Floating voters/politically homeless/ballot spoilers

[ArthurbellaScott]

What would it take for you to:

1. Vote Labour
2. Vote Conservative

Please be as clear and succint as possible!

My answers:

1. Labour need to reinstate Rosie Duffield and clarify that 'sex' means biological sex in the Equality Act, not 'legal' sex
2. Conservatives need to clarify that 'sex' means biological sex in the Equality Act, not 'legal' sex

1. Demonstrate understanding of the equality act / meaning of the word sex in a way that can't be easily wriggled out of later. Support Scottish independence (unlikely I know so would accept further devolution)

1. As someone who is politically very left I wouldn't ever

1 Labour
What the op says plus:
Clarify what they mean when they say they intend to 'modernise, simplify and reform' the Gender Recognition Act.

Clarify exactly what additional rights come with a Gender Recognition Certificate.

Meet with the Labour Women's Declaration, post a photo call on Twitter and issue a public invitation to their next conference (the main event not fringe).

2 Conservative:
I don't think there's anything they can do that would make amends for their behaviour over the last 13 years. I'm trying to break free of my old tribal allegiances but I still think they have to go.

1 - no. I honestly don't think they are salvageable now. Any noises made now about women's rights, gay rights, homosexual rights yada yada will be window dressing and lies.

2 - yes, clarify that sex means biological sex in all circumstances, that services MUST provide accessible female only services alongside others to receive any public funding, get the bloody advice out to schools and stop dipping toes about it, sort the police, NHS and civil service out with a full proper inquiry and action into political capture. For a start. That would help.

1. With you Arthurbella plus somehow convince me that women's rights are more important than menz feelz (not sure if they could but would love to see them try)

1. Really really not sure I could (gulps bravely). Nope, still not sure

1. It's too late, unless Labour commit to sex class analysis on the basis of biological sex again, which would mean repealing the GRA
2. Just no, nothing

1. Labour: No more Stonewall.
2. Conservatives: The head of Boris Johnson on a silver platter.

After voting Conservative for years, I am now politically homeless.

1. I don't trust Labour. I am actively looking to see why I could vote for them but struggling. I don't believe Starmer is able to make a decision and stick to it. He is weak.
2. I'd say nothing, but would review if Kemi was in charge
3. Please nobody spoil their vote. I will be seriously considering Reform and/or others.

Reform? The arseholes who gave us Brexit?

1. Labour would need to step back from charging VAT on private schools, commit to meaningful housing policies that will solve the housing issue, commit to improving access to benefits and particularly FSM for children, demonstrate fluently that they understand what a woman is to at least the same level that my toddler does, and sort out both the antisemitism and Islamophobia in their party, as well as submit to a public inquiry over how they blocked tens of thousands of young engaged people from being members of the Labour party during the Jeremy Corbyn leadership bid. They would also need to reinstate Corbyn or someone similarly sincere and impassioned about benefiting the country with their policies instead of these stupid talking heads like Miliband and Starmer and commit to any of the below they're not already committed to.
2. The Conservatives would need to step back from their dickhead new policy that threatens the survival of disabled people on benefits, their Big Brother policies inspecting the bank accounts of benefits claimants (I'm not on benefits but I find this abhorrent and a slippery slope), reinstate legal aid for women trying to leave men to get a divorce, non-mol, and anything else they need to make themselves and their kids safe, and step back from the Student Loans reforms due to take effect from 2025 that will see no one able to take a second degree even if they want to be a nurse which we desperately need more of.

In all fairness, I'm more concerned about labour getting in so I'm more likely to tactically vote conservative.

I echo @OkayScooby, live in a labour stronghold so my vote has been meaningless for years.

1. Labour - change my local candidate (I disagree with her stance on key issues including her ideas on self-ID) and get an effective leader who knows how to be a modern socialist (which includes being a formidable leader of the opposition)
2. In all seriousness, I'm not sure they could...although passing a law that makes lying/omitting to tell the truth as an MP in the course of their duty and profiting from political connections via spouses/friends/family businesses sackable and punitive offences would be a step in the right direction in terms of building a reputation for basic levels of decency.

Overall I'm politically homeless so focus more on my local candidates and what they demonstrate as people with their work in the community at the moment. It seems more sensible than spoiling my ballot paper.

1. Take the rights of women and children seriously. To understand that trans rights should not involve the infringement onto other people's rights; e.g. their religious and philosophical freedoms. To have a better grasp of reality and science to base their politics on - not just relating to the gender debate, but across all their politics. To actually tackle antisemitism, rather than siding with people who use their entirely imagined "death at the hand of Nazis" to garner social media kudos. To actually understand the nefarious side to this whole trans debate, and other similar debates, which seek to erode women's boundaries and exploit vulnerable children (see also: normalising sex work and lowering the age of consent). To understand the damage that porn is doing to the minds of our young people, and adults, and take it seriously. To understand that you can be left-leaning and fairly liberal without throwing everyone's boundaries to the sharks.
2. Sorry I wouldn't vote Tory unless they changed 90% of their MPs and policies.

Thanks, everyone.

It would be great if we could get clear demands to both main parties in the run up to the election.

I really, really don't want to waste my vote.

In addition to forward-looking statements (for example about how they intend to clarify the Equality Act to entrench sex-based protections) I would like to see some reflective backwards-looking analysis about how the Labour Party became so cornered into the irrationality of current conceptualisations of trans rights.

I think that a sincere analysis of how that came about would reveal them to have been on exaclty the same trajectory that many of us have found ourselves to be -- from a starting point of basic compassion for marginalised people (coupled with a critique of the gender stereotypes that have marginalised them) to an almost accidental deification to those very gender stereotypes, followed by a 'peak trans' epiphany and then a more balanced and reflective balancing of rights.
If they were truthful about that, they would stop othering gender critical women as dinosaurs whose hesitancy has to be mollified and start being honest about the fact that we are just ordinary left-wing women with an annoying pechant for reality. That's what I want. I don't want to be reassured or patronised: I want honesty and realism.

Oh, and an unequivocal disavowal of self-id, which is as misplaced in relation to acquiring rights to female spaces as it would be in relation to getting a blue badge for disabled parking rights

Same as you for no.1 OP, tbh I still wouldn't trust them. Any u-turns now are only going to mean that they've reluctantly and cynically decided to throw us a crumb.
For no.2 there is nothing the Tories can do to win my vote.

These's another thread started earlier today on the same issue but asked in a different way, that may be of interest https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4951566-gender-criticals-how-are-you-going-to-vote-in-the-election

Nothing would make me vote Conservative these days.
And I will be voting tactically for the candidate most likely ti unseat the conservatives in my area at the time, so it will be labour or lib dems for me

I don't want to spoil my paper so my bar is fairly low:

1. To vote Labour

(A) Commitment to preventing or drastically slowing the rate at which children, young people and vulnerable adults are accessing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and gender affirming surgery. Access to high-quality mental health treatment to explore alternatives to body modification. (B) Acknowledgement that the effects of virilization are irreversible

2.To vote Conservative
As above, plus
(C) Acknowledgement that income inequality in the UK has created huge social problems
(D) A workable (even if longer term) plan to reduce (C)

The Reform party scare me because 95% of their policies seem perfectly reasonable, which seems to hide the fact that the other 5% are bat-shit crazy... I would be scared if a populist party like that took power.

Labour and the Tories are non-starters for me. I'm in Scotland, and thinking of voting for Alba.

"We will remain steadfast in our belief that women have the right to organise themselves according to their sex class, and that these protections would be enshrined in an Independent Scotland’s Constitution."

"we have attempted to amplify the voices and concerns of women who feel they have been shut out of the discussion in relation to the Gender Recognition Reform Bill (GRR)."

But Salmond is just another crook, isn't he? Still, I'd consider it if I lived in Scotland.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of Salmond. But currently it's looking like them or nobody.

I'm presuming Alba will be a list vote in a Scottish election, so the system may allow for more flexibility.

In what way a crook?

1. for labour to stop being too woolly in their position on big issues. Last election I didn't even vote at all because I wasn't even sure what policies I was voting for if I voted labour

1. For Tories to prove that working people are financially better off with them in power (this won't happen, because they've already proved the opposite).

I honestly can't imagine ever voting again, the choice is basically - pay all your wages to the superrich, or pay all your wages to council workers and civil servants. Neither party is ever making life better for average people