Political parties, voting - least worst option?

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

I'm not going to vote for any party that can't recognise the importance of sex-based rights for women and doesn't grasp basic principles of safeguarding children and other vulnerable groups.

Currently that seems to rule out:
Labour
LibDems
Greens
Women's Equality Party

I don't live in Scotland but if I did the SNP would also be off the table.

I'd rather gnaw my own arm off than vote Tory. If we had a competent, strong, uncorrupt government with a genuine One Nation approach who were also openly defending women's rights in a sane and nuanced way that balanced them with the rights of other groups, maybe it would give me pause, but we don't, and don't seem ever likely to either.

Now as it happens, my vote is an irrelevance in our first past the post system, because I live in a London borough with a Labour council and hardly any councillors from other parties, and our MP is Labour with an enormous majority. Last General Election I voted for the Green candidate because she was openly GC and seemed like a good person - and also I knew she wouldn't be elected so I wasn't doing anything to give the Greens more political power. At local elections I look for an independent candidate who seems sane.

What do others do? Spoil the ballot paper? Abstain? Pick the least worst candidate on the grounds that somebody has to do the job?

All so depressing.

@RozWatching

YY Ova but MPs need to do it publicly. The 'I agree with you but bear with us, we're working on this behind the scenes' BS won't wash anymore.

True. They do need courage of their convictions

@Thelnebriati

It was the Tories that introduced the idea of self ID and got us into this mess, its the Tories that are pushing for 'sex' and 'gender' to be made interchangeable, so IDK why you see them as a viable choice.

I don't want to start points scoring but it was Labour's prim approach to gay marriage that brought us the poor quality legislation that is the GRA that seems to be the root of this whole rubbish situation, so while I do think Maria Miller and Theresa May have a lot to answer for, they were responding to a bad thing in the first place.

The Tories just kept on with the idea because it seemed fair and reasonable and wouldn't cost anything. But there is no way you can compare Conservative policy either at party or individual level to what is going on in the other parties.

Oh and the Conservative Party is not out to destroy the NHS.

voting for the Tories whilst they are led by Boris Johnson is condoning a father who denies some of his own children and serial killing by neglect

That's not true. There's not the slightest evidence he "denied his own children". The mother of the child in question did that by court order.

Waiting to hear what my Labour MP comes back with having challenged them about the statement that not so mysteriously reappeared on their website.
How much vote depends on his response. If there is enough in it to indicate back tracking from TRA woo nonsense, I might be prepared to vote for him next time. I despised Corbyn so I didn't vote Labour while he was leader.

Tbh, we need voices in all parties to oppose anti-women policies, and the TRAs have prominent activists in all parties, too. (Sue Pascoe - Con, Heather Peto - Lab, loads in the LDs and Greens)

It’s a cross-party issue but IMO the Tories are the least sympathetic to the TRAs because they are conservatives, and the underlying TRA ideas are so batshit crazy (or shall we say unorthodox) ...

I voted Conservative and with the Domestic Abuse Bill about to pass into law - despite the pandemic - I'm very pleased I did so.

It will strengthen protection to women who've already left their abuser (though of course not having left the abuse, which continues), will define domestic abuse and will mandate funding for refuge places. It also strengthens protections for migrant women being abused under threat of deportation.

The traditional view is that Labour is the party for women, but their actions don't bear that out.

I'd be wary of considering the Tories as resistant to gender ideology because they are conservative. Gender ideology is conservative at its heart. It relies on regressive and conservative (small c) views on gender roles. I think that Liz Truss is more attuned to the electorate. However, with Caroline Noakes and Crispin Blunt pushing gender ideology they may not be able to hold the line. Regardless, I couldn't vote conservative despite being grateful to some conservative MPs on this issue alone. I'd rather not vote and I have voted in every election since turning 18.

I don't want to start points scoring but it was Labour's prim approach to gay marriage that brought us the poor quality legislation that is the GRA that seems to be the root of this whole rubbish situation, so while I do think Maria Miller and Theresa May have a lot to answer for, they were responding to a bad thing in the first place.

Yep. The then Labour government tied itself into knots to avoid same-sex marriage.

"One other consideration has been that some countries allow same-sex marriages and that, therefore, a person could be recognised in the acquired gender and married to a person of the same gender. That person will still be of the original gender and, as far as the UK is concerned, their marriage will be an opposite-sex marriage. On recognition of the acquired gender in the UK, however, the marriage would become a same-sex marriage under UK law. If we recognised the acquired gender of those with recognition overseas without an additional application, we would be faced with the creation of a small category of same-sex marriages recognised by UK law. UK law does not recognise any same-sex marriages at present. The requirement for an application allows the UK to ensure that it does not begin to recognise same-sex marriages contracted overseas."

www.theyworkforyou.com/pbc/2003-04/Gender_Recognition_Bill/06-0_2004-03-16a.9.0

I guess that made some sense at the time
It's amazing that apparently no one said, "this is ridiculous, let's try and get marriage equality first and return to this later if needed"

I think regardless of the party line, I would base it on the candidates in the constituency (slightly different for the Scottish election with the lists). While I find Labour's position inadequate, my Labour MP seems decent and is one of those who has been attacked on this and has not backtracked into TWAW land. This adds to me wanting to support her since I don't want it to go "GC loses, next we must put in a "non-transphobic" candidate".

At the moment it would be Conservative. The others have lost the plot.

I was impressed a few years back when my MP invited a group of constituents to meet her to talk through our concerns around GRA reform. Before our meeting, I'd had a high opinion of her, based on what I knew about how active she was as a constituency MP. I'm afraid after our meeting my opinion of her fell. She clearly knew very little about the issue. One of my fellow invitees told us afterwards that one of our MP's research assistants was a young man known to be a fervent TRA (not trans himself). I suspect this applies to many MPs. They have so many issues to get their heads round, they must be heavily dependent on briefings from party HQ and their RAs.

I’d be wary of considering the Tories as resistant to gender ideology because they are conservative. Gender ideology is conservative at its heart.

This is true to some extent, and explains the likes of Blunt and Noakes. But the “there are millions of genders, and by the way, I identify as pan-non-binary-genderfluid on Wednesdays” style of TRA rhetoric is very much not conservative. The idea that there are two sexes, both needed for human reproduction, is pretty well established, and the bedrock for conservative ideas on family & tradition.

Gender ideology is conservative at its heart

Obviously some people are still dinosaurs, but do most present-day Tories really want women to be chained to the kitchen sink though?

I think there’s too much tribalism around. If you imagine your political opponents as some sort of caricature - Tory toff who wants to privatise everything, sell the NHS and send women in the kitchen - you won’t be very successful at debating them. I really did not like Cameron and Osbourne but during the Brexit campaign and now in the gender wars, I developed a lot of respect for some Tories who seem reasonable, sane and committed to the common good.

I've voted Green all my life but I'm not sure I can bring myself to anymore. Women have raised their concerns to leaders and it's well-documented that many have left, but the Party just responds by doubling down on the TWAW, TMAM, NBIAV (or whatever) message with a new FB post this week. I think it possibly even had an element of threat about people who are "transphobic". It's an absolute mess and the comments it generates shows a Party in disarray, why they'd want to publicise that, God only knows.

It's as if they weren't really bothered about building a strong movement to fight environmental issues.

if you look at conservative lgbtq+ on sm, i wouldbe astonished if you thought womens rights would be safer in their hands than any other parties...

As I‘ve said, TRAs have infiltrated all parties so what you need to vote for is the party least prone to entryism, with a tight structure that keeps fringe interests in line.

All parties have LGBTQ rights groups and they should. For me, the question should centre around the fundamentals. Trans rights are now fundamentally tied to Queer theory and that is at odds with the Conservative Party, and a high percentage of the population. It is not at odds with Trade Unionism now (well by recent comments anyway) and other parts of the LP. It is not at odds with the GP and Lib Dems now, thought it used to be. All parties seem to have shifted and all seem to have shifted away from the population at large. This is bizarre. I think many in Labour recognises the dilemma but in order to pull the party back, it will lose membership and it will cause the wars to escalate. The only hope us that, as more sunlight shines on all the issues aligned to trans rights, more and more will withdraw. Though our student population are guns blazing for queer theory and dramatic destruction of our institutions (usual stuff for students btw)

The thing though with the Labour Party is that by alienating the woke, educated elite who seem keen to harangue the working class for all their -isms they may win back more of their traditional voting base.

I'm with you OP. I think I will end up spoiling my paper at this rate. I'm in a safe Labour area, my MP has been rubbish in his responses to me over women's right. I do not think he is actually pro-self ID but he doesn't seem actively pro women either.
I can't vote Conservative, there are too many monumentally unforgivable things. The mentality seems to be look after yourself and those around you and sink or swim. Don't expect them to help or care. That's what Big Society smacked of to me - we're washing our hands of you but putting a spin on it.
Last April there was a big announcement about Covid funding to help "charities supporting vulnerable children, victims of domestic abuse, or disabled people." I think it's disgraceful we are dependent on these charities, Sunak announced it like he was a benevolent Good Guy for finally giving them a handout.
The Go Home buses alone are enough for me, and obviously with Windrush we know it didn't end there.
I know this will all have been said before but yes, OP, I feel the same and it worries me.

Conservatives are as bad as the others you've listed, they're just keeping quiet about it.
I have no doubt whatsoever that, if it suits their purpose, they'll be back shouting "TWAW" with the rest of them.

The reason the Conservatives have changed their tune for now is that they are not the Conservatives as we know them. They were hijacked by the right wing faction that wavers between Tory and UKIP last year. The more moderate Conservative MPs were either deselected or are keeping their heads down.

To go back to your question, if this is a main issue for you, your choices are probably SDP, UKIP (if they haven't disbanded) and Communist.

I would not spoil my ballot. There are far better ways of making your point and you have no guarantee that anyone will read, let alone take note, of whatever you write on it.
It makes me very suspicious when people urge the spoiling of ballots: what possible reason could they have for persuading the opposition not to vote?
And the local elections coming up, too!

By far the best way is to join the party with which you agree the most and try to influence from within. That is, after all, how they did it. Chasing out gender critical women has worked a treat for them, hasn't it?

SDP was the party set up in the early 80s as a spin off from Labour. They were the Moderates who couldn't stomach what they saw as the Far Left policies that Labour were mired in at the time.
Most of the party then joined with the Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats. However, there were some that distrusted the Liberals and stayed with the SDP. They failed to win any seats for some time, but they're still there.
A bit like the Change party in the last election: those of us old enough to remember the 80s guessed it was doomed from the start precisely because we'd seen it all before.

Jeremy Hunt very helpfully wrote a book on his plans for the NHS. Absolutely the Conservatives want it privatised: they are ideologically opposed to it and have been from the start. Please let's not waste our time with Thatcheresque lies about it being safe in their hands!

The Tories have won 13 general elections since 1945, Labour 9. Why does the NHS still exist?

And anyway, isn’t a bit silly that a healthcare system has become something like a national religion in the UK? Just sayin‘ ...