agree with every single thing they say but the country needs to get behind them, get them elected and put them in a position to implement change.

I had a Tory candidate for the London Assembly on my intercom just a few minutes ago - he said that he was leaving some literature in my post box and asked if I'd decided how to vote. I replied Labour and he politely thanked me for my time and said goodbye.

In the past I might have engaged with him and explained in no uncertain terms why I wouldn't be voting Tory but my heart isn't in the vote, I just have no alternative.

In the GE I'll also have to vote Labour - I'm in a swing seat so can't take the risk of a Tory MP. Pissed-off with Labour right now but loathe the Tories.

I'm a bit sceptical that anyone who uses the term lefties is a genuine Labour supporter / left winger if I'm honest.

People are frequently encouraged to vote on single issues on this site. If a person's single issue is Gaza, so be it. To me, that's not a 'single issue' but a complex one, tied to ideas about defence spending, geopolitics, disarmament, Islamophobia and so on.

My version of Labour is far, far to the left of Starmer and Streeting but I have no one more left to vote for. I will vote Labour on principle and in hope for less corruption and venality :but if someone else is troubled enough to withhold their vote that's their entitlement. I don't see why we need to sneer. I live in an area with a Muslim MP and a large Muslim population. I can assure you, these views are not seen as luxury views.

I'm in Wales decades of labour 23 years of the senedd. Drakeford did everything he could in the name of protecting us from ourselves so we needed 20 mph speed limits which nearly 500,000 voted against. That's been ignored. We've now got Gething who's determined to keep it in place. We've a health board in special measures for seven years no-one cares.

If you're not happy go private for health. BUPA and SPIRE are coining it in Wales. Two new hospital clinics built in two years.

This is labour, piss off anyone with money, let them try to see at a GP surgery a doctor, nurse, I'm on a 16 day wait for a nurse to telephone me. Not an in person consultation.

Come October I'll need an app to contact my surgery. I'm lucky my sons will set it up.

This is Welsh labour the experimental pot for English labour.

Right...so who will be better?

I have Welsh family. They're at most vaguey irritated by 20mph. At best,thrilled.

I suspect my version of the Labour Party is similar to yours @Piggywaspushed

Where I live the LP has declared the seat unwinnable (one of a list of similar seats) so if I want to get rid of the Tories here I would need to vote LD.

It is laughable that I may be part of a group of 'lefties' who are untouched by Tory policies. I despise them.
If I lived in a constituency where the LP had a chance I would have to carefully consider my options.
But I won't vote for them if there will be no impact on the Tory majority.

We're in a tourist area so concerned how visitors will see us.

My car is 18 years old really baulks at 20 mph. Perhaps new cars manage better. I agree in our village with single lanes, horses, dogs and walkers should not have been scared . I creep around the village at around 15 mph. Pull in for horses, walkers. But below the village, straight open roads into town to go from 20 to 40, then 20, then 40, then 30, then 20 in two bloody miles is nuts

I fear that with labour things will get worse.

Now maybe they will,.maybe they won't, but... Theyre inheriting a leaky boat. The UK is sinking.

What can they do to patch it?
Will they take a hard stance in illegal immigration? Stop the boats? Well, they'll be called right wing for that. So will they let the boats come and fund the immigrants hotels, hostels, processing? Where's that money coming from?

Will they take a hard stance on women's rights? Hold the NHS to account for puberty blockers and damage done by the training of Stonewall and the like? Their lefty core supporting socialist types won't like that. So are women's rights and kids that don't fit stereotypes at risk?
Is self ID in the cards and then there'll be no single sex spaces left? And trying to suggest gender confused kids speak to someone? That's conversion therapy.... Can't have that.

If anyone thinks Labour will sweep in and fix things, I think you're wrong. It hink it'll get worse. I think Keir is such an inadequate leader that he'll be easily pushed by those with the most to gain.
He'll kneel before any cause that Twitter demands and he'll bow to the paymasters holding his purse strings.

You vote Labour? You vote for flipflopping weakness that won't serve the majority, only the minority and those with the cash?

Or.maybe, just maybe, it won't be like that.. maybe Keir will find some testicular fortitude and shape the country to how the majority want it? Maybe?

And maybe Unicorns will once against roam the countryside of Lincolnshire..

We've a health board in special measures for seven years no-one cares.

In Wales and DC school just got out of special measures after a ridiculous long period -by skin of teeth - local A&E fairly new build is on* *Enhanced monitoring and manged to hit paper by doing same big mistake twice - yet on here keep being told it's all better than England and point out it's not mean I must be a Tory.

20 mile can hour had limited impact on us though recent massive reduction in bus services which has severely impact on us non drivers has been blamed on combination of 20 mile per hour sped limit and massive funding cuts and fewer passenger post covid. It's rapidly getting to point where not driving just not going to be viable.

So rather than give them a chance we’ll just have more of the same.

Also in Wales - I saw a woman in A&E nearly bleed to death in the toilet because the staff didn't respond to the alarm. People were lying on the floors - the waiting time was about 18 hours. Local hospital now closed to emergencies - it's a good 40 minute drive to nearest A&E, so better not have a heart attack.

My dr surgery is good tbf, but my health board won't prescribe certain medications without you seeing a consultant first - the waiting list for said consultant is years.

But there's still loads of money to squander on new 20mph road signs in areas that genuinely don't need to be 20mph or changing place names to Welsh language.
Welsh Labour needs to sort its fucking priorities out!

@TuesdayWhistler they can hardly be worse now.

Fine - optimistic and very much better since Wes & Yvette welcomed the Cass review.

@TuesdayWhistler Labour might be inheriting a leaky boat but that's no excuse to vote for the Conservatives who for the last 14 years have been systematically and deliberately holing the boat.

Better to hand it to someone with the will to fix it. Or we will drown.

How you can say that Labour will only served those with money is beyond me given the evidence of Conservative behaviour towards their rich friends e.g. knighting anyone who tosses them a few thousand and handing contract to mates.

Your description of Keir Starmer bears no resemblence to his career to date.

The middle class will benefit from a Labour government too. We all travel on the same roads, rely on NHS, don't want sewage in our rivers and need adequate police numbers etc.

Middle class people must be as fed up as the working class with the parlous state of the infrastructure of this country that is now the norm after 14 years of this venal and uncaring Conservative party.

i don't that its left leaning middle class posters, i just think its Tory supporters saying whatever they can think off to try and convince people not to vote and using SM media to do so.

Look at polling? the Tories are currently on 20pts or less, thats pretty much their aging base, sure it'll close towards any GE but its dire for the Cons.

The Tories become a laughing stock and associated only with incompetence and corruption, they are now behind Labour on law n order and defence, even under Blair, labour were behind on these two.

It is a luxury belief if you are not voting for a party that may actually change things for people in the UK because they have not said something that will make absolutely no difference to anyone. If Labour had called for an immediate ceasefire, nothing would have happened, apart from some people in the UK would have felt better- maybe. Israel isn't listening to the US President, the UN, the President of the EU. To think they will put down their arms because the leader of the British Opposition has told them to is a 'luxury' belief if having an opposition party make an empty statement and making you feel better is more important than the welfare of your fellow citizens. I think a lot of this is either Tory voters or the Hard Left who are implacably opposed to Starmer's Labour, but who are a very loud, minority.