This is opinion. So read it as such. But consider it please.
Obviously if you read this based on the title. I assume you oppose the Tories.
But if you are wondering why labour are so keen to manage expectations. There is a reason.
Campaign funding wise the Tories are estimated to be 19m ahead of labour. But honestly at the moment they are not spending a huge amount more.
We know the Tories are skilled at election manipulation. So there is genuine fear that the Tories plan to launch a campaign within the last few days.
I.E. when there is less time and funding to ensure fact checking is effective.
They know Starmer is more publicity aware then Corbyn was. He is able to play it in a way that dose not scare traditional Conservative voters.
They also know thanks to Boris, that the courts are unable to punish them for outright lies during any political campaign. And that Rishi is prepared to lie about and accuse civil servants of lying when challenged.
As huge as polling is against the Tories. All it would take is some dramatic claim against the party or Starmer. To convince Tory traditional voters to bite their tongue and vote Tory. While convincing left wing voters not to vote or to switch to 3rd party in seats where labour are the 1st or 2nd party.
The fact we know they have a huge amount of money unspent. Makes it clear they plan to launch something nearer the end of the election. And the only advantage of leaving it so late. Is it will limit the ability of the party to effectively react. Or fact checkers to be able to prove and distribute evidence of lies.
Please be prepared for this.
It's just getting more and more difficult to feel okay voting Labour. I know splitting the left wing vote isn't tactically smart, but voting for labour isn't even a left wing vote anymore :(
(I'm still pro-tactical voting, I'm just doing it with more frustration than ever before)
Well it would be nice if there was anything left of the left in UK labour. At the moment all you got is a transphobic piece of shit that is just slightly left on economic issues.
Yall really gotta get better to scrub off the stain of the currently accurate description of being TERF island.
And of course I am painfully selfaware that I am saying this from America where our choices are between two genocidal fascists credibly accused of SA
Tactical voting ourselves right into death camps is not the strategy you think it is.
Almost everyone hates FPTP, and we know it sucks, but unfortunately, tactical voting is a realistic option for most areas in the UK. I'm personally very likely to vote Green (or lib dem) as I'm in a safe Labour seat, and I won't conscionably vote Labour for a myriad of reasons (including being trans), but it's a bigger priority to get the Tories out than anything else right now.
More optimistically though: voting is one part of a large variety of things people can do to influence politics. Protests, voting locally, working with local and bigger organisations, writing to MPs, donating to causes we care about, etc. can all help offset the feeling of having to vote for a party you hate slightly-less than the worse one.
I AM BEGGING YOU TO FUCKING DO MORE THAN VOTING AND STOP THINKING THAT VOTING IS GOING TO DO ANYTHING HOLY SHIT MAN.
I HATE that you fuckin libs think that politics ends at the ballot box and then when I say this this motherfucker makes up a strawman about me advocating political assassination.
You people are fucking useless.
Please try to calm down a bit mate.
We can appreciate your frustration: It is not a fun situation when the main options for the government both support the horrible things happening in the Middle East.
I can promise you, we don't enjoy it either. People choose to vote tactically to put the most pressure on the lesser of two evils, and avoid an even more questionable result (CON+REF+DUP coalition, anyone?)
Hopefully, one day we can see AV coming into practice. And we can see MPs better representing the votes of the nation.
And until then, we can continue to put pressure on bad situations, via the small parties, via protest. But not by cutting off our noses to spite our faces.
Please be civil with people on feddit.uk. Shouting is not civil.
Please be civil
I will try to respect your rules better but I fundamentally disagree with civility/tone policing when it comes to literal genocide and people advocating voting for people facilitating said genocide.
Like I said before I got heated and that person strawmanned me saying I was advocating political assassinations. There is a world of action that needs to be taken outside of electoralism and focusing on elections and voting is something I feel is a distraction from What Is To Be Done.
Its reasonable to be angry at world politics right now (I don't know many people who aren't) but you can be a good leftist and be kind at the same time.
So I agree: it is an unproductive distraction to start beef on the internet about voting and elections. We both want the same things:
- Real, measurable direct political action, on dozens of issues that the main 2 parties won't solve
- All of the pro-genocide, awful politicians out of parliament (and ideally, off of Earth).
Why not share stuff like: https://linktr.ee/opolivebranch instead of getting into the weeds with strangers
Yeah you're not wrong but the whole OP was about voting as harm reduction which I fundamentally disagree with.
Fascism arises because of the collapse of institutional legitimacy of liberal institutions. That's how we got trump and that's how we're gonna get what's coming next after him, that's gonna be even worse, because if you think that there's not gonna be more ecological and economic catastrophes in the future that liberalism is wholly unsuited to fucking deal with and that that failure is not gonna lead to fascism filling that fucking hole, you've got another thing coming.
And that's what these guys are. These guys who marched in Charlottesville, these are the people who are aware of the unspoken premise of the sort of zombie neoliberalism that we're living in which is that we're coming at a point that there's gonna be ecological catastrophe and it's going to either require mass redistribution of the ill-gotten gains of the first world or genocide.
And these are the first people who have basically said, "Well if thats the choice I choose genocide." And they're getting everybody else ready, intellectually and emotionally, for why that's gonna be ok when it happens. Why they're not really people. When we're putting all this money into more fucking walls and drones and bombs and guns to keep them away so we can watch them die with clear consciences because we've been loaded with the ideology that these guys are now starting to express publicly.
On the other side of them you have people who are saying in full fucking voice, "No, we have the resources to save everybody, to give everybody a decent and worthwhile existence," and that is what we want, and that is the fucking real difference between these two.
Paraphrasing Matt Christman.
In short by holding dear to these liberal institutions we are inadvertantly accelerating the rise of fascism.
And which party with any electoral chance is sound on trans issues? Neither? So now you have a choice: vote on a single issue when you know the party you're voting for has no hope, or take the less bad alternative and try to work from there.
And of course I am painfully selfaware that I am saying this from America where our choices are between two genocidal fascists credibly accused of SA
Yeah, right, because Biden and Trump are exactly the same. /s
Anyway, where's the "credible" accusation of sexual assault against Biden? Laughed out of court for not being credible. And against Trump? A civil finding that he did commit SA, and in any state but New York, it would have been rape.
This all smells like encouraging voters to stay home because "both sides." And that favours the party with the more fanatical base. Seems to me a more likely way to get death camps than Starmer getting in.
Not going to throw my trans comrades under the bus for political convience, and to vote for a center right liberal party.
This all smells like encouraging voters to stay home because "both sides."
God you people have a one track mind. No I am begging people to take more action (and responsibility) than just going to the voting booth once every 2, 4, 6 years etc.
Join a revolutionary party, join a mutual aid organization, volunteer whatever free time you can to actually doing something about issues you claim to care so dearly about. Maybe if you are of the privileged demographics put your body on the line to defend those targeted by state and or fascist violence.
Stop pretending like the only politics is liberal bourgeois democracy ffs. It's sooooo god damn tiring.
And sure vote if you want to but stop blaming the people for reasonably checking out of this broken system while still doing the more important work of direct action for not endorsing literal genocide.
Like it or not that is materially what your vote does. It endorses the policies of the person you voted for. All of them.
There will literally be Tory trolls/bots pushing this narrative to split the Labour vote. Get the Tories out, then push Labour for PR, hard, to keep Tories out of unjust power.
then push Labour for PR, hard
What do you think this looks like? Like, what, you're gonna withhold your vote next time, letting a different party take advantage of FTPT, or vote for them anyway, because you're still trying to keep the tories out of power?
There is absolutely no incentive for them to change the system while in power.If the public mood is turned against PR and everywhere is calling it undemocratic and their government illegitimate, they may not feel they have a choice. Especially since their membership want it.
The media is largely right wing (because the rich are rightwing) and the right have been able to use FPTP to have unrepresentative governments for decades. But now, with the right split, all of a sudden FPTP might keep them out of power. So the wealthy may turn on FPTP too.
If the public mood is turned against PR and everywhere is calling it undemocratic and their government illegitimate, they may not feel they have a choice.
Damn, they may feel they don't have a choice? Definitely sounds like you know what you're talking about. We'll just hope they feel like they have to do it, something that definitely has plenty of historical precedent. What actual physical actions are you thinking of taking that would make them feel they don't have a choice?
Also confusing - when you talk about the right using FTPT for decades, are you thinking "since 2012" or "since 1708"? Because neither of those are time periods you'd measure in decades.
I follow a lot of politics, and grew up in a political family. But I'm just an interested bystander.
As right in power, even if you don't include New Labour, it's more Right government.
This shows the last 100 years (p12) https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7529/CBP-7529.pdf
14 Conservative governments and 9 Labour
(I counted the two coalition governments as Tory due to them by the major party in the coalition)
Yet the majority of that time, progressives have been in the majority, but out of government because they are split over multiple parties. Plus a rightwing bias media placing a thumb on the scales as much as they can for the right.
I don't know what questions you think you're answering, but they aren't mine.
We have used FTPT since the creation of the house of commons in 1708. It's over 300 years of "the right [having] been able to use FPTP to have unrepresentative governments for decades". That's 30 decades, an unreasonable number to summarise as just decades. As a subpoint, [citation needed] on progressives being a majority - your file shows the Conservatives have averaged 40% of the vote for most of the last 100 years, with the Lib Dems taking another 10-20% most of the time, and 50-60% of the vote is definitely a majority before you start adding the conservative members of supposedly liberal parties like labour.
Secondly, nothing you said names a single actual action you're willing to take to pressure Labour. If you were being realistic you'd have said something like mail bombing or arson, but you haven't even said you'll write an angry letter or something. There's just this gap of thinking where they get into power, and then something vague happens that makes them do the right thing. Back in 2002/3 me and 36 million other people worldwide took to the streets protesting plans to invade Iraq. On the 15th of February the largest demonstration in history occured worldwide, with close to a million people marching in London alone. IT had absolutely no effect on government policy, with our nominally progressive government throwing their full support behind the invasion, so what are you going to do this time that will actually effect change?
Are you saying you think FPTP has delivered representative Parliament?
As for action, I bash FPTP every chance I get, including here on Lemmy. But also Reddit (less now), Mastadon and Twitter. I do write into some of the main stream political podcasts I listen to. I voted for AV. Though I don't think large marches have a good history in recently. With Iraq and Brexit being examples. But I'd join a voting change one anyway.
But when voting under FPTP my priority is get the Torys out. Anyway trying to convince people not to prioritize that I think are actually pro-Tory.
I used to be a party member but left years ago when it got rough! Maybe getting back into politics more directly is the way to go: changing parties from within!
I’m just doing it with more frustration than ever before
Pretty sure that represents the labour lead atm. Def folks wanting to vote against tories rather then for labour. Unfortunately it also leave the Tories with an open attack vector. They just need to time the right attack to dramatically split the left vote in Lab seats where they are still 2nd.
Starmer purged the left wing from his party, he can't be surprised when they don't vote for him.
Agreed. But its not about starmer being good. Its about being less bad then the Tories.
FPTP is an utter fuck over of an electoral system. That leaves very few places where voting 3rd party or even not voting is not a vote for Tory rule.
Its unpleasant but a simple fact that evil is quantifiable. When your choice is limited via the voting system. Refusing to vote for the lesser of 2 evils basically means you support goes to the greater.
Agreed. But its not about starmer being good. Its about being less bad then the Tories
This is the same bullshit people use to justify voting for Biden.
Yep that is because under FPTP it is the truth. The US is one of the few other nations that use the shitty system. So yes if you refuse to vote Biden you are Basically giving your vote to the Trump camp.
Something only people who actually think trump will do less harm trhen biden should do.
And anyone who thinks that. Really is not worth listening to.
If you genuinely cannot see a difference between the 2. Yep that is correct. But you are also more blind then I am.
This is UK politics but
Joe Biden ran against Trump’s horrific immigration policies and wall building. Joe Biden is now pushing an immigration policy that is even worse than Trump’s. Joe Biden has waived dozens of laws to facilitate the construction of Trump’s border wall through environmental preserves.
Trumps policy was racist aimed specifically at Muslim nations and his wall was just stupid. Bidens is bad but no more fascist then the last 100 years of US politics. IE still evil but less evil and stupid then trumps. Certainly no more so.
Joe Biden ran against Trump’s horrific foreign policy and trade war with China. Joe Biden has changed nothing, instead doing the opposite and pressing China even harder and stacking pathetic foreign policy blunders higher than Trump’s stupid ass did.
As is the EU and most of the west. But he actually ran against trumps claims of leaving NATO and other foreign policies. As far as evil. I am not sure economic fights with a different powerful nation even count as evil. Its not like they cause suffering towards members in that nation. If it was a 3rd world nation sure. Its dumb. As its not good for the US economy. But then nor is losing all of your manufacturing capability to nations that are cheaper. But that is an opinion many politicians disagree with. Capitalist corporations have done way more harm to western economies over the last 50 years then either trump or biden as far as losing skilled workforce. And lets face it. The actions of china spying and using threats to control US UK and EU citizens who originate from china. Hardly leaves it as one sided.
Joe Biden refused to engage in any diplomacy with Russia. The war in Ukraine is a direct result of that.
Utter and total bullshit. Nato spend decades agreeing to nato not accepting nations that border Russia. A nation that murdered people inside the UK a US and Nato allies during trumps leadership. (not blaming trump for that. Just pointing out the relationship biden inherited) Russia has for a couple of decades been an unreliable partner in diplomacy. And the US is far from the only nation that decided they were not allowed to bully their way after Crimea. While Trump literally broke US law and prevented funding going to Ukraine after congress had approved it. While asking for info to help his election campaign. The whole idea of diplomacy with Russia was lost long before trump lost office. Entirely due to Russia actions.
Remember this is a nation that signed an agreement with the Ukraine to respect their independence in exchange for the Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons the USSR built there. Then used the nations lack of weapons and NATO agreement not to accept border members to strip Crimea from the Ukraine. Russia did not want piece without expansion.
Joe Biden is fully supporting Israel’s horrific genocide.
Agreed. But so is congress the senate and the party trump claims to represent. Along with a sizeable proportion of US voters. If you think trump will stop it. I have a huge wall on the US Mexico border to sell you.
Add the fact that Biden has never tried to start a civil war to hold on to political office.
Its really not hard to find a worst candidate out of 2 bad options and you live in a nation where not voting only gains 0 If you really cannot see any disadvantage of one over the other. I assure you the world outside the US def dose.
Gaza is bidens biggest negative. But trump is in no way likely to be better for them.
Sorta like the UK. Tories and labour are both crap on Gaza the main diff is Tories are currently in charge. But no one is voting labour because they think gaza will be better off. If we had proportional representation like most of the rest of Europe Labour would not win. They would be the largest party. But FPTP gives to much of an advantage to the larger parties. Heck if we did not have a parliament rather then a presidency we would also be on a complete 2 party system like the US. But the fact we do not vote for our PM. Allows allows smaller parties to gain constituency power but not national. Once you have 30% of the vote the maths gives huge advantages over smaller parties.
Joe Biden refused to engage in any diplomacy with Russia. The war in Ukraine is a direct result of that.
Russia had already invaded and occupied Crimea in 2014. The war in Ukraine is a direct result of that, and of Russia's failed attempt to impose their quisling Yanukovich on the Ukrainians. Or do you also want to claim that the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine happened because someone was mean to the poor, gentle Russians, who for some utterly unfathomable reason are despised by every country that they formerly dominated? And of course the Russians had no choice but to wage a war of conquest against a nearby country that they had already been attempting to destabilise? And why would that be? It couldn't possibly be nostalgia for empire.
I am saying neither will do less harm. We've had this tired debate too many times to go into it but in the case of Biden his administration has done nothing to reverse or curtail the worst of Trump's policies and he managed to somehow be even MORE racist on immigration.
Lesser evilism is a trap and you are better off organizing more direct action. I don't vote for either candidate that supports genocide, simple as.
I am saying neither will do less harm.
So why are you still bothering trying to tell people to vote for these ghouls?
I am mad and throwing civility out the window but I am also genuinely curious.
How do you hold those two contradictory thoughts together in your brain at the same time?
Some of the voters are a bit scary too. I keep hearing a clip from LBC where some asks Starmer if he would've been in Corbyn's cabinet.
Starmer kicked Corbyn out. That's years ago. Why are you still trying to link the two people still now.
Finally, who are the 20% that would still vote Tory? Rich business people with no ethics?
Why are you still trying to link the two people still now.
Because that is where the Tories are likely spending some money. They keep bringing up the he supported Corbyn. They and the right wing of labour spent in the last election to destroy his reputation. So the Tory party sees it as a cheap attack to push the idea over social media.
I am a little disappointed that it is not answered with, how Rishi was willing to support a PM candidate with a racist publications in the media and later willing to lie to parliament to prevent their ability to shut down his policies.
Tories are pretty boned, period, whenever they launch their last push - the actual threat are Reform, who will either form a coalition with whoever it takes to gain a majority in this election, or outright win next time after the PLP fundamentally change nothing.
Tories are pretty boned, period,
I am old enough to have thought that in the past. The money that backs the Tories will not give up. Given how open the party has been about its extrean right over the last few years.
Honestly until the 5th July it is very dangerous to think that way. All these predictions are based on 65 to 75% turn out. That is high. The Tories do not need to convince folks to vote Tory. They are better off stopping folks voting labour. At least in seats where a 3rd party is not closer to Tory in polling.
If they reduce turn out for labour while increasing support for more left of centre parties. They can do to labour what Corbyn did to may. Create a weak minority party where the existing devisions in the PLP prevent the party achieving much.
If you've been voting for 30+ years you should have the experience to recognise how close in policy the current PLP are to the Tories. If you're just talking about the last few elections you were naive and deserved to be surprised that the PLP would rather sabotage a left wing candidate than win an election.
The money that backs the Tories is not particularly attached to the Tories, and will move (has already been moving) to the PLP and any other sources of power it can find should the Tories lose. It does not have an ideology beyond constant growth, and is happy to pay members of any party for access.
I'm 53 so the former. But also experienced enough to have see your argument before. Because I was making them.
I and many my age said exactly the same thing about Tony Blair's leadership of the party. And heck I have been making the argument for the last few years post Corbyn.
But I also have the experience to know how much better life under right wing labour is then even left wing Tories. So 10 days before the election. Fighting to change the options we have is a losing battle. The fight is instead between 5 years of a lesser evil. Or a much much greater one.
Because at the end of it. Right wing labour is not trying to start a war against the poor. Whereas the Conservative Party is very much built from a history of embedded privileged. It literally grew from the lords side of a fight between the house of lords vs the house of commons. I.E. feudalism vs commoners. The power of generational privileged wealth vs democracy. (As limited as it was in those days)
While since 1689 the structure of parliament has changed hugely. That is the historical predecessor to the Tories losing against the Liberals and Labour representing the rights of commons.
And any honest look at the ideology of the 2 main parties is still based on privileged wealth vs the early idea of the middle class. I.E. Earned wealth (although the far left would have issues with earned I agree with). The left wing of the labour party (that both started it and removed the Liberals from opposition. ) Cannot win this election. But we can sure as hell give it to the Tories unintentionally. Very like the right of the party did in 2019 (ill add intentionally here).
What I see very strongly is an attempt by Tories to blame the poor for poverty. As they always do. vs an attempt by Labour to turn what they call the centre. But in the feudal past our parliament grew in was referred to as the middle class. I.E. traders and business men not born into generational wealth.
I hate that FPTP is so shitty. And have seen how shitty since the 1980s. But again 10 days till the election. Its time to bite your anger down and choose the lesser evil. Because the greater evil knows how to use yours and my anger to gain power.
Well I am almost 40 and have seen the harm reduction argument lead the US right into Trump and now Biden who is nearly as bad. At some point you have to start to acknowledge that incrementalism is fuckin suicide.
Agreed. But you also have to consider the timing. The only way to stop it is to change the voting system. As I am very vocal in trying to do between all elections.
Or to change the candidates. Again I have been trying that between elections.
At this point your faced with 2 options. Assassination or choosing the lesser evil.
Honestly the first choice just makes you the greater evil.
That is horrible binary thinking. There is a world of action between voting for liberals (unscratched fascists) and assassination (which if your government is run by fascists, does not, in fact, make you the greater evil)
Why are you libs always like this? Oh if you kill the evil people then you're just as bad as them!
Okay have fun with that pacifism fetish when it leads you in front of a firing squad (which is the ultimate destination of the trajectory both our countries are on)
Read This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed.
yeah you are talking about murdering politicians. this conversation is over.
At this point your faced with 2 options. Assassination or choosing the lesser evil.
The most absurd false dichotomy I've seen in a while, nice.
"Honestly the first choice just makes you the greater evil."
"Killing Hitler just makes you worse than Hitler" -- outstanding logic. Literally everyone outside of hardcore pacifists would agree there are certain politicians that it is OK to assassinate.
As dumb as that sounds. If someone killed Hitler after he was popular as a german politician. All it would do is create a marter. Hitler lead a political movement his actions were not that of an individual. The German people would not have changed direction if he was assassinated. That is why assassination is not how to solve political issues. And Fascism was a popular idea at the time. In Germany the US and the UK.
The old joke that killing Hitler is a common time travel error. As silly as it is meant to be. Is based on logic. It would need to be done before he has support. Or you just give that support an event to gain more support. If you do it before he has support. You better hope know one knows what you did when you get back.
in real life without time travel. Their are very few times a political assassination would not end up worse off. At least anywhere remotely democratic as Germany was. Politics means people choose a leader so assassination is just trying to use fear to change minds. Fear rarely leads to better results.
“Killing Hitler just makes you worse than Hitler”
Hitler killed Hitler and he wasn't any worse than Hitler.
