Anyone voting SDP tomorrow?

[GarethSouthgatesWaistcoat]

I'm in a very safe Lib Dem seat (Daisy Cooper).

I don't want to vote for any of the three main parties. LD and Lab have lost my confidence due to their arrogant take on women's rights and safety, Tories haven't done enough during their time in power. I lost my beloved dad traumatically and too young during the pandemic due to Tory (mis)management and pressure on the NHS. I've never voted Tory and right now they're off the table for a variety of reasons.
Re. Greens, my feelings are similar to LD and Lab but even worse (would've possibly considered if their focus was the environment and not full of TRAs).

I don't particularly want to spoil my vote but I'm trying to find another option that isn't Reform. I'm having a browse of the SDP manifesto, are there any glaring horrors I shouldn't overlook? It looks fairly promising so far although not perfect.

Me. I was going to spoil my ballot but decided on SDP. The candidate is local unlike pretty much all the other candidates running here which is very important to me. I disagree with their views on immigration and Brexit but I am fairly far left economically and they have a good amount in manifesto that I agree with.

I'm also in Daisy Cooper's constituency and I'm voting SDP. I voted for Daisy in 2019 but I just can't support the LibDems anymore given they've totally lost the plot on sex and gender.

Genuine question if anyone knows - if you vote and put a very clear ‘x’ on your ballot paper, but also write a message, does that count as a vote or a spoiled ballot?

I wonder if it’s worth adding a message to protest votes to make it clear why you’re voting for that party. I’ll be voting tactically but would like to leave a note if possible. We’re in what’s looking like a Tory safe seat though so won’t if it means my ballot will count as spoiled.

Genuine question if anyone knows - if you vote and put a very clear ‘x’ on your ballot paper, but also write a message, does that count as a vote or a spoiled ballot?

AFAIK, it's a vote - only possible exception being if the message is clearly contradictory. If you wrote "I VOTE CONSERVATIVE" and put an X in the Labour candidate's box, I believe that could be deemed "spoiled" - unclear intention.

(Probably only on a detailed recount review though - initial count would likely just look at the clear X)

I feel the same way. There is no main party I can bring myself to vote for. The SDP seems the safest home for a protest vote.

We have an SDP candidate here, but they don't seem to have put the slightest bit of effort in. We got no leaflets, and even when I go and search for the candidate online, the only thing I can find about them is their name.

If they'd at least got a statement online about who they are, where they're from and what they hope to achieve then I'd probably have voted for them. But I don't want to vote for a complete mystery person, even if the party is decent.

No.

There are somethings I agree with the SDP on, and also things that I really don't. But my main reasons are:

1. It's not a political party. It's more a think tank. Focused on principles rather than practicality.
2. There has been no campaigning by our local candidate, and I can find no information about him at all through web searches.

I would if I could but they don't have a representative where I live, I think he talks a little of sense.

That is as meant to say a lot of sense!

I thought about it but apart from the GC statements, I disagreed with the other policies. And could find nothing about the candidate when I looked. So spoilt my postal vote in the end.

so glad you raised this! Me and DH both voted SDP by post. Liked their manifesto. Good solid stuff and really clear on modern day men- can- be --women style gender ideology ( they can't). Sad they have almost no resources and few candidates but I've been cheered to see lots of others here making the same choice.

I thought about it but was a bit about some of their other policies and decided in the end that it wouldn't really make any sort of gender critical point, so I spoiled.

I have already voted SDP.

No party is a perfect fit, but they get the closest. I read the entire detailed manifesto, looking for signs of the racism etc such parties are always accused of. I couldn't see it, unless you consider taking a realistic stance on immigration to be racist.

A vote for the SDP is endorsing their policy that single mums are lesser beings than their married counterparts. Why should women who stay with their kids when their husbands leave, or women who leave abusive men be lower on the housing list than those in marriages?
So they're not pro-women at all.

If you had to agree with every single policy in a manifesto before voting none of us would vote for anyone ever.

I and my husband have voted for him. He is our local candidate. 🤞

I did as a protest vote, I’m a single issue voter at the moment and they were unambiguous on sex based rights. I don’t like all of their policies but recognition of the sex binary as a basic and fundamental truth is a line in the sand for me. If political parties are willing to lie, gaslight and persecute people over something so unambiguously true, then what other bollocks are they willing to go along with next?

I probably will, but will add a footnote that it is only due to their stance on biologcal women. Will be holding my nose about some of the other policies.

Safeish LibDem seat here but could be a surprise.

Waving to you @GarethSouthgatesWaistcoat from up the road to you. Our constituency has been re-drawn, and what has been a safe Tory seat for decades seems to be the big prize for the LibDems, considering the amount of crap literature they keep putting through my letterbox, and the time bloody Ed Davey has spent here during this election period (he was driving around the common in a pink Cadillac with your MP yesterday, the bloody prat). Happily told the LibDem canvassers to do one the other day, I am so angry at the sight of them and their tinkly laughs and denials when you mention TR activism within their party.

Our old Tory MP (who is standing in what used to be part of my constituency) is someone I have mixed feelings about. Basically a good guy, but I sent him many letters about the GRC, and got nothing of substance back, just a form letter really that was full of platitudes and being kind sentiments. He's one of their up and coming stars, and I suspect toes the party line whatever that is rather than having his own principles on the matter. The new Tory candidate has been completely anonymous, I don't know anything about him and I wouldn't vote Tory anyway as things stand.

Lifelong Labour before I started spoiling my ballots a couple of years ago, and from an ethnic minority group. Labour stand no chance here, and it will be a dark day in hell before I vote for them again if they continue down the path they have been following. We do have an SDP candidate, and for all the good it will do, I will be voting for him. He of course has no chance of getting in, but I quite like their policies, and for me it's a protest vote without needing to spoil my ballot.

I read through their manifesto thinking, OK, this sounds... sensible, until I got to the section about prioritising the married family unit at all costs - and it feels like a manhole cover that would lead to a lot of less palatable 'traditional' values.

There's an SDP candidate standing in my constituency but so far he's refused to do any interviews or debates on local radio/television, hasn't canvassed or put up any posters, so maybe they're relying on people listening to The Rest is History podcasts about the 1970s to garner support?

We have an SDP candidate here, but they don't seem to have put the slightest bit of effort in. We got no leaflets, and even when I go and search for the candidate online, the only thing I can find about them is their name.

Campaigners call this putting up a paper candidate. They persuade someone to stand and invest in a deposit but don't invest anything else. So no leaflets, unlikely to get much if any door knocking, even the candidate may well be knocking doors in someone else's constituency. Smaller parties will do this to increase awareness, national vote %, and guage support. Actual campaigning costs more £ and volunteer time and will be concentrated in constituencies they think they can do something. Even if in SDP's case "do something" might just mean get deposit back.

that's really interesting, thanks for that.

Unfortunately for our SDP candidate (who has actively declined interviews), a cursory google of his name brings up a whole lot of previous which you can only surmise he doesn't want to discuss...

Thanks DawsonsFreak waves

I had a good chuckle at your description of Ed Davey's twattish exploits. Wtf 😁😭

Daisy Cooper is driving me crazy, she seems like an intelligent, logical person but clearly ambitious. Maybe she actually doesn't care and I'm giving her too much credit. Tinkly laughs and scolding sums it up.

Thank you to everyone on this thread, good food for thought. I've been off to place my vote and ultimately felt comfortable voting for SDP in my constituency.

Briefly considered it, read up on them, discovered that they had some potential arrangement with Reform, and thought no thanks.