Adult son's voting intentions-a little shocked.

[CurlewKate]

My son lives in Rosie Duffield constituency. We live in a nearby constituency where they weigh the Conservative votes rather than count them. I've been reminding him that he really must get on the electoral register where he lives-he's a very political person and a vociferous left winger. He's been putting it off-he still uses this as his permanent address. Yesterday he finally told me that he's intending to stay on the register here and vote for a local independent. He says that while he couldn't actually vote Tory, he'd rather the Tory candidate won than Duffield. I am quite shaken by this!

No they don't. It's a metaphor.

To be honest, I didn't actually expect to be discussing my parenting, my son's living arrangements or diving so deep into his voting intentions! (Although, of course, happy to do so, if people are interested.) I was hoping to talk about the impact on the general election if a significant number-and I doubt if my son is alone-of Labour's natural voters move away on this issue.

I really love the way people are piling on the OP here. She's probably the one gender critical voice that her son is hearing, but apparently it's her fault that her son believes TWAW. It's not more likely to have been the media, our politicians, his teachers, his friends, celebrities etc.

Yes, maybe she could have gone a bit harder, but that runs the risk of her son thinking she's a complete bigot and completely disengaging on the subject. At least at the moment they can have a conversation about it.

In my case possibly related to my own innate tendency to Eeyoreness!

The polls look good for Labour now but I remember Neil Kinnock losing to John Major when everyone thought the Conservatives had run out of steam and couldn't possibly win after so many years in power.

Also because Labour would need a massive swing and the FPTP system is inherently biased to the Tories because Labour's vote is so concentrated in metropolitan areas.

Plus the government is successfully stoking culture wars and pandering to the xenophobic vote with their immigrant policies.

Plus what CurlewKate said about young people and trans ideology.

Plus the disenfranchisement of younger, more left-leaning voters with the new voter ID law.

Plus the entrenched disengagement of so many people who fail to vote because "they're all the same" and "they don't care about us" which is only getting worse with the Tories' continued debasement of politics.

Plus so many people saying they don't know what Keir Starmer stands for.

Plus the mainstream media being overwhelmingly pro-Conservative and actively obscuring and distorting Labour's message.

Plus 'the Left' being so stupidly, self-inflicted-woundingly factional.

Plus the fact that in the last century two thirds of the time we had a Conservative government compared to one third for Labour and I don't see any real large scale shift to more socialist principles amongst the public, despite powerful incentives to rethink.

I desperately hope I am wrong but am getting less and less convinced that Labour will triumph.

So the independent candidate in your constituency won't get in, it will be a Tory seat. His vote makes no difference.

And by withholding his 'left-wing' vote from his own constituency, he increases the possibility of Canterbury becoming Tory again, as it was from 1918 to 2017 (when Duffield won it for Labour). As you said in your OP, "he'd rather the Tory candidate won than Duffield".

I think you have to reassess whether your son actually is "a very political person and a vociferous left winger". He may well identify as a left-winger, but his actions are speaking louder than his words. His actions enhance the chances of another Tory government after the coming General Election.

He could as well spoil his ballot paper in his own constituency with "TWAW" for all the effect his vote will have.

fdgdfgdfgdfg · Today 17:30
I really love the way people are piling on the OP here.

Imagine the pile on if a poster said their son was voting Tory.

@WhereYouLeftIt. Yep. Absolutely. I agree.

But what the OP is describing is a Canterbury problem. TRA Labour types won't vote for Rosie Duffield. In Canterbury.

That in itself is hardly going to swing the outcome of a General Election.

It's far more likely that many women throughout the UK, and many men, who may have voted Labour will now not because Labour have gone completely barmpot on the TWAW, rapists in prisons, etc.

Now that may well affect the outcome of a GE. Might not; but it could do.

Oh, the OP was a feminist in the 1970s. She's been piled on by experts!

Can someone please tell me how to open the programming interface on a child? I will take it as a win if my kid leaves home honest and polite. Anything else will be a bonus.

He's his own person. I don't agree with my adult son on politics, but his voting choices are his, not mine.
Being shaken is a bit OTT, he's not you.

Give it a bleeding rest.

The problem may be more acute in Canterbury, but it is a national problem for Labour. We've all seen how cowardly tentative Starmer is , still saying TWAW with his '99.9% of women don't have penises'. He's terrified of his TRAs, who are too deep into the ideology to see that if they turn away from Labour, it only serves the interests of the Conservative Party - who are increasingly saying TWAM. Their punishing of Labour for being less than gung-ho only passes victory to the party they say they want out of power.

OP's son is like a case-study for this problem. A "vociferous left winger" who nonetheless facilitates a right-wing victory unless the left-wing Labour Party tugs their collective forelock on the transagenda. Completely focussed on one issue, willing to throw everything else Labour would do away unless they do this.

Nationally, they'd rather have a government that they're 100% against (or say they're against) than one that they'd be 95% for. They'd rather be able to wail about the evil government, than compromise 5% and work to get Labour to give them that other 5%, or work towards this themselves. I'm starting to think these supposed left-wingers are nothing of the sort. They just like squealing from the sidelines about how unfair it all is. They value their (manufactured) victimhood above a left-wing government they claim to want.

Yes, but this is hardly news. Loads of women on here so disgusted with their Labour MPs that they won't vote for them again.

Indeed. I have spoken to mine 1:1 and while I would say he was listening, because we've known each other for a very long time, he still had all the clichés.

There's no use Labour trying to blame their own barmpot ideas on the Government.

I attended a local election count as an observer in the north east in the early '90s and there was one ward where the Labour candidate was the only one standing - no Tory, no independents. I had no idea such a thing occurred in a democracy.

The antisemitism comparison comes from Nancy Kelly. I do wonder whether such views are off-the-shelf memes rather than arrived at via independent thought. Perhaps it would be worth getting him to unpack Kelly's comparison, and explore why it caused such outrage? (It's no less outrageous when repeated by someone we know).

This was really one of those occasions, given your audience, where you needed to channel your inner Bruce Willis.
"So? So we're 51% of the population dip-shits. And we've at least a 100 years experience of dealing with misogynistic little weasels like you and your friends in frocks. So?...so... bring.. it... on. Yippee-ki-yay motherfuckers!" 😆

What they said, is that a lot of young people aren't going to be independent thinkers.

Now I agree with that in general, but anyway, we can just put this to the test for this individual. Ask them things like: what is a woman and how do you justify that definition?

If you get back answers like, "a woman is anyone who says they're a woman", or, "that's a dog whistle question", then you know you are dealing with another brain dead progressive.

I think at best OP you have a raised someone who cares about people he sees as minority groups and the conversation around trans people are they are the most marginalised vulnerable group so he doesn’t have to think past that. I think it’s the nature of youth to see things in a black and white way, it’s as I got older I realised all the grey areas of life. If he also connects politics with morality or is an uncritical supporter of groups than it’s very simple for him.

At worst he can signal his virtue with no real cost to him, he will never understand what it would be like for a 13yr old to come out of the loo and bump into a 6ft bloke in a dress. Or have to talk about being raped infront of a man because he says he’s a woman. He doesn’t really understand what it is to be a girl and then a woman and how the fear of sexual assault has been the background noise to many a womans life,

It reminds me of when people have supported minority groups but completely ignored misogyny because the cognitive dissonance of seeing someone as a victim of racism but also a perpetrator of oppression is too much for them to reconcile. I’m saying that as an Asian woman.

So yes a transwoman can be a victim of violence due to toxic masculinity against GNC people and an oppressor and coloniser of womens spaces at the same time. There is a chance they can be beaten up in the mens loos for clearly being a man in female clothing but also get sexual pleasure from breaching womens privacy and boundaries (obviously some trans people are genuinely dysphoric and have a serious, persistent and painful condition, think that goes without saying).

I’m glad my parents were floating voters tbh it meant that while politics was discussed with much gusto (and quite a bit of shouting) none of us cleave too tightly to any ideology. None of my siblings or I have a party we would never vote for, I think we’ve voted for everyone except the BNP and UKIP between us. I think it teaches you to be a bit critical and think “have they got a point?” It means it’s a bit easier to shift gears, it’s not disruptive to my sense of self or “identity”.

I probably worded some of that more clumsily than I intended but I hope you get the gist. I’m not going to criticise your parenting OP, I have a kid and don’t know what the fuck I’m doing most of them time.

’m glad my parents were floating voters tbh it meant that while politics was discussed with much gusto (and quite a bit of shouting) none of us cleave too tightly to any ideology. None of my siblings or I have a party we would never vote for, I think we’ve voted for everyone except the BNP and UKIP between us. I think it teaches you to be a bit critical and think “have they got a point?” It means it’s a bit easier to shift gears, it’s not disruptive to my sense of self or “identity”.

Such a well made point.

Eek @CurlewKate what a rollercoaster you've been on with this post! Your parenting, your understanding of voting rules, your feminism and more all called in to question 😬 Harsh! (and unwarranted)

I hadn't thought about Rosie Duffield's position before you created this post but I think you're right that her days as an MP are numbered. That's a real shame as she adds a degree of political balance to discussing the impact of gender identity belief. It's so important that it's a cross party subject and not just attached to one side of the House of Commons. If it becomes a solely Tory view then it may end up being linked with other Tory values like we've seen in the US political system. The Republicans and Democrats are firmly divided on it, with a few exceptions such as a Democrat I saw online speaking at a detransitioners' event - she's probably in a similarly vulnerable position.

Thinking about your surprise at his views, I can empathise with this even though my children are younger. My daughters both have/had very strong opinions on JKR ("a bigot") and gender identity being more important than biological sex. We've started having a few conversations about it all recently but it's a really difficult subject, given the potential it has to be relationship damaging.

This reminds me about something I read about Chrysler. Before Lee Iacocca joined, it was alleged that the accounts department balanced the books by putting the invoices on one side of the scales, and the receipts on the other.

He’s been genderwashed at school and by his peers. It’s not your fault OP.

Schools have stopped teaching children how to think critically.

I'm in RDs constituency and the left faction in labour really really hate her so I think if he is around activistist (eg for refugees) he will hear lots of negative things about her. It's a small place and things like management issues in a mental health charity cafe polarise the whole town.

But your son is young independent minded and wants to make a difference. I think what more could you want.