Would you vote Conservative at the next election?

[cheeseismydownfall]

Obviously this question isn't really relevant if you vote Conservative anyway!

Over my 25-odd year voting history I have voted Lib Dem, Labour and Green. I consider myself left wing and would never have considered a Tory vote. But if the principle parties maintain their current positions on women's rights then for the first time ever I will consider a Conservative vote at the next election - not simply because this one issue trumps everything else (although I personally feel very strongly about it, education, health and the environment are still hugely important to me) but because I simply don't trust the critical thinking skills of any party who have allowed themselves to be so thoroughly hijacked by the trans rights agenda and attempt to silence dissenting voices.

Anyone else feel this way?

Yes I would consider them. I am a centrist and normally feel we need to change governments regularly in order for the worst excesses of both sides to be subdued. But Labour and Lib Dem’s need to basically completely rebuild their parties to incorporate common sense before I could vote for them. Kier looks promising but I doubt he can do what he needs to by the next election. But we have a good while until the next election so who knows what will happen by then.

In terms of Covid - I think BJ has not done as well as he should have but given the choice was Corbyn I think it could have been worse. Presentation aside, Nicola Sturgeon has not done any better in Scotland and arguably done worse than BJ.

I mean, realistically this would just be my first spoiled ballot. I can't vote for any of them anymore

The Tories might be damaging to vulnerable women, but the above is the ultimate damage - we wont exist.

Bonkers! Don't know how any feminist could vote for a party that is damaging to vulnerable women and truly believe the Tories are our only hope of existing.

Calling tory voters bonkers etc is part of what lost lanour the last election. The arrogance of “all tories are evil and we are the enlightened ones”. Keep going with that. It’s ensuring a tory win come the next election.

Don't know how any feminist could vote for a party that is damaging to vulnerable women

ALL the parties are damaging to vulnerable women.

Well if people vote Tory because others think them uncaring they are showing themselves up as not the brightest lamps on the street.

The electorate does keep letting the Labour Party down doesn’t it

I am a former member. Family of labour supporters. Had a Labour Party canvasser on my doorstep last year telling me they didn’t want my vote because of what I asked him about women

@CaraDune

The willingness of the left to close down debate has been the biggest shock of my lifetime.

This is why I find the whole issue so difficult. If it were simply welfare cuts and shitty handling of covid and the resulting death toll it would be a no-brainer.

But I'm old enough to remember the cold war and have friends my age from the former eastern block countries so I know what left-wing totalitarianism looks like (I even travelled there back in the day before the Berlin wall came down). And Momentum's totalitarian instincts scared the shit out of me. Not just on gender - I always thought this was simply the canary in the coal mine. Their repressive tendencies go across the board (look at how they treated Jewish people within the Labour party).

I'm also old enough to remember (albeit hazily) the winter of discontent, and the sky-high inflation and unemployment figures, so I know it's not as simple as "massive welfare cuts - clearly bad" (which they are for the avoidance of doubt). "Completely tanked economy in pursuit of ideological purity - also bad!" The knock-on effects of shafting your economy in terms of suffering, life expectancy, etc. is also hideous.

So a lot of it hinges on whether Starmer can really get a grip on the far left "no-debate, no-platform" faction in his own party. Like a lot of people I want some sort of social democracy, an open society with free speech, and an adequate social welfare safety net. The problem with the last election is neither main party was going to give me that.

yes this is my view too I think - better expressed than me

If in 4 years , the tories are left on the economy and central on social policies (ie. not woke) then I will vote for them
If Labour are in this position , I would rather vote for them instead

covid and brexit will be long in the past by then - I don't people will vote one way or the other on how Covid was/ wasn't handled. People will have forgotten IMO.
Or like me, think mistakes were made but it was handled as well as it could have been given the circumstances - not a popular view on MN I agree - but what people I speak to in the real world think.

I don't think I've ever seen this much damage done to the country in my life than the Tories have managed in the last ten years.

I take it you weren’t born in the 1970s then?

Sappos
Don't pretend you care about vulnerable women if you support policies where any man can access women's spaces.

I am a vulnerable woman. I have e been sexually assaulted and abused and I will act in my own best interests, to keep males out of female changing rooms.

Or don't I, and women like me, count?

Not the right type of woman

I wish there was someone I could get behind. I’ve been a member of the Labour Party (long time ago) and voted mostly labour with a smattering of Lib Dem or Green over the years. I voted labour last election with a horrible taste in my mouth.

Could I vote Tory? Yes I think I could if it was for someone ethical who treated women as equals. That person is not Boris Johnson. My local mp is not much bettter - slightly less crass but still arrogant and superior. True blue safe seat here though!

Well if people vote Tory because others think them uncaring they are showing themselves up as not the brightest lamps on the street.

This was all that seemed to pass for political argument by labour at the last election - “let’s just insult Tory voters then they are bound to change their mind” It does the opposite. If labour want to win voters then they need to do rather more than throw round playground insults at anyone who disagrees with them. How could I vote for a party whose only argument is to call people names, be it ‘not the brightest lamp on the street’ or ‘transphobe’?

But they're Untrustworthy liars Out for themselves. We have seen it over and over again. Would you really vote for a man who is a lying racist and Misogynist?

This. Also, that they are happily dancing us over an economic cliff with a no-deal Brexit. You have to realise that having crashed the econimy AND still managed the worst death toll from C19 in Europe, they know perfectly well how badly a no-deal Brexit will impact upon us. That they're happy to do this tells you all about their attitudes to the general public.

I've often considered whether there was any way I'd vote Tory and I came up with one once: if there was an outwardly racist (Britain First, etc) candidate who looked like they could genuinely beat the Tory to the seat and no other party was in with a shout.

I spoilt my paper last time, having been a lifelong Labour voter, but their stance on women did it for me. I was, I have to admit, only able to do this because I live in an incredibly safe Tory seat.

Dances they did the right thing once. Doesn't mean they're not a terrible party. Cutting funding for women's refuges and children's centre, no intention of closing the gender pay gap. No consideration for women on low pay or zero hours contracts.

Even Hitler was kind to animals apparently.

Would you really vote for a party that willingly hosted and promoted antisemites? Honestly we can play this game all day. I am simply objecting to the idea that the left is naturally good.

I am no fan of Boris or his government. But I trust them more not to silence debate today. That’s all.

Like you, voted Green / Labour until for (30) years. I was expelled by the Labour Party (still waiting on my subs refund and enjoying annoying them with emails about it) for expressing distaste at their labelling Womens Place UK a hate group.

I joined the C Party a few months ago to try and have a voice from within to try to change many of the things I hate about them.

Seriously though. If Labour were in power the GRA reform would have gone though and all of our single-sex provisions, that women have fought for for centuries, would have been wiped out instantaneously. And it would set a world-wide precedent - many countries would then follow suit. So if there is a Tory Govt who understands the severity of this and is facing huge political pressure to back down and isn't doing it, then they have my support.

No * way.

Yep, I’ll vote for them. Dread to think how Corbyn would have handled this if he’d got in. Just thinking of his brothers protests over lockdown made me shiver.

Sapphos

What good are refuges to traumatised women if males are allowed in? Or the staff cannot guarantee that the counsellors are not male, as happened recently to that 14 year old rape victim?

Stop pretending that you care for vulnerable women. I AM a vulnerable women and it would seriously traumatise me to be in the above situation. But I understand that my feelings are not important compared to the 'special' type of woman.

I do not consent and you have no right to consent on my behalf.

Yes I would. I left labour membership last year because of these issues. I was beyond angry at a party my entire family and I have supported threw us under the bus and basically demonised women for wanting protection. If JC, Lisa Nandy or Rebecca Long Bailey came on the tv I had to turn it off . I still get really angry thinking about them.

I had this discussion with a colleague last year. He is liberal and is very vocal about his hatred for the Tory party. When I told him why I’d vote for Tory it wouldn’t compute in his head why I was so upset. It was like I was a silly women complaining about sharing a toilet with a harmless trans women women.

There is no discussion on this left for labour. It’s a done deal. Labours eyes are firmly fixed on the Millennials, women over the age of thirty can go to hell.

There literally is no other party that is willing not to get bullied on this. Do I think they care about women’s rights? Probably not. But at least this group isn’t going to call me a bigot, transphobic, cis woman, some one that has periods ect..

Have a done a deal with the devil? Probably - but I’ll take it over the shit show of the other parties.

Omg! Are you serious? 65,000 deaths no education for 6 months, critical exams cancelled, carehomes overrun with Covid ( 44 alone in Norfolk) 3 million unemployed by Xmas, food standards dropped, NHS privatisation by back door, farmers wiped out, workers rights disappearing, gap between those that have and have not widening by the day, 2 million children hungry in this country, food banks and a no deal Brexit? Pffffft!

Yes I would. Two female prime ministers, I don't think being a woman and voting Tory would do you any harm. Actions speak louder than words and I'm afraid that's all the Labour government are now.

Dances Labour pledged to strengthen and uphold the Exceptions in the Equality Act.

These exceptions are the reasons it is lawful to bad trans women from refuges or becoming women's crisis councillors. It has been lawful ever since the EA was passed - self ID would make no difference to the exceptions.

Labour was the only party to recognise the importance of these exceptions and acknowledge they must not be taken away.

Women at the back of the queue? Check