Will this affect your vote?

[BovaryX]

Several people have posted interesting threads about the response of political parties to questions about how/if they will safeguard sex segregated spaces. Some of the responses to that question explicitly demonstrate where politicians are aligned when it comes to protecting recalcitrant women against a concerted attempt to force ‘gender neutrality’ on the public. Some of those responses have been quite eye opening. My question is this. How influential will this be on your vote?

liberal American city (not the other way round)

What is happening to free speech and debate in this country? How are we being held to ransom by this tiny, vocal and extremely aggressive minority? It's frightening. No dares to speak up - not our media, not our political representatives, not our academics - for fear of the backlash.

It’s quite extraordinary. It’s extremely sinister and it is happening in an insidious way wherein most people don’t know about it because it isn’t being reported. I read about a group of women evicted from a bar in the National Theater because of their t shirts and could barely believe what I was reading. I don’t understand the corporate capitulation. It’s quite incredible

Good grief Dodo, that’s a shocking account of what’s going on in schools. It really is the colonization of female spaces. It is so incredibly regressive and anathema to feminism. It’s just incredible.

A spoiled ballot paper is a pointless protest. Do you think that anyone reads or cares what you write? You're throwing your vote away - a vote that women suffered and died to ensure that you have

This has been talked about extensively on other threads in the last few days. Many of us will be spoiling our papers. Spoiling the paper is not the same as not taking up your democratic right to vote. We shall be marking our papers - and apparently, they are counted and although not recorded, comments are read. all votes, including spoiled ballots have to be checked.

I don't ned a lecture on what people have fought for......I take the vote very seriously - which is why I'll not be voting for parties and candidates with manifestos i cannot support; or for candidates who don't speak out on issues of huge importance. what on earth is that about - apart from habit......and so on it goes.

the days of reflexive voting have passed for many. The vote needs to mean something important. And for me it does - even if not for you.

I've badgered my local MP for ages about abortion rights in NI and she seems to have been on the right track with that - so I'll be voting for her. This once.

@bellinisurge you're still wasting your vote, whatever your justification for doing that. If you don't vote, you can't complain about the outcome

As spoiled ballot is not the same as not bothering to show up at the booth. It is a meaningful and positive intention for those that choose to do this. " Complaining about the outcome" does not feature.

Clearly people who intend to spoil see themselves as removing themselves from active complicity i laws and actions with which they profoundly disagree. This is a not a parlour game.

We will also be making sure that those who will hear know exactly why they do not have our support.

This has been talked about extensively on other threads in the last few days. Many of us will be spoiling our papers. Spoiling the paper is not the same as not taking up your democratic right to vote. We shall be marking our papers - and apparently, they are counted and although not recorded, comments are read. all votes, including spoiled ballots have to be checked.

I don't need a lecture on what people have fought for......I take the vote very seriously - which is why I'll not be voting for parties and candidates with manifestos i cannot support; or for candidates who don't speak out on issues of huge importance.

Agreed. It's disgraceful that people would consider shaming others with the deaths of the Suffragettes to get them to vote for parties that are destroying our rights.

Lib Dems have told us to stay away, we're not welcome, so clearly they're out.

Otherwise I would have voted for them because of Brexit. Completely disagree with Labour on so many issues but I can't let a no deal Brexit ruin our children's futures. So I hold my nose and vote Labour

*What about the Greens? At least it would be a vote for the environment8

The Greens are the biggest disappointment, after the Labour party. they have disappeared up their own fundament on the issue of women's rights and TRA ideology. I could never vote for a party that would consider referring to women as 'non-men' in order to appease the trans lobbyists. Not a party that suspends long term activists for voicing their concerns on this issue.

nor for a party....

I'm old. I've been eligible to vote since 1984. I've never been so let down as I am now. I will not go easy on them and stay away. I will spoil my ballot unless my MP is at risk of being defeated by tbe Brexit Party candidate. Then I will hold my nose and vote for him. And write and tell him the only reason I voted for him was to stop the Brexit Party.

The vote needs to mean something important. And for me it does - even if not for you.

I can assure you that the vote means something very important to me - it means doing what I can to keep dangerous individual away from power. Once that is done I will fight for women's rights.

There has never been a single party that stands for everything I (or indeed anyone else, I'm sure), stands for. I understand what you're saying, but I still think it's a waste of a vote.

This time, my greatest fear for this country is JC in No. 10 allied with the SNP, so I'm voting against that

Why is that your greatest fear? What precisely is that fear - in terms of policy ( not including the TWAW/Self ID nonsense)

I don't expect them to agree with everything I agree with but I expect to be able, on balance, to vote for one of them.
I am not to blame for this shit.

There has never been a single party that stands for everything I (or indeed anyone else, I'm sure), stands for. I understand what you're saying, but I still think it's a waste of a vote

Sentiments around 'wasted votes' now belong in the past. What is most important now is a sea change in our politics. Things are moving beyond left and right and old party loyalties ( so many of which are tied up with your family background and geographical location, anyway) are fading fast.

People want a politics of integrity and meaning; and many of us simply cannot condone a political party that sees women's rights, and even their existence as something to be debated. Our political establishment is sleep walking into a self ID quagmire - and nobody ( or just a few) are saying anything about it at all. They are all pretending it will go away; or that it is a non -issue; or a secondary one....It isn't!

I was life long Labour.
I left when Lily Madigan joined.
I then voted locally for the LDs
Now I can't vote for them either.

I am politically homeless - there is no one to vote for and no least worst option.

I have printed the suffragettes photo with the "no self respecting woman..." banner into a sticker that I intend to stick to my ballot paper and draw a line through all the options.

That's my protest. I will have voted 'none'

Jeremy Corbyn is not a good leader, and has not done enough to stamp out anti-Semitism and other forms of bullying in local constituency parties - but to say he is a 'dangerous individual' is hyperbole. Boris Johnson cosying up with Nigel Farrage and Donald Trump is a far more dangerous prospect.

I have printed the suffragettes photo with the "no self respecting woman..." banner into a sticker that I intend to stick to my ballot paper and draw a line through all the options

Good idea! A powerful political statement of intent.

All un-unhinged women - all I have seen since the GE announcement -pages and pages of bleatings about lib dems / labour etc.

Those are men’s parties, first volunteer yourself or force another woman to stand in each constituency in the election your self, promise that you do not hate men, but will provide single sex safe spaces for women and girls if elected, then DEMAND THAT ALL WOMEN YOU KNOW VOTE FOR THIS PRO WOMEN CANDIDATE THIS GE.

It is that simple, women have fought for the vote but will not use it to save themselves and all other women from unpunished male violence.

Men have been killing women for two millennia with impunity but now women have the majority of the vote, women’s vote still aligns with that of their male peers.

Men are not bothered so – WOMEN HAVE TO PUT UP OR SHUT UP

I pledge my vote for such a female candidate this GE.

Nominations close 14th November

I honestly don't know what to do. Tory austerity is literally killing my DH thanks to NHS cuts and benefit reforms. Labour and Lib Dems driving their core voters - and I would have been one of the former for a long time - away because of their stance on the GRA and self-ID is going to lead to a Tory landslide that will fuck over the country thanks to Brexit and austerity on steroids. No decent independent candidate in my constituency. Current incumbent (Labour) has not replied to my email asking for her position on the GRA and how she will work in the interests of woman and girls locally if re-elected. I have honestly never felt so politically homeless and, yes, despairing as I do right now.

@Justhadathought where do I start? Okay, just off the top of my head - JC is completely unfit to be PM. He is a terrorist apologist and an anti-Semite. His budget will bankrupt this country. His taxation plan will cause our biggest taxpayers to flee immediately. He will ally with the SNP, there will be a 2nd Scottish Indyref and the UK will quite possibly be broken up (not so bad for England, it's true, but it would be disastrous for Scotland). He will nationalise our private schools, causing untold suffering to thousands of DC, many of them with SEN, who rely for education on private schools. The one thing I agree with is Labour's plan for social care, which is to guarantee that care needs will be met in the same way that medical needs are, thereby ending the injustice of dementia patients needing to self-fund while those with things like cancer are funded by the NHS. I wish the other parties would commit to this.

@zafferana

That's great that you feel so fierce about the vote.
Honestly to me, if this other shit hadnt been a huge problem right now and ongoing, then I would have voted over the Brexit issue. But nothing will mean anything if women aren't people. What do I care about food prices, medicine shortages, mortgage rates, if women dont exist, then neither does my mortgage.

I have printed the suffragettes photo with the "no self respecting woman..." banner into a sticker that I intend to stick to my ballot paper and draw a line through all the options.

I love this idea. Maybe all of us who want to spoil our votes could do it? Maybe Posie could sell the stickers if she's interested. I feel like a universal sticker, mark, text etc would help get our point across if we all spoilt our ballots in the same way. Stickers would make it less stressful than having to write it all out on the ballot paper.

My only concern is, will the police deem it to be a 'hate crime' and go after us? Everything has become so insane I genuinely don't know anymore. Maybe in future voting will be enforced as well as re-education centres with lots of chanting.

Please be absolute clear that whatever you write on the paper will be disregarded, forgotten about within minutes of the victor's announcement.
There seems to be some idea that there are discussions, research and analysis of spoiled ballot - there is not.

Very. Libdems nearly had my vote and haven't now.