Labour lose 3 points - ALL women leaving the party

[goodyzoe]

"The 3-point fall in the Labour share [in You Gov poll] is entirely explained by a 6-point fall among women (from 46% to 40%)"

CON 43 (+1)
LAB 39 (-3)
LD 8 (+2)

@jenniferjames says "Oh fucking hell. I broke the Labour party. :-( "

I've got very mixed feelings. On the one hand - go everyone! They'll have to take notice - surely?

But - Jesus Christ let's not let the Tories have another term.

But - we have to stick up for ourselves don't we.

Starting to think the people who say the rapid rise in TRA ideology is being fuelled by those who stand to benefit from a divided left might have a point.

www.twitter.com/NCPoliticsUK/status/961537001689370624

I disagree.

Spoiled ballots are potential voters, and political parties know that these are winnable votes. People who are politically engaged enough to get off their sofas and spoil a ballot are a potential swing that parties want to cultivate.

If there is significant publicity about an organised campaign of ballot spoiling around an election, with people understanding this is in effect a protest FOR something specific, then it will definitely have an impact.

It's like an organised strike. Short term deprivation to demonstrate the power of a mass of people working together.

Ideally, the huge potential of women who are protesting about this will hit the radar before an election and we'll be listened to.

If not, it will be measured, the uptick in spoiled ballots and it will cause lost seats.

Also, the political parties are acting like a price fixing cartel right now.
They are all refusing to listen to women.
But if we are believed in our intent not to tke this sitting down, one of the parties might make a cynical position, and break ranks to win women voters.

They've noticed the point drop and they know why it happened.

I'm really hoping women hold their nerve and continue to leave in droves. They won't listen to our voices when we ask nicely, but they will listen to the sound of our feet thundering off into the distance.

People can always return after labour have listened to us.

This is a negotiation, but we can't negotiate if they think they already have everything we have to offer in their pockets already.

I agree Barracker

Plus there was a post, here or on another thread about the attention that the parties pay to spoiled ballots. Will find it later, eating dinner

Think it might be time for a new hashtag

This is a negotiation, but we can't negotiate if they think they already have everything we have to offer in their pockets already.

In just a few weeks women have gotten the attention of the press and the Party on this issue of giving males unfettered access to women in various states of undress.
Discussions pf ballot spoiling is the obvious next step in the negotiation.
A show of strength and unity is important in this situation as surely a political party that calls itself labour should know.

I’m not returning while Corbyn/Momentum/McDonnell are in charge

They haven’t listened about Brexit and they won’t listen about this

It will be seen as fighting for the underdog Corbyn’s favourite stance speaking out for those suffering most in his point of view

Lifelong Labour voter, from generations of life-long Labour voters. Never considered voting any other party at a general election.

I voted Labour after Iraq and that stank.

I am spoiling my ballot paper next election. People on here have suggested using the woman symbol. I might use that and #no self-ID or whatever, I'm sure there will be a national campaign at that point to make clear the reason for withdrawing votes.

If the conservatives made a very strong stance on repealing the GRC, then that would get my vote.

The Cult of Jeremy is a strange thing: a personality cult based on a man with no personality. His worshippers adore him even as he shits on them.

**Gussie - no no, not the Greens, they're ultra trans enthusiastic. Patrick Harvie refused to meet a group of women to discuss, because they're bigots, allegedly. And not SNP, so ballot spoiling it is!

I feel I can't really relate to priorities of many here. Do I belong to a minority that thinks there are way too many things at stake to spoil my ballot or not vote. I hope not. I also don't agree with the view that there's no point to NHS, education, refuges etc if self Id is pushed through. Although they are already under threat for different reasons so perhaps it won't be an issue in the near future.

I just hope that by the time of the next election, there has been enough change within all the parties so that more women will choose to use their vote.

I wish all the women leaving would get together and set up a new party dedicated to common sense.
I would join it.

I'd be involved in a new political party.

Who would start it? Someone who's left a party for these issues? I'm not sure who would be good.

OK you've convinced me to spoil my ballot.

Here's the thing.

I don't want transexual male women on all women's shortlists either.

They should have trans shortlists. Any political space taken by transexuals, must be taken from men, not from women.

Even if you have had surgery and hormones, you are not a woman if you were born with a penis and testicles and put through boyhood. I will be polite to you, I will fight for your right to not be discriminated against, I will even use the pronouns you want me to (if you are asking politely, not telling to die in a fire, TERF), but I do so as a kindness, not because I believe you are a woman. You are a transwoman and that's fine and in some circumstances, I will forget that you were ever a man and I will treat you as a woman and I will show solidarity with you as a woman. But you will never be one and I am sick and tired of left wing men's demands that I pretend I believe you are, even while they refuse to sleep with you because they only sleep with real women.

Sorry that turned into a rant. But it's how I feel now. 5 years ago, I would have automatically accepted that someone who has had an op, should be treated at all times as a woman and I would have suppressed my knowledge that they are not and it's just kindness, not truth, to pretend they are. But now - no, I will not submit to this latest form of male supremacist ideology and I will not vote for any party which tells me I must, even at the cost of the NHS, schools, the welfare state. Because if we women are forced to comply with this latest attack on our rights, all those things will be turned against us anyway. We have got to recognise how serious this threat is and show all those politicos how seriously we take it.

Just remembered. Gordon Brown - there was another labour politician calling women bigots. Must be something in the water at Westminster

"Spoiling ballots means nothing. No one knows why someone has spoiled their ballot paper. "
They do if you write your reason in big letters all over the paper.

I'm thinking of quoting this:

I will not vote for any party which tells me I must, even at the cost of the NHS, schools, the welfare state. Because if we women are forced to comply with this latest attack on our rights, all those things will be turned against us anyway.

This is an extremely important point to make.

One of the many incidents that led me to leave the LP after lifelong support was overhearing a local Labour councillor referring to another Labour councillor as "that horrible little Jew boy". To great guffaws.

In the pockets of Momentum. It's a cesspit.

Perhaps I should bow out now. I'm saddened that anyone would consider sacrificing NHS, education etc over this issue. Even with self Id, if it was pushed through, I believe those things would still help women and girls.

It’s difficult to help women and girls if women and girls has ceased to mean what it used to mean.

really pisses me off to see women here on mn saying they will vote for tories purely because of one issue (trans). Great for you if you belong to the lucky few who haven't been nearly destroyed by years of real term cuts

I am disabled, and have recently been told that I will be this way for life and any treatment is unlikely to be sucessful. I currently have my PIP suspended after a ridiculous 'medical' where the assessor lied through her teeth and ignored my evidence and the 'decision maker' at MR, motivated by targets, also ignored all evidence from the pain clinic, my consultants and my GP, along with mountains of evidence backing up the fact that I can barely do anyhting at all physically. I have been hit by endless tory cuts. However, I simply cannot vote for a party that seems to actively want to take womens rights back a hundred years. As thats what self-ID is. I would rather endure another 5 years of cuts and suspensions than have my daughter grow up in a world where she has no space away from male people, she has to get changed infront of male people, if she ended up in prison she could be sharing a cell with a rapist with a penis, if she is gay she will be shamed out of her sexuality else branded a bigot, and so on.

It may seem like a single issue, but it affects so many areas of peoples (female people, mainly) lives that its a damn important single issue.

goalIs

I'm a single parent. I earn £15k a year. Extortionate private rent, which keeps being raised by landlord. House falling apart. But trapped here. Have no money to move.

Although I have to say, I do get good tax credit support, Child Benefit and Housing Benefit. Sporadic maintenance.

But I'll get through living a frugal and basic life rather than see this shite get any further.