Who the hell do I vote for - Northern Irish edition

[EnoughPlayingNice]

Is there anyone who (a) is sane and (b) has actually bothered to publish a manifesto? I know I'll disagree with most of them, but I'd at least like to know the specifics of what I'm disagreeing with.

Labour and LibDems - never stand.

In my area Tories, Reform, TUV, DUP, Sinn Fein - not standing.

UUP and Greens - no manifesto.

SDLP - can't tell if they have a manifesto because my antivirus software tells me 'this looks a malicious site' and won't let me see it.

And I've got 2 independents - one former DUP and endorsed by the TUV and Reform (so no thank you); and one who according to an extensive search of the internet is 'also standing'.

Which leaves only Alliance, who have at least published manifesto but managed to write 30 pages without saying anything. Except that they want a trans-inclusive conversion ban and are broadly in favour of unspecified women's rights in other countries (they seem to have forgotten we exist except in the international policy section).

The UUP manifesto is out and it says:

'We will also promote the widely accepted definition of a woman as an adult female and protect women's spaces, sport and the
language used to describe women.'

assets.nationbuilder.com/uup/pages/40/attachments/original/1719233594/General_Election_Manifesto_2024-compressed.pdf?1719233594

@EnoughPlayingNice I suspect you may be in the same constituency as me. If so, AFAIK the other independent's sole platform is repealing the smoking ban.

I can't bring myself to vote for any of them this time round.

There's an independent in my constituency that I have to investigate and see if he has any views on the issue but other than that I am not much impressed by most of the parties here on the women's rights issue.

So far, UUP, DUP, and Aontú are the only parties from which I can find any opposition to genderism.

Have you tried this? votecompass.uk/

It looks like you can weight your results at the end depending on how important different matters are to you. I didn't get the result I expected to though so not sure how accurate it is!

Ah. Well he's off the list then.

Thanks, hadn't found that. I'd tried a few others but they all skip NI for being too difficult.

I got Alliance, which is who I would have voted for before all the gender stuff came up.

Interesting questionnaire. And clearly they don't agree that gender is not a doorstep issue.

Unfortunately is doesn't help with the problem of having several key issues, and agreeing with a different party on each of them, but it's narrowed it down.

I haven't had a single candidate door knocking yet, and I'm in LV so it could be close. They're maybe avoiding me after the last set of elections and my awkward questioning 😁

I got 'not really any of them' (all below 60% agreement) without weighting the answers, which wasn't entirely a surprise. Alliance was closest overall, but not once weighted.

But I wasn't at all where I expected on the graph - which doesn't seem to change with amended weighting. I assume it's the gender questions that bump me well to the right of my usual position on these things.

No door knockers here in ND either, but I've never seen one in the years we've lived here.

Only 2 leaflets so far - UUP and indy Unionist.

It would be nice to have someone I was excited to vote for and not just needing to choose the least worst option. Still, at least Jeffrey isn't standing.

Small mercies.

Same, we did have a DUPer call at the door but DC1 chased them. It wasn't a candidate of course! In more than 30 years here, I have never, ever encountered an actual candidate. That's unusual because they normally stick a flyer through the door and run.

None of them is worth a vote. Five votes wasted from our house.

It seems that in some of the other parties, it pays to ask the candidates the question and see what they say.

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/assembly-election-sdlp-candidate-charlotte-carson-breaks-ranks-to-answer-no-to-trans-question-3673857

An answer, which is better than most of them managed. The old 'true trans' argument, though - she may not be quite as well informed on the subject as she thinks.