Would you vote Conservative if they said they will repeal the GRC?

[BlessedKali]

I'm wondering, even if you are a staunch lefty..... would revoking the GRC persuade you to vote conservatives?

No, MN largely reflects the rest of the electorate which, as polls demonstrate, are particularly pissed off with the mess this government has made of so much and the way it just lies its way from one piece of utter incompetence to the next. I certainly won't be voting Conservative at the next election, no matter what they promise, because they have a track record of dishonesty and bad faith.

This is an issue where there are huge criticisms to make of the Tories based in fact. The ‘but what if Labour were in power!’ line is a deflection. We’re on a thread talking about ‘would you vote Tory in exchange for GRA repeal?’. Which is a laughable premise. The Tories have never gone anywhere near that direction in 13 years of government and in fact have gone hard down the opposite and genderist direction of trying to bring in self ID.

And Labour haven’t been in power for 13 years. So it’s highly valid to look at who IS in power and their track record. And if we’re making a single issue voter comparison, The only UK party I know of who have been consistently GC is the communists.

How come they never get credit and pledges for votes for always ‘knowing what a woman is’ on these threads..? Strange.

I think the Communists and the SDP do get mentioned. They are not able to stand candidates in every seat though. I have never seen either on the ballot. At the moment, if I could, I would probably vote SDP. I want to be able to vote for a Green Party which does what it says on the tin rather than focusing on gender identity. However, I think we all know that only the Conservative Party or the Labour Party will form a government.

I've never voted Tory in my life but they could have made this hard for me this time. But when they elected a leader with a track record of dishonesty, and then when the inevitable happened, clung to him rather than do the honourable thing and vote him out themselves, well I'm afraid they lost any right to have any further promises taken seriously.

They don't even seem to have any idea of how much damage they have done to to their reputation and their legacy. I'm appalled for them and I'm not even a supporter.

They have got to go.

I have no illusions left about who will take their place. I've come full circle from being a passionate Labour supporter to despising them. The thought of a hung parliament with Ed Davey in the cabinet is even worse. Whatever the result, I won't be celebrating. But they have still got to go.

No. I don't trust them on the NHS.

It's extremely annoying that Labour's policy is ridiculous but it'll take more than this for the Tories to get my vote.

You have all seen the current incarnation of the Tory party? Impossible to even consider giving them more licence to continue looting this country. Rwanda? Follow the money. Practically anything that replaces them would have to be an improvement. Yet no: there's more. D Mail positing the dream ticket of the newly released Farage in combo with Bozo as new combined leadership. They haven't said they know what a woman is but it can't be long before they trot it out. Desperate is not an adequate description.

The Farage Johnson proposal would absolutely prevent me from considering voting Conservative.

Honestly I just don’t think I will vote at all unless there is an independent candidate who understands the importance or sex or an SDP candidate,

I can see the temptation but it would be very hard for me to vote Tory because of Rwanda, corruption, welfare policies, energy policies and a lot more.

However I think in the long run all parties will get over gender ideology, because it’s bunk. It may take time but reality and logic tend to prevail in the end, especially as more and more court cases are won and the detransition / harm to kids issu, plus the homophobia, misogyny etc become more widely known and understood. The GRA is a problem because it’s hard to undo that legal right, but it’s going to look more and more ludicrous as the rest of it collapses. Keir is already well on his way IMO, he’s already changed his tune in a way that suggests he has now got his head around the issues (as I’d bloody well hope as he’s a massively experienced lawyer).

And I think it’s better ultimately for reform to come from the left or to be agreed by all sides, otherwise it will just be painted as “right wing” and that will encourage well-meaning left-wing people to oppose it.

No, this doesn't make me want to vote Conservative. They have done too much to damage women.

Keir is already well on his way IMO, he’s already changed his tune in a way that suggests he has now got his head around the issues (as I’d bloody well hope as he’s a massively experienced lawyer).

I really dont think he does. But i doubt most MPs understand the complexities.

Starmer has said he wants to make obtaining a GRC easier and support sse. If he understands, why does giving more men female birth certificates help in maintaining sse? What has he said about the social transition of children?

I think he will have problems trying to appease the left of his party, and all indicators so far suggest hes going to support gender ideology as a payoff for other policies. Thats why hes allowed rosie Duffield to be treated appallingly.

My hope is that the current government can make some breakthrough and Starmer doesnt allow it to be rowed back on once he's PM. I dont think hes going to do much to improve safeguarding once in power.

I'm not saying Starmer is about to change labour policy radically and come out as a flag-waving terf. But I do think he (and probably a number of other politicians) have gone from genuinely naively spouting (trans people are the most marginalised and oppressed minority ever and TWAW!" because he was told that by what he thought was a genuinely straight-up and well-informed minority rights group, to looking at the actual issues and realising what's going on. Yes they are now probably thinking about how to play it and it's shameful that KS hasn't defended Rosie Duffield publicly, and I don't defend that.

But I do not believe that someone of KS's legal experience and reasonable brainpower (you don't need to be Einstein) has not now grasped that GI-pushing schools, gender-affirming doctors and surgeons, employers, sports orgs and the prison service etc are being hit with lawsuits that are winning, and that a climbdown has started in several areas. That gender ideology and being trans-identifying, if you think about it for one second, are not supported by evidence and as such should be treated as a personal belief system, not a truth to be imposed on others, and that the law does protect people on the basis of sex and GC beliefs so if he doesn't he will be contravening the law.

I think thats wishing thinking and not based on anything starmer has said or done. How can he be having doubts about gender ideology and want to make it easier to obtain a GRC?

The message from the labour front bench is confused, to say the least. And the backbenchers are a safeguarding nightmare. If there was genuine understanding, he would have openly supported kemi badenoch last week and stopped it being along party lines. But he stayed quiet so as not to upset his genderists supporters.

As i said, i think few MPs understand, or are willing to trade women rights and safeguarding away, its not just Starmer.

Starmer is wary of political backlash, thanks to women who spoke up against Sturgeon Bryson event

On the flip side that does not extend to actually wanting to be pro women. So it’s an easier GRC and ‘take the public with you’ and loads of confused statements which are meaningless except for spin

Best outcome for them is Labour bring in full gender ideology and women don’t talk about it

Really woeful for women and children though

My view is that Starmer probably has probably grasped it and knows it's a weak spot. I don't think most of his senior team have grasped it though and I also don't think Starmer's interested enough to have a big fight with them about it. So he tries to avoid the topic and gets tetchy when anyone presses the point, as do many Labour supporters everywhere.

I don't see how he can get away with that strategy for much longer and certainly not in the run up to an election, but I imagine he's calculated that by then, he'll have enough votes in the bag for it not to matter too much. Provided his majority is comfortable enough, my guess is that he'd be quietly happy to lose Canterbury if it meant getting Rosie Duffield out of his hair.

I still think this government still has to go. It's no good making pledges now - you can't elect a known serial liar as your leader and then expect anyone to believe a word you say.

And I think it’s better ultimately for reform to come from the left or to be agreed by all sides, otherwise it will just be painted as “right wing” and that will encourage well-meaning left-wing people to oppose it.

It seems to me like this kind of thinking absolutely has to be broken down. This tendency to vote simply due to tribal allegiances, or tropes like "everyone on the right is evil".

That's part of the reason for this mess, so many people reflexively assuming that what the left deems "progressive" must be. Even if gender ideology was out of the picture, it could still cause damage. In any case, it's not just gi, it's identity politics, and the left seems to be signed up for all of it.

Totally agree tempesttost - it’s mindless tribalism and I was suspicious of it 40 years ago too when I knew lefties who would support literally anything as long as it was stamped with leftism, and thought tories weren’t fit to live (and I’m a lefty).

But that tendency has now been exploited by transactivists big style. I think one of the ways it will be broken down is that more people will start to see that defending women, children and gay rights isn’t right wing, or party political - it’s something most civilised people can get behind.

All it would have taken was for starmer to stand up in Parliament and support kemi badenoch.

The only way it can be seen as unpolitical, or not right wing, is for the leadership of the labour party to actual declare that they are on the side of safeguarding and womens rights.

I don't think Starmer even needed to do that. I think all he needed was for his shadow minister (Dodds) to be on top of her brief instead of behaving like a 16 year-old who'd been told to be home by 11pm.

I should have probably picked up on this before but it's really only just dawning on me what a weak team Starmer has around him. Not good.

No, this makes no difference to the Conservative party's unelectability so far as I'm concerned.

No. Currently planning to spoil my ballot. It's on Labour if the don't win back the vote they've had from me since 1987. I left Labour over Corbyn. I'm staying away till they get their shit together on women's rights

Does the candidate make any difference? Regardless of the party position there are candidates I would never vote for, and others I definitely would, regardless of party.

Its widely agreed that conservatives are the ones losing the election, rather than labour winning as a result of brilliant policies.

Its early days, but im not sure where their policies are dramatically different to what we have now. So why not do the same with trans? If starmer does understand, why isnt he saying that he will take ideology out of school, investigate nhs gender clinics, keep womens spaces single sex.

How many seats will he risk, really?

I think this is a tough one.

I typically give a lot of weight to the local candidate, because I think that having smart people in the HoC is important, whatever their politics. It is too easy to really fuck up legislation. And I also think doing good constituency work makes a difference. I've had candidates who represented the party I wanted to vote for, but were such morons, or so untrustworthy, that I just couldn't do it.

That being said, there are limits to what even a good person can do if their views aren't in line with the party. Nine times out of ten they will be pressured or obligated to vote for what the party decides, and that is that.

WingsOverScotland has done an interesting Twitter thread outlining why he might actually vote Tory rather than for a Left or Nationalist party:

https://x.com/WingsScotland/status/1734531110506254791

First tweet in the thread:

'Here's the dumbest thing about the left. They regard driving people into the arms of the likes of Donald Trump in utter desperation as a kind of victory. "Haha, look, [x] voted Trump, that proves they were far-right like I said!" But breaking news, fucko: that vote counts.'