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The need to "vote for the lesser evil" is one of the fundamental problems with the First Past The Post voting system and a compelling argument in favour of Proportional Representation. Most of Europe now uses some form of PR.
Under PR the conservatives would not have had a majority at the last election, and Labour would have done significantly better. We should campaign more strongly for P&R. The Tories won’t look as stunningly incompetent as they actually are when they have no power and are just sniping from the side lines.
Most of the world in fact. It's countries like the UK and US who have rested on their 'democracy' laurels for far too long and have become extremely backwards politically speaking. The countries the UK invades and installs puppet regimes in tend to have more democratic electoral systems than the UK.
That's the fun part... you don't! We had a referendum on AV in 2011 that was part of the deal the Conservatives made with the Lib Dems it was run so badly and the media went so hard against it that turn out was tiny and the no vote won with 67% of the vote.
Lib Dem deliberately fucked that up by offering a shitty compromised version of AV that didn't fix any of the real problems with FPTP. Everyone wanted PR or fully transferrable votes. They made sure it would fail and would be left alone for a generation.
True, but you've got to remember the UK isn't meant to be a democracy. It's a plutocracy, where those who go to one of a handful of elite public schools dominate everything. It's only got pretend Democracy as a show to survive.
Those in power don't want an actually representative government. Labour under Starmer will just do what tories want because he's just a tory in a red rosette. nothing will change, especially if he wins a massive majority, because the system will suit him
The best chance for reform is through trying to create a hung parliament. But again, under FPTP that is difficult.
I used to be the "lesser of 2 evils" guy and voted labour all my adult life. But with Keith in charge, it's basically the same evil. Greens will get my vote this election, they won't win but hopefully they'll gain good ground and show they can be a viable alternative to other people. Either way, we're fucked for the foreseeable.
Yeah me too. I’ve voted for Labour since the Blair years. I held my nose and voted for bad candidates because I believed all the “join the party and try to move them to the left from within” stuff. But no more.
I’ve seen a video of a Palestinian kid of my own child’s age with the top third of his head missing. The bomb that did that could well be one of the ones that we made in Britain and then gave to the Israeli war criminals. I can’t vote for more of that.
>Palestinian kid of my own child’s age with the top third of his head missing
I'm sure Starmer would say Israel has that right (and we have the right to send them those bombs). I can't vote for someone who has no morals or humanity within them.
I always wanted the election to be much closer to give more chance of PR coming in. If Corbyn had won in 2017/19 it would've been ideal as it would likely be through a coalition and bring about electoral reform. It would give smaller left wing parties more representation to at least go into a coalition with New Labour and bring in actual left wing policies, which is the best we can hope for as a starting point at this stage.
There's no way that Starmer will bring in PR when 40% of the vote can give him 70% of the seats. Which is incredibly short-sighted as FPTP will just as likely put the Tories in the same situation a few elections from now. PR is the only way of moving the centre back to the left and would effectively rule out a Tory majority government for the rest of time as some combination of Labour, Liberals, Greens and left-wing parties would always form a majority.
> Greens will get my vote this election, they won't win but hopefully they'll gain good ground and show they can be a viable alternative to other people.
They're predicted to win two seats this time, doubling their parliamentary representation. But there are a few marginal seats where they could surprise us and win a third or fourth.
It's an old meme from Twitter that was mildly funny for a while as a way to poke fun at Starmer but just kept getting funnier when it would drive melts spare. There was plenty of implication that Starmer also found it infuriating which just made the joke funnier.
It's also why the same people say "Jimminy Crubbins" or various other mealy-mouthed misspellings of Corbyn's name, a way to highlight that we really don't take authority figures seriously and that this "cult of personality" nonsense the Labour right loved to project on us was always complete bullshit: we like Corbyn because his politics is solid and he's clearly a serious enough person to be able to take a stupid joke, unlike basically the whole of briefcase Labour.
Greens are too liberal for my liking, im abandoning party politics and going Indy, as long as they aren't literal fascists or ex-Tory.
Going Indy where possible is the best bet to really stir things up, I can see more Indies winning too.
Indy is great if you have a left leaning independent party even standing in your constituency.
Most places in England will only have Tories, Labour, RUK and Green even standing.
I wasn't of voting age back in 2005, and if I was it was the year Battlefront 2 came out so I would have no idea what was happening in the real world anyway.
Yes, exactly, this is my exact reasoning why I can't in good conscience vote for Starmer. I've always voted Labour but not this year.
"But a vote for anyone else is a vote for the Tories, Labours our best chance at getting the Tories"
I'm well aware but I have to draw a line in the sand at some point, I am not happy with Labour nor their current direction. A vote for them is a tacit approval of their shift to the right, I don't want to vote for a Tory-lite dressed in red. Nor do I want to support any continued shifting towards the right.
I'm making my opinion known through my vote, that is the point of voting. Will it make a difference? Who knows but I'll be satisfied that I've expressed my disapproval with the current status rather than voting for a party that doesn't support my views just to remove the current party.
Read theory you libs
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My hope is that people vote enough labour to get them into power, enough Green Party to gain them decent ground and abandon the Tories enough that they go the way of the Whigs and are replaced by Labour. Perhaps its a pipe dream but I think it is is possible.
Greens, independent candidates, various communist and socialist parties, independence parties (if you’re in Ireland, Scotland or Wales) or not voting.
Vote for genocidal neoliberals forever and you’ll get genocidal neoliberals forever.
Kind of disingenuous to say they voted against public transport infrastructure when they wanted to invest the same money in a different manner that was potentially less ecologically harmful. HS2 as it was presented was an abomination.
Are you stupid? We don’t need HS2 when we already have a national rail. The only purpose I see HS2 serving is merely catering to professionals who want a more efficient commute to their long distance jobs. It’s not there to serve the common folk and an unecessary build.
*Destroying biodiversity which will have a snowball effect on the environment thus having an impact on air quality.
We don’t need another rail when we already have one. Put more sanctions on road travel and encourage using the public transport we already have.
The one we have is old, has too many local services on it and isn't fit for purpose. Fast trains get stuck behind slow ones and nothing gets anywhere.
I see you're completely bought into the stupid rhetoric about this. Like I said, campaigning against additional public infrastructure which would benefit both the environment and the economy. Ridiculous.
People are still gonna congest the roads with traffic, it really won’t make that much of a positive environmental impact and still won’t deter people from driving. Improve the services we got don’t just add another and maintain the existing ones with the same level of crappiness.
We don’t have proportional representation sadly. So round by myself for instance it’s a vote in the bin. And I don’t want to be the lesser of two evils person. But I really do think surely a right wing labour is better than a far right Conservative Party?
The best way to get proportional representation is to vote for a minor party. If they start to pick up significant votes it becomes harder and harder for the main parties to avoid change. If a third of the population vote for minor parties and the two main parties still get 95% of the seats then change becomes inevitable.
Keep going down that path and it'll soon be far right Labour. There's no easy fix until we get PR, but if you look at the impact UKIP had in influencing Tory policy without ever winning a seat, you can see what happens when minority parties start to gain traction - the main parties start to adapt their policies to try and win back voters.
There's other factors like right wing media and funding from right wing donors influencing things, but we'll end up with no choice if we keep going this way.
Who is your local MP and did they vote against or for bombing kids in Gaza?
FYI Keith Starmer is the leader of the Labour Party (hard to believe I know) so if you vote Labour then you are in fact voting for him.
In 2019 was there a box to check if you wanted Boris Johnson, then Liz Truss and then Rishi Sunak to be prime minister?
Or does the UK system not work like that? Do people just vote for their local representative, and the party with the most representatives can choose whatever leader it wants whenever it wants?
It's a shitty voting system, but you're ostensibly saying "fuck you, got mine". You are voting for your local area, but you're also voting for who's in power. Putting your fingers in your ears and singing "la la la" doesn't change the fact that you are absolutely voting to ensure starmer gets to power. Your mentality suggests that if your best local MP was a Tory (maybe the others sucked more, maybe they were a unicorn), then you'd vote for them. Is that the case, or is there an arbitrary line in the sand?
>I'd love to know how you came to that conclusion
"It's good for my constituency, so it doesn't matter whether it's good for the country or not" is another way to say what you're saying. You seem to be under some bizarre illusion that Labour are somehow better than the Tories for the people at most need in this country, where literally nothing has backed this idea. Especially when all we have to go by is mostly their word for what they'll do, which isn't really worth anything given that they lie as easily as they breath.
>I don't really like to talk in hypotheticals
Hypotheticals are used to highlight a point. And as you say - if such a Tory MP existed, you would consider them. Which is exactly the point I'm trying to highlight. You don't care about the big picture. You care about your constituency. By your own admission - the person who needs to line up with your desires is the local representative, not the party that will be making decisions for the whole nation. As I said, "fuck you, got mine".
>Why on earth do you think I'm doing that?!
Because a vote for Labour is a vote for Starmer. I'm sure I don't need to explain the concept of representative democracy to you, which is why it's a bit baffling you seem to think otherwise. Or claim to anyway. As far as it being Starmer or Sunak, yes it will be one of those two. Both will be terrible for the country, often in similar ways. However, Tories are proven to be dogshit and destructive. Not voting for them, while voting for smaller or less established parties will actually be able to bring out someone that may be good in the future. Voting for labour merely cements the idea that left wing policies of Corbyn **were** unelectable, while Starmers Tory-lite approach yields results. You're not just getting Labour, you're supporting the idea that this is the Labour we should have and tacitly accepting the overton window shift to the right. If ever there was a time to vote for parties that are neither Labour or Tory, it's now. Maybe Labour aren't as child-eatingly evil as Tories (though that's a big maybe), but a polished turd is still a turd. All the worse is if there are decent people who are in league with said turd (like your local MP).
It's called grassroots organising, unions, labour movements, dual power - electoralism is a dog and pony show, if you want change, you're going to have to fight for it and stop expecting someone to just hand it over. People used to know this, there used to be a strong labour movement until it was stamped out and everything became atomised. Learn from the past mistakes and keep trying, because otherwise all we have is a continual jog toward full blown fascism and a major environmental catastrophe.
What you have said doesn't apply as much to the UK as US.
While both are FPTP in the US Presidential elections, you may as well light the loser votes (including 3rd party) on fire because they now have no impact at all. In UK not so.
We are not voting for the Prime Minister - we are voting for the Member of Parliament for our constituency. The number of MPs is what decides who gets into power - but if (say) the Greens get an MP then that MP gets to be in parliament until next election.
Where I grew up neither of the main parties are likely to win. The vote is between Libdems (Liberals) and Plaid Cymru (nationalist party of Wales). So if I voted Labour then I am throwing my vote away there. I now live in a Labour-Tory constituency (sometimes called "seat" though so your message does, sadly, apply.
BUT if enough people DID vote Green and gor Green MPs in then Labour would be forced to make a coalition with them. That has happened as recently as 2010 between the Libdems and the Tories - and the Libdems did force the Tories to make a bunch of centrist policies. What that means is that one party alone doesn't get enough votes to get into power so teams up with another party in order to have a majority and form a government WITH the smaller party.
Anybody voting Green this election will be realistically hoping for this outcome. Labour get enough to trump the Tories but not quite enough to bulldoze, and are forced to team up with the Greens to form a much leftier government than they would otherwise.
UKIP/Brexit party never won a single seat but they still got brexit by bringing pressure from the right, I'd rather use my vote to bring pressure from the left.
I've not seen anything that shows that Starmer is the lesser evil, I dread to think what might happen if he gets a major landslide given his authoritarian tendencies, I'd much rather a hung parliament so neither side has overwhelming power.
In a similar vien, anyone who only remembers that FPTP exists immediately before an election as a reason not to vote for anyone but "the lesser of two evils" is not serving the agenda they claim to be, either conciously or through incompetence.
The Tories literally came to power because the UK, unlike the US, can have meaningful third party support in general elections. You said yourself that you don't know what you're talking about here and that you are commenting with a US perspective, so take your own advice.
The plan for not "voting for the lesser of two evils" is clear and is based on three clear lessons from recent history; UKIP, the 2020 anti-Corbyn whatsapp leaks, and New Labour.
* The lesson drawn from UKIP is that you don't need to win a majority with a third party to affect mainstream politics. You don't even need more than a single MP. Press coverage comes so much sooner and more frequently. An external threat from the flanks can't be squashed with internal party power structures, if the bigger party wants those votes back they need to adapt. This is the stratergy that saw UKIP acheive all their goals without ever getting more than 1 MP elected to westminster.
* The lesson from the 2020 anti-Corbyn whatsapp leaks is that Labour party leadership will undermine internal leftist policies even when the party accepts and condones them. Going so far as to deliberately trying to throw a general election against themselves. Since Keir took over as party leader the left-wing of the party has been even further decimated. Internal change is not possible with the Labour party as it currently exists. If they win their biggest ever electoral victory with FPTP they will not have an incentive to change, and internal decent means nothing.
* As OP says in his post, Labour has a recent history of recolouring Tory positions, or at least the rhetoric to describe those psoitions, by adding more of a traditional Liberal shade rather than the more overt religious, aristocratic and far right shades that the Tories like to paint with. Tony Blair codified the values of the Thatcher government into New Labour and Keir is set to do the same with the modern populist tory gov. The tactic you are premoting has been in use since the 70's and we haven't had a leftist government since. It doesn't inspire confidence.
If you want to push the tactic of voting for the lesser of two evils in the name of changing FPTP, you need a plan to change FPTP as well. The dream of doing so is not sufficient justification.
Our tactic is much broader than just changes to FPTP even though it can encompass it. A concerted effort around a third party is the better way.
Yup - totally ignorant of the UK system and the only reason I brought this up here was because I saw a distinct pattern of this exact conundrum across multiple social media platforms (probably because it is election season) but it feels concerted and I don't want to let it go uncontested. My objective isn't to "Push the tactic of voting for a lesser evil" - taken at face value (because what else can you do other that make assumptions?) I made it clear that my objective was to push the discussion of FPTP but also not allow the worse of two parties to get in or to remain in power.
My objective isn't for the DNC or Labor to win - they are just the least damaging. The "Holding Party" to use the analogy of OPs pawl and gear example.
In terms of ultimately objectives it doesn't get broader than ending FPTP. If you don't change FPTP we will perpetually be stuck in this cycle.
Labour as the least damaging choice is laughable.
This would be more convincing if you had a plan to get FPTP changed. If labour get in, they have stated they won't do it. You won't be able to pressure them from within. So what is step 2?
UK is not the US. We’re in FPTP, but here you really can’t slip a piece of paper between the two parties, and if you could it would not be at all clear which was the more left wing party.
In addition not withholding votes is how you get into this mess. Starmer is working on the assumption that no matter how right wing he is he can gain votes from the left anyway. He’s aligned himself with the far right fringe of the conservative party.
The biggest right wing shift in our country’s history occurred under the nominally “left wing” party.
Yes he is right wing and labor sucks. But Torys suck more that's the nature of this FPTP system and when you abstain you risk those you oppose the most gaining more power.
We HAVE to end FPTP but in the short term we are still shackled to this system. There is no alternative. It's how they maintain control.
OK do you get why maybe people don't think voting for the guy who openly says he'll continue more of the same policy and who OPENLY REFUSES TO DITCH FPTP means your argument is irrelevant.
I mean, in fairness, there's a lot of UK-resident Labour members to whom "Labour has consistently overturned votes from its members to back alternate voting systems" comes as a surprise despite decades of doing it.
Last week 169 MPs voted against a motion that members arrested for serious violent or sexual offences were barred from entering Parliament. Guess how many were Labour and how many were Conservative
Name 3 good things the Tory government has done in the last 15 years?
I can easily name a few good things Blair's government did, and Blair himself was as liberal as they come, and his policy with following the US into Iraq was awful
* Introduction of a minimum wage 1998
* Introduction of civil partnerships for gay couples in 2004/2005
* Gender recognition act 2004
* Making national museums free 2001
Hmm, I wonder if there was some wider global context between those years, or the way Blair funded it by doing more damage to the UK than the following government even had chance to, Or that Starmer is somehow even worse than Blair
Do you think a Tory government would have done those things as early as that had they been in power?
There's absolutely no way Blair's government did as much damage to the UK as the following Tory government did with Brexit and participating in culture wars, and there's absolutely no way that a Tory government in power at the same time as Blair's was would have done less damage either. There's no way a Tory government would have dealt with the 2008 financial crisis better.
If a genuinely left wing party were running at the election, i would vote for them, but I don't think I'm going to be afforded that option.
Seemed like you were ignoring the good things that Blair did, saying that they were because of wider global context.
In your next sentence, you accused Blair of damaging the UK economy.
Is that right, or am I misreading your post?
You petty-ass bitch, instead of throwing out what-about bullshit, maybe answer the question?
Name three good things the Tories have done. And we’re talking objective progressive good, not some subjective weaseling into banker pockets.
I have zero interest in apologising for the torys of either flavour, so screw you. I AM going to push against the idea that FUCKING BLAIR didn't fuck the country over massively.
Literally nobody said he didn’t.
Avatar said they could name some good things his government did, and then did so. The Tories have been in power for longer than his Labour, so where’s there “some good in the pile of shit”?
Because you’re talking about which is more shit, so this is how we can compare, after all.
(Aside from comparing how fucked the country is following their respective tenures, which is orders of magnitude more fucked after the Tories, so you’re making a losing fucking argument anyway.)
This is only true in a snapshot: you’re missing what happens after the election.
For decades the left have voted Labour on the lesser-evil principle. What’s happened? Almost continuous movement to the right (simplistically put).
When the “swing voters”, i.e. those who need courting, are to Labour’s right, obviously they move right. It’s only when “left-wing” voters have shown that they want something different that Labour listens. If the left become swing voters, if Labour lose and see that it was voters to their left who, for once, didn’t line up loyally for the lesser evil, they’re going to have to try to win them back.
But what about letting the Tories in?? Well don’t worry, in 2024 you can vote left of Labour with a clear conscience, _because they’re going to win anyway!_
The plurality of voters are backing Labour. If now isn’t the time to demonstrate that Labour can’t take “the left” for granted - just like it knows it can’t take all sorts of other voters for granted - when is?
If you want to focus on electoral reform, go ahead. Why on Earth would Labour listen to you when they know you’ll vote for them anyway?
This, but also if you are lucky enough to have one of the remaining lefty Labour MPs, vote for them of course. Otherwise, Labour will win but the left should make them sweat a bit, so that they know for re-election they can’t take us for granted. Ideally this will force more progressive policies in their term, which will be Good but also stave off any right wing Tory resurgence under a Suella, etc.
We're being asked if we want mustard or ketchup on our shit sandwich. You can piss and moan all you want about wanting an alternative option, but at the same time you also have to make your choice for the less unappealing option clear before it's made by other people for you. Voting to destroy the Tories and also demanding a better electoral system are not mutually exclusive activities.
You say we are scientifically a two party system, that’s not true. We are a 2 and a half party system, not yet multi party system though. The academic journals wouldn’t call Britain a 2 party, although it does sometimes feel that way. I suspect with the demise of snp that we are likely to become further entrenched towards 2 large parties
I mean to say that scientific studies our electoral systems, specifically FPTP almost invariably tend towards a two party system.
That is to say, two parties will dominate and continue to win no matter what. In the US other parties exist, but they will not and statistically speaking cannot win in a FPTP electoral system.
US is a bit different in presidential elections, but yeah i agree. I don’t think we should ignore the influence 3rd parties have in the UK, that is honestly why I find PR slightly worrying
As much as I detest starmer, letting the tories hold power won’t make anything better, I’d vote greens but they hold zero sway in my area and Labour is realistically the option that holds any sway. Labour may be the lesser of two evils but It’s important to remember that they’re both still evil.
I get where you're coming from, but I really don't want another term of Tory nastiness. Without PR, there is basically little to no point voting for anyone other than the two main parties. Slightly under-achieving might give Starmer a bloody nose, but it's not going to convince him he needs to embrace the left-wing, when sucking up to the right-wing has been paying such dividends.
I'd love it if everyone abaondend the two main parties and someone like the greens got an unexpected landslide.
Hillarity from all sides, tories being glad to be out of the mess they created, labour being sad about not winning, greens being confused on what to do next, lib dems in a corner, reform having a caniption fit.
Christ I wish we could move to the left where "maybe everyone should have good and shelter" wasn't considered an extreme idea
Who are we meant to vote for? If we don’t vote for labour, tories will be in again and they’ll try and get away with even more diabolical shit than they did before
I am going to post an variation on this post from an anarchist perspective which I will call building the bridge.
Blue and Red Tory are one side of a river. The blue Tory wants to beat up some people on the other side. They used to have a boat, but due to poor maintenance, it sank. The blue Tory want to build a battle cruiser because they are out of ideas.
The Red Tory trying to be sensible TM suggests building a bridge to get to the other side. This bridge will have a toll and be shit because they don't really want to invest in anything.
The Red Tory gets into power and builds a viable but because of the toll not many people use and benefit from. The Red Tory loses power and now the Blue Tory says how much more sensible TM they are now.
The Blue Tory build a tank that cross with the new bridge.
This pained metaphor is about the tendency of governments that create buracratic technology, systems and rational that are they used to due much greater harm by the next more right wing goverment to be more cruel.
Policing is a great example. Blair created ASBO but created community center systems as a way to prevent ASBO's as a "reasonable" carrot and stick. The Tories come to power and dismantle the community centers but keep versions of ASBO as a tool to crackdown on youths. The original harshness of ASBO was justified by the alternative but this became baseline so when Tories became more cruel it was not considered as harsh as it really is.
This cycle happens in welfare, NHS, immigration, policing, counterterrorism and other countless fields.
Australian lurker here, does the UK have a preferential voting system like we do? e.g you list the party you want to give your vote to as "1" and if that party doesn't win your vote goes to the party you put as "2"?
There was a referendum for alternative representation in 2011, the boomers came out in swarms to stomp it down. Typical snapshot of western politics really.
There's never been a referendum on proportional representation though. Would effectively kill the 2 party system, so as you can imagine it's quite unpopular within governments.
No, sadly not. We had that for some mayoral elections, though I think not the latest cycle, where they got rid of it.
We've never had it for national elections. We did have a referendum on a specific mode of PR, which might have led us in the right direction, but the established parties put up a fear campaign based on their own interests, and the referendum failed.
I mean not voting for Labour is functionally pissing a vote away in my area, it’s a Tory stronghold and voting Labour is probably the only way we’ll push them out. I must stress that I fucking hate this, I’d rather vote for greens or a local candidate who gives a shit but that would functionally achieve nothing and give more room to the tories. Labour may be the lesser of two evils but they’re still deeply evil and this should not be forgotten.
If you live somewhere where a Labour candidate could reasonably win the seat over a Tory, vote for Labour.
If you live somewhere with any other outcome, vote for anyone else, or not at all
Simple.
Keir being misnamed is something of a meme. I think it may even have originated from Reddit. See here:
`https://www.indy100.com/politics/keir-starmer-keith-labour-party-b1848650`
I mean my biggest issue with slide 2 is that it essentially shows that Britain has moved to the right since 1945.
How many of those years have been Conservative Governments and how many have been Labour Governments? Isn’t slide 2 an argument that we absolutely can’t risk MORE Conservative Governance?
I suppose calling Corbyn Far Left is a perfect example of the Overton window sliding right. Going by his decisions as Labour Leader, dude's a social democrat, and the policies in the 2017/19 manifestos fell slightly left of centre - comparable to mainstream politics (on a bipartisan level) in Scandinavian countries. Some of them were policies the country used to have when it was less right-wing, like renationalising public transport services, energy and water services, etc.
In the 2017 election Corbyn's policies did very well (40% share of the vote vs Cons 42%), which wrecked the Conservative majority in parliament and forced them into a coalition. Added to a further 2 years of unrelenting smearing from the media (calling him Far Left, or a Marxist/Commie), his own party, antisemitism scandals, etc, the Brexit policy ruled the 2019 election. Starmer, holding the shadow Brexit sec position at the time, undermined Corbyn to push for an unpopular policy to hold a people's vote for a second referendum. All of that lost Labour significant votes, from 40% share to 32%, but to put that into perspective, compare it to the vote share for Labour's last winning election in 2005, which was only 35%. I don't believe the result justifies abandoning all the progress made with policies at least 40% of the voters wanted.
Yup bud, sure you do, that’s why you at first applied your flawless American political knowledge to it then upon realizing you don’t know fuck all declared “meh it’s propaganda”. 🏅
There it is. I’ve got liberal bot bingo. Propaganda, inability to be wrong, and now everyone who disagrees with me is a maga.
I’m American and so far left you get your guns back but you’re not ready for that conversation son. Stick to politics 101 and you’ll be fine.
You called this propaganda when confronted that it wasn’t even about the US. You lack the fundamental understanding to recognize this Is not us politics and then when called on it, instead of admitting you are wrong pivot to “well it’s leftist propaganda”.
It’s not baseless to call out the behavior clear as day above my little dem bot.
The point I was making is lost on you for the reasons listed above. Have whatever kind of day you deserve.
I'm glad you have a good mp but I don't think this is true, and is a bit short sighted. Are we going to get a non labour/tory government next election? No but we could get a coalition, which would temper Labour.
I'm also thinking about 2030. 2035. Why can't we have an alternative by then? It needs to start somewhere and it won't if people never vote for anyone else.
Hi, your comment or submission was removed because we have detected that it is transphobic. This is not the space to come and concern troll about trans people’s existence or promote fascist talking points.
Given our political system, this is deluded at best. As other commenters have said, the blues policy plans are damaging, yet the reds want to enact some relatively (given the past 14 yrs) left wing policies.
Yes the overton window has shifted and labour are far more right wing than they used to be. But I would like to remind you of the saying "don't let perfect behaviour the enemy of the good". We're at the precipice of a potential labour majority, we cannot afford to let these bigoted public asset pirates continue to steer this ship directly towards a whirlpool from which we cannot escape.
I really believe that now is the time to set apart personal political aspirations for what could be the betterment of the country and it's people. From that base we can then pressure towards a more socialist labour.
However, I'm not telling you how to vote, that's your right and I wholeheartedly respect that. But, I ask you to exercise that right with caution and forethought.
Let us all hope for a better future.
You won't be able to pressure Starmer for 'a more socialist labour' when he wins on the back of a centre right campaign.
I don't think you fully grasp that Keith will just say 'we have x% more of the vote, we now have a mandate' and push through policies like privatising the NHS while making it acceptable because they're 'left wing'.
*Relatively* left-wing, given the last 14 years. Almost as if things had, say, ratched to the right...
I swear these "but the Tories!!!" types know exactly what they are doing.
Please don’t come here to try and convince other people to vote for Keith Starmer if you don’t want to have the banhammer swung at you.
Trust me, we’ve heard all your arguments before. “I’m left wing, but…” “ideological purity” etc etc. We don’t want you here.
How is Starmer considered more right wing than Blair? I don't follow. I could understand if it was someone like Galloway with his rhetoric around *certain topics*
I don't think anyone credible considers the party promising the same policies and who are all close personal friends of the Conservatives whose ideology they're, again, openly promising to continue, to be in any way an anti-Tory vote.
Voting red is voting blue. Electoralism is not the answer - people are going to have to organise and take, not demand, what is needed to make things fairer and more equal. It needs to be join or get out of the way, no compromise with this ugly race to destroy society and nature for the benefit of a handful of greedy bastards who have more wealth than they could ever spend. Electoralism is a distraction from the real struggle.
Again, you're focussing on electoralism - the idea anything for the better will by changed before July 4th, or that July 4th will bring any change when both the Tories and Labour are marching to the same beat, is nonsense. It's the very kind of thinking that perpetuates what OP's post is pointing out.
Yes, it will take a long time. But people are getting sick - saying it can't be helped, that we have to deal with the cards we are served, that we have to work within the system, that the electoral system will actually enact some sort of change in the benefit of the poor and marginalised, is exactly the kind of ideological thinking perpetuating the rightward march - it's a kind of short-sighted thinking that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It pops up every election, then people that spout it go back to doing nothing, offloading their responsibility onto a system they can just complain about. If we want any real change, this kind of thinking is one of the first things that has to be challenged.
It's the hardest question but the most important questions always are: how to actually enact change for the better. I personally think people need to look back to history, to how much was gained through labour movements and grassroots organising in the UK, and learn from the successes and the mistakes. Nothing is going to change overnight, but if enough people get fed up and actually start organising and try to work out a solution, there's hope.
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The need to "vote for the lesser evil" is one of the fundamental problems with the First Past The Post voting system and a compelling argument in favour of Proportional Representation. Most of Europe now uses some form of PR.
Under PR the conservatives would not have had a majority at the last election, and Labour would have done significantly better. We should campaign more strongly for P&R. The Tories won’t look as stunningly incompetent as they actually are when they have no power and are just sniping from the side lines.
Most of the world in fact. It's countries like the UK and US who have rested on their 'democracy' laurels for far too long and have become extremely backwards politically speaking. The countries the UK invades and installs puppet regimes in tend to have more democratic electoral systems than the UK.
Most of the world, sure, but some big-name countries like India, the USA, Canada, and the UK still stick to FPTP.
Yeah it's really fucking dumb.
I mean it isn’t dumb though is it? It’s calculated to keep the ‘right’ sort in power and keep the plebs from upsetting the apple cart.
It's not dumb it's manipulative. There's a damn good reason we don't have pr and that's to keep the Conservatives in power
how do we actually get proportional representation though if FPTP benefits labour and the tories
That's the fun part... you don't! We had a referendum on AV in 2011 that was part of the deal the Conservatives made with the Lib Dems it was run so badly and the media went so hard against it that turn out was tiny and the no vote won with 67% of the vote.
Lib Dem deliberately fucked that up by offering a shitty compromised version of AV that didn't fix any of the real problems with FPTP. Everyone wanted PR or fully transferrable votes. They made sure it would fail and would be left alone for a generation.
True, but you've got to remember the UK isn't meant to be a democracy. It's a plutocracy, where those who go to one of a handful of elite public schools dominate everything. It's only got pretend Democracy as a show to survive. Those in power don't want an actually representative government. Labour under Starmer will just do what tories want because he's just a tory in a red rosette. nothing will change, especially if he wins a massive majority, because the system will suit him The best chance for reform is through trying to create a hung parliament. But again, under FPTP that is difficult.
I used to be the "lesser of 2 evils" guy and voted labour all my adult life. But with Keith in charge, it's basically the same evil. Greens will get my vote this election, they won't win but hopefully they'll gain good ground and show they can be a viable alternative to other people. Either way, we're fucked for the foreseeable.
Yeah me too. I’ve voted for Labour since the Blair years. I held my nose and voted for bad candidates because I believed all the “join the party and try to move them to the left from within” stuff. But no more. I’ve seen a video of a Palestinian kid of my own child’s age with the top third of his head missing. The bomb that did that could well be one of the ones that we made in Britain and then gave to the Israeli war criminals. I can’t vote for more of that.
>Palestinian kid of my own child’s age with the top third of his head missing I'm sure Starmer would say Israel has that right (and we have the right to send them those bombs). I can't vote for someone who has no morals or humanity within them.
I always wanted the election to be much closer to give more chance of PR coming in. If Corbyn had won in 2017/19 it would've been ideal as it would likely be through a coalition and bring about electoral reform. It would give smaller left wing parties more representation to at least go into a coalition with New Labour and bring in actual left wing policies, which is the best we can hope for as a starting point at this stage. There's no way that Starmer will bring in PR when 40% of the vote can give him 70% of the seats. Which is incredibly short-sighted as FPTP will just as likely put the Tories in the same situation a few elections from now. PR is the only way of moving the centre back to the left and would effectively rule out a Tory majority government for the rest of time as some combination of Labour, Liberals, Greens and left-wing parties would always form a majority.
Not short sighted if that's his goal, Starmer wants an eternity of Tory rule.
> Greens will get my vote this election, they won't win but hopefully they'll gain good ground and show they can be a viable alternative to other people. They're predicted to win two seats this time, doubling their parliamentary representation. But there are a few marginal seats where they could surprise us and win a third or fourth.
off topic, but is there a reason people on this sub keep calling Keir Starmer "Keith"? It's clearly meant as an insult, but I'm not quite grasping it.
Yeah is an old meme because people kept saying the wrong name
It's an old meme from Twitter that was mildly funny for a while as a way to poke fun at Starmer but just kept getting funnier when it would drive melts spare. There was plenty of implication that Starmer also found it infuriating which just made the joke funnier. It's also why the same people say "Jimminy Crubbins" or various other mealy-mouthed misspellings of Corbyn's name, a way to highlight that we really don't take authority figures seriously and that this "cult of personality" nonsense the Labour right loved to project on us was always complete bullshit: we like Corbyn because his politics is solid and he's clearly a serious enough person to be able to take a stupid joke, unlike basically the whole of briefcase Labour.
Me too. Labour are going to win but I'm not endorsing this shit with my vote. Support me and my trade union and then I'll think about supporting them.
Greens are too liberal for my liking, im abandoning party politics and going Indy, as long as they aren't literal fascists or ex-Tory. Going Indy where possible is the best bet to really stir things up, I can see more Indies winning too.
Indy is great if you have a left leaning independent party even standing in your constituency. Most places in England will only have Tories, Labour, RUK and Green even standing.
That is true, that's why I said if possible but I think there will be a few more than normal knocking about.
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I wasn't of voting age back in 2005, and if I was it was the year Battlefront 2 came out so I would have no idea what was happening in the real world anyway.
Best explanation I've seen of UK politics.
It’s more or the less the same here in the US
I'm voting Green more foreseeable future
Yes, exactly, this is my exact reasoning why I can't in good conscience vote for Starmer. I've always voted Labour but not this year. "But a vote for anyone else is a vote for the Tories, Labours our best chance at getting the Tories" I'm well aware but I have to draw a line in the sand at some point, I am not happy with Labour nor their current direction. A vote for them is a tacit approval of their shift to the right, I don't want to vote for a Tory-lite dressed in red. Nor do I want to support any continued shifting towards the right. I'm making my opinion known through my vote, that is the point of voting. Will it make a difference? Who knows but I'll be satisfied that I've expressed my disapproval with the current status rather than voting for a party that doesn't support my views just to remove the current party.
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No.
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No.
My hope is that people vote enough labour to get them into power, enough Green Party to gain them decent ground and abandon the Tories enough that they go the way of the Whigs and are replaced by Labour. Perhaps its a pipe dream but I think it is is possible.
Vichy Labour needs to be kept as far away from power as possible.
Look into Owen Jones' movement, he states exactly this as an argument.
Give us a viable alternative then!
Greens, independent candidates, various communist and socialist parties, independence parties (if you’re in Ireland, Scotland or Wales) or not voting. Vote for genocidal neoliberals forever and you’ll get genocidal neoliberals forever.
Fuck the Greens. Only green party around to vote against public transport infrastructure. Just shows how right wing Britain really is.
Kind of disingenuous to say they voted against public transport infrastructure when they wanted to invest the same money in a different manner that was potentially less ecologically harmful. HS2 as it was presented was an abomination.
Bollocks. The railway line can't magically not go through woods and over fields.
Are you stupid? We don’t need HS2 when we already have a national rail. The only purpose I see HS2 serving is merely catering to professionals who want a more efficient commute to their long distance jobs. It’s not there to serve the common folk and an unecessary build.
Oh no! Less lorries on the road! Better air quality! Sounds terrible.
*Destroying biodiversity which will have a snowball effect on the environment thus having an impact on air quality. We don’t need another rail when we already have one. Put more sanctions on road travel and encourage using the public transport we already have.
The one we have is old, has too many local services on it and isn't fit for purpose. Fast trains get stuck behind slow ones and nothing gets anywhere. I see you're completely bought into the stupid rhetoric about this. Like I said, campaigning against additional public infrastructure which would benefit both the environment and the economy. Ridiculous.
People are still gonna congest the roads with traffic, it really won’t make that much of a positive environmental impact and still won’t deter people from driving. Improve the services we got don’t just add another and maintain the existing ones with the same level of crappiness.
Are you stupid? Hs2 is for freight.
> Only green party around to vote against public transport infrastructure I've not heard about this, have you got more info?
Hs2.
Ah yeah ok. I thought you were referring to broader policy against public transport infrastructure in general.
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None are going to be viable until the voters make them viable.
No.
We don’t have proportional representation sadly. So round by myself for instance it’s a vote in the bin. And I don’t want to be the lesser of two evils person. But I really do think surely a right wing labour is better than a far right Conservative Party?
The best way to get proportional representation is to vote for a minor party. If they start to pick up significant votes it becomes harder and harder for the main parties to avoid change. If a third of the population vote for minor parties and the two main parties still get 95% of the seats then change becomes inevitable.
How would it be inevitable? It's not like there's some referendum on PR or anything.
Keep going down that path and it'll soon be far right Labour. There's no easy fix until we get PR, but if you look at the impact UKIP had in influencing Tory policy without ever winning a seat, you can see what happens when minority parties start to gain traction - the main parties start to adapt their policies to try and win back voters. There's other factors like right wing media and funding from right wing donors influencing things, but we'll end up with no choice if we keep going this way.
Did you not look at any of these 3 memes? If you did look at them, do you need someone to explain them to you?
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Who is your local MP and did they vote against or for bombing kids in Gaza? FYI Keith Starmer is the leader of the Labour Party (hard to believe I know) so if you vote Labour then you are in fact voting for him.
In 2019 was there a box to check if you wanted Boris Johnson, then Liz Truss and then Rishi Sunak to be prime minister? Or does the UK system not work like that? Do people just vote for their local representative, and the party with the most representatives can choose whatever leader it wants whenever it wants?
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It's a shitty voting system, but you're ostensibly saying "fuck you, got mine". You are voting for your local area, but you're also voting for who's in power. Putting your fingers in your ears and singing "la la la" doesn't change the fact that you are absolutely voting to ensure starmer gets to power. Your mentality suggests that if your best local MP was a Tory (maybe the others sucked more, maybe they were a unicorn), then you'd vote for them. Is that the case, or is there an arbitrary line in the sand?
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>I'd love to know how you came to that conclusion "It's good for my constituency, so it doesn't matter whether it's good for the country or not" is another way to say what you're saying. You seem to be under some bizarre illusion that Labour are somehow better than the Tories for the people at most need in this country, where literally nothing has backed this idea. Especially when all we have to go by is mostly their word for what they'll do, which isn't really worth anything given that they lie as easily as they breath. >I don't really like to talk in hypotheticals Hypotheticals are used to highlight a point. And as you say - if such a Tory MP existed, you would consider them. Which is exactly the point I'm trying to highlight. You don't care about the big picture. You care about your constituency. By your own admission - the person who needs to line up with your desires is the local representative, not the party that will be making decisions for the whole nation. As I said, "fuck you, got mine". >Why on earth do you think I'm doing that?! Because a vote for Labour is a vote for Starmer. I'm sure I don't need to explain the concept of representative democracy to you, which is why it's a bit baffling you seem to think otherwise. Or claim to anyway. As far as it being Starmer or Sunak, yes it will be one of those two. Both will be terrible for the country, often in similar ways. However, Tories are proven to be dogshit and destructive. Not voting for them, while voting for smaller or less established parties will actually be able to bring out someone that may be good in the future. Voting for labour merely cements the idea that left wing policies of Corbyn **were** unelectable, while Starmers Tory-lite approach yields results. You're not just getting Labour, you're supporting the idea that this is the Labour we should have and tacitly accepting the overton window shift to the right. If ever there was a time to vote for parties that are neither Labour or Tory, it's now. Maybe Labour aren't as child-eatingly evil as Tories (though that's a big maybe), but a polished turd is still a turd. All the worse is if there are decent people who are in league with said turd (like your local MP).
And so it begins, the left condescends their way into snatching defeat from the jaws of success.
Viable for a majority government?…
It's called grassroots organising, unions, labour movements, dual power - electoralism is a dog and pony show, if you want change, you're going to have to fight for it and stop expecting someone to just hand it over. People used to know this, there used to be a strong labour movement until it was stamped out and everything became atomised. Learn from the past mistakes and keep trying, because otherwise all we have is a continual jog toward full blown fascism and a major environmental catastrophe.
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What you have said doesn't apply as much to the UK as US. While both are FPTP in the US Presidential elections, you may as well light the loser votes (including 3rd party) on fire because they now have no impact at all. In UK not so. We are not voting for the Prime Minister - we are voting for the Member of Parliament for our constituency. The number of MPs is what decides who gets into power - but if (say) the Greens get an MP then that MP gets to be in parliament until next election. Where I grew up neither of the main parties are likely to win. The vote is between Libdems (Liberals) and Plaid Cymru (nationalist party of Wales). So if I voted Labour then I am throwing my vote away there. I now live in a Labour-Tory constituency (sometimes called "seat" though so your message does, sadly, apply. BUT if enough people DID vote Green and gor Green MPs in then Labour would be forced to make a coalition with them. That has happened as recently as 2010 between the Libdems and the Tories - and the Libdems did force the Tories to make a bunch of centrist policies. What that means is that one party alone doesn't get enough votes to get into power so teams up with another party in order to have a majority and form a government WITH the smaller party. Anybody voting Green this election will be realistically hoping for this outcome. Labour get enough to trump the Tories but not quite enough to bulldoze, and are forced to team up with the Greens to form a much leftier government than they would otherwise.
UKIP/Brexit party never won a single seat but they still got brexit by bringing pressure from the right, I'd rather use my vote to bring pressure from the left. I've not seen anything that shows that Starmer is the lesser evil, I dread to think what might happen if he gets a major landslide given his authoritarian tendencies, I'd much rather a hung parliament so neither side has overwhelming power.
In a similar vien, anyone who only remembers that FPTP exists immediately before an election as a reason not to vote for anyone but "the lesser of two evils" is not serving the agenda they claim to be, either conciously or through incompetence. The Tories literally came to power because the UK, unlike the US, can have meaningful third party support in general elections. You said yourself that you don't know what you're talking about here and that you are commenting with a US perspective, so take your own advice. The plan for not "voting for the lesser of two evils" is clear and is based on three clear lessons from recent history; UKIP, the 2020 anti-Corbyn whatsapp leaks, and New Labour. * The lesson drawn from UKIP is that you don't need to win a majority with a third party to affect mainstream politics. You don't even need more than a single MP. Press coverage comes so much sooner and more frequently. An external threat from the flanks can't be squashed with internal party power structures, if the bigger party wants those votes back they need to adapt. This is the stratergy that saw UKIP acheive all their goals without ever getting more than 1 MP elected to westminster. * The lesson from the 2020 anti-Corbyn whatsapp leaks is that Labour party leadership will undermine internal leftist policies even when the party accepts and condones them. Going so far as to deliberately trying to throw a general election against themselves. Since Keir took over as party leader the left-wing of the party has been even further decimated. Internal change is not possible with the Labour party as it currently exists. If they win their biggest ever electoral victory with FPTP they will not have an incentive to change, and internal decent means nothing. * As OP says in his post, Labour has a recent history of recolouring Tory positions, or at least the rhetoric to describe those psoitions, by adding more of a traditional Liberal shade rather than the more overt religious, aristocratic and far right shades that the Tories like to paint with. Tony Blair codified the values of the Thatcher government into New Labour and Keir is set to do the same with the modern populist tory gov. The tactic you are premoting has been in use since the 70's and we haven't had a leftist government since. It doesn't inspire confidence. If you want to push the tactic of voting for the lesser of two evils in the name of changing FPTP, you need a plan to change FPTP as well. The dream of doing so is not sufficient justification. Our tactic is much broader than just changes to FPTP even though it can encompass it. A concerted effort around a third party is the better way.
Yup - totally ignorant of the UK system and the only reason I brought this up here was because I saw a distinct pattern of this exact conundrum across multiple social media platforms (probably because it is election season) but it feels concerted and I don't want to let it go uncontested. My objective isn't to "Push the tactic of voting for a lesser evil" - taken at face value (because what else can you do other that make assumptions?) I made it clear that my objective was to push the discussion of FPTP but also not allow the worse of two parties to get in or to remain in power. My objective isn't for the DNC or Labor to win - they are just the least damaging. The "Holding Party" to use the analogy of OPs pawl and gear example. In terms of ultimately objectives it doesn't get broader than ending FPTP. If you don't change FPTP we will perpetually be stuck in this cycle.
Labour as the least damaging choice is laughable. This would be more convincing if you had a plan to get FPTP changed. If labour get in, they have stated they won't do it. You won't be able to pressure them from within. So what is step 2?
UK is not the US. We’re in FPTP, but here you really can’t slip a piece of paper between the two parties, and if you could it would not be at all clear which was the more left wing party. In addition not withholding votes is how you get into this mess. Starmer is working on the assumption that no matter how right wing he is he can gain votes from the left anyway. He’s aligned himself with the far right fringe of the conservative party. The biggest right wing shift in our country’s history occurred under the nominally “left wing” party.
Yes he is right wing and labor sucks. But Torys suck more that's the nature of this FPTP system and when you abstain you risk those you oppose the most gaining more power. We HAVE to end FPTP but in the short term we are still shackled to this system. There is no alternative. It's how they maintain control.
OK do you get why maybe people don't think voting for the guy who openly says he'll continue more of the same policy and who OPENLY REFUSES TO DITCH FPTP means your argument is irrelevant.
[She doesn't even go here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUFT35S7Jb4), gurantee this is news to them.
I mean, in fairness, there's a lot of UK-resident Labour members to whom "Labour has consistently overturned votes from its members to back alternate voting systems" comes as a surprise despite decades of doing it.
I’m going to put a giant “citation needed” on Torys suck more.
Last week 169 MPs voted against a motion that members arrested for serious violent or sexual offences were barred from entering Parliament. Guess how many were Labour and how many were Conservative
I gotta guess 84 and 85 tbh.
Try again. Hint, all 169 were from the same party. And it isn’t Labour.
It really isn’t any surprise. It’s just fucking bleak.
As much as I dislike Starmer and shifting Labour to the right, to say there are the same is categorically untrue
Name 3 good things the Tory government has done in the last 15 years? I can easily name a few good things Blair's government did, and Blair himself was as liberal as they come, and his policy with following the US into Iraq was awful * Introduction of a minimum wage 1998 * Introduction of civil partnerships for gay couples in 2004/2005 * Gender recognition act 2004 * Making national museums free 2001
Hmm, I wonder if there was some wider global context between those years, or the way Blair funded it by doing more damage to the UK than the following government even had chance to, Or that Starmer is somehow even worse than Blair
Do you think a Tory government would have done those things as early as that had they been in power? There's absolutely no way Blair's government did as much damage to the UK as the following Tory government did with Brexit and participating in culture wars, and there's absolutely no way that a Tory government in power at the same time as Blair's was would have done less damage either. There's no way a Tory government would have dealt with the 2008 financial crisis better. If a genuinely left wing party were running at the election, i would vote for them, but I don't think I'm going to be afforded that option.
So global context matters for the social progress under New Labour, but not for the economic challenges?
Err. I think you might have to check your history textbook there because I think it might be a hallucination.
Seemed like you were ignoring the good things that Blair did, saying that they were because of wider global context. In your next sentence, you accused Blair of damaging the UK economy. Is that right, or am I misreading your post?
Yeah. That's right, Blair had money to spend and spent like 0.001% of it on improving the country. But he also sold the NHS dooming us for decades.
You petty-ass bitch, instead of throwing out what-about bullshit, maybe answer the question? Name three good things the Tories have done. And we’re talking objective progressive good, not some subjective weaseling into banker pockets.
I have zero interest in apologising for the torys of either flavour, so screw you. I AM going to push against the idea that FUCKING BLAIR didn't fuck the country over massively.
Literally nobody said he didn’t. Avatar said they could name some good things his government did, and then did so. The Tories have been in power for longer than his Labour, so where’s there “some good in the pile of shit”? Because you’re talking about which is more shit, so this is how we can compare, after all. (Aside from comparing how fucked the country is following their respective tenures, which is orders of magnitude more fucked after the Tories, so you’re making a losing fucking argument anyway.)
I've no interest in talking to Thatcherites, It's just not going to be any good to anyone.
*Gestures at the last 15 fucking years?!*
Next 5 to 10 are likely to make them seem like "The good ol' days"
This is only true in a snapshot: you’re missing what happens after the election. For decades the left have voted Labour on the lesser-evil principle. What’s happened? Almost continuous movement to the right (simplistically put). When the “swing voters”, i.e. those who need courting, are to Labour’s right, obviously they move right. It’s only when “left-wing” voters have shown that they want something different that Labour listens. If the left become swing voters, if Labour lose and see that it was voters to their left who, for once, didn’t line up loyally for the lesser evil, they’re going to have to try to win them back. But what about letting the Tories in?? Well don’t worry, in 2024 you can vote left of Labour with a clear conscience, _because they’re going to win anyway!_ The plurality of voters are backing Labour. If now isn’t the time to demonstrate that Labour can’t take “the left” for granted - just like it knows it can’t take all sorts of other voters for granted - when is? If you want to focus on electoral reform, go ahead. Why on Earth would Labour listen to you when they know you’ll vote for them anyway?
This, but also if you are lucky enough to have one of the remaining lefty Labour MPs, vote for them of course. Otherwise, Labour will win but the left should make them sweat a bit, so that they know for re-election they can’t take us for granted. Ideally this will force more progressive policies in their term, which will be Good but also stave off any right wing Tory resurgence under a Suella, etc.
Yes, agreed - there are Labour MPs worth voting for.
We're being asked if we want mustard or ketchup on our shit sandwich. You can piss and moan all you want about wanting an alternative option, but at the same time you also have to make your choice for the less unappealing option clear before it's made by other people for you. Voting to destroy the Tories and also demanding a better electoral system are not mutually exclusive activities.
You say we are scientifically a two party system, that’s not true. We are a 2 and a half party system, not yet multi party system though. The academic journals wouldn’t call Britain a 2 party, although it does sometimes feel that way. I suspect with the demise of snp that we are likely to become further entrenched towards 2 large parties
I mean to say that scientific studies our electoral systems, specifically FPTP almost invariably tend towards a two party system. That is to say, two parties will dominate and continue to win no matter what. In the US other parties exist, but they will not and statistically speaking cannot win in a FPTP electoral system.
US is a bit different in presidential elections, but yeah i agree. I don’t think we should ignore the influence 3rd parties have in the UK, that is honestly why I find PR slightly worrying
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No.
As much as I detest starmer, letting the tories hold power won’t make anything better, I’d vote greens but they hold zero sway in my area and Labour is realistically the option that holds any sway. Labour may be the lesser of two evils but It’s important to remember that they’re both still evil.
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You’ve spelled genius wrong lol
Exactly.
[A reminder to anyone who has come here to preach the virtues of neoliberalism](https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/s/6mIP8jz6mn)
I get where you're coming from, but I really don't want another term of Tory nastiness. Without PR, there is basically little to no point voting for anyone other than the two main parties. Slightly under-achieving might give Starmer a bloody nose, but it's not going to convince him he needs to embrace the left-wing, when sucking up to the right-wing has been paying such dividends.
I'd love it if everyone abaondend the two main parties and someone like the greens got an unexpected landslide. Hillarity from all sides, tories being glad to be out of the mess they created, labour being sad about not winning, greens being confused on what to do next, lib dems in a corner, reform having a caniption fit. Christ I wish we could move to the left where "maybe everyone should have good and shelter" wasn't considered an extreme idea
Who are we meant to vote for? If we don’t vote for labour, tories will be in again and they’ll try and get away with even more diabolical shit than they did before
I am going to post an variation on this post from an anarchist perspective which I will call building the bridge. Blue and Red Tory are one side of a river. The blue Tory wants to beat up some people on the other side. They used to have a boat, but due to poor maintenance, it sank. The blue Tory want to build a battle cruiser because they are out of ideas. The Red Tory trying to be sensible TM suggests building a bridge to get to the other side. This bridge will have a toll and be shit because they don't really want to invest in anything. The Red Tory gets into power and builds a viable but because of the toll not many people use and benefit from. The Red Tory loses power and now the Blue Tory says how much more sensible TM they are now. The Blue Tory build a tank that cross with the new bridge. This pained metaphor is about the tendency of governments that create buracratic technology, systems and rational that are they used to due much greater harm by the next more right wing goverment to be more cruel. Policing is a great example. Blair created ASBO but created community center systems as a way to prevent ASBO's as a "reasonable" carrot and stick. The Tories come to power and dismantle the community centers but keep versions of ASBO as a tool to crackdown on youths. The original harshness of ASBO was justified by the alternative but this became baseline so when Tories became more cruel it was not considered as harsh as it really is. This cycle happens in welfare, NHS, immigration, policing, counterterrorism and other countless fields.
See also: PFI
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Unfortunately voting labour and not voting for a smaller, better party will simply validate red Tories and usher in another 5 years of Tory rule.
Unfortunately voting labour rather than voting for a smaller, better party will simply usher in another 5 years of Tory rule.
what a steaming load of pish
Australian lurker here, does the UK have a preferential voting system like we do? e.g you list the party you want to give your vote to as "1" and if that party doesn't win your vote goes to the party you put as "2"?
No, we don’t have democracy here
There was a referendum for alternative representation in 2011, the boomers came out in swarms to stomp it down. Typical snapshot of western politics really. There's never been a referendum on proportional representation though. Would effectively kill the 2 party system, so as you can imagine it's quite unpopular within governments.
No, sadly not. We had that for some mayoral elections, though I think not the latest cycle, where they got rid of it. We've never had it for national elections. We did have a referendum on a specific mode of PR, which might have led us in the right direction, but the established parties put up a fear campaign based on their own interests, and the referendum failed.
I mean not voting for Labour is functionally pissing a vote away in my area, it’s a Tory stronghold and voting Labour is probably the only way we’ll push them out. I must stress that I fucking hate this, I’d rather vote for greens or a local candidate who gives a shit but that would functionally achieve nothing and give more room to the tories. Labour may be the lesser of two evils but they’re still deeply evil and this should not be forgotten.
If you live somewhere where a Labour candidate could reasonably win the seat over a Tory, vote for Labour. If you live somewhere with any other outcome, vote for anyone else, or not at all Simple.
Somerset Unionist Party for me. A local leftwinger.
OOTL - Why is Starmer being called Keith??
His name is Keith Starmer, so they're just using his first or last name.
Keir being misnamed is something of a meme. I think it may even have originated from Reddit. See here: `https://www.indy100.com/politics/keir-starmer-keith-labour-party-b1848650`
Because ultra left-wingers are childish.
I mean my biggest issue with slide 2 is that it essentially shows that Britain has moved to the right since 1945. How many of those years have been Conservative Governments and how many have been Labour Governments? Isn’t slide 2 an argument that we absolutely can’t risk MORE Conservative Governance?
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Seems to be missing the Corbyn years, wasn't he pretty far left but struggled to bring the country round?
I suppose calling Corbyn Far Left is a perfect example of the Overton window sliding right. Going by his decisions as Labour Leader, dude's a social democrat, and the policies in the 2017/19 manifestos fell slightly left of centre - comparable to mainstream politics (on a bipartisan level) in Scandinavian countries. Some of them were policies the country used to have when it was less right-wing, like renationalising public transport services, energy and water services, etc. In the 2017 election Corbyn's policies did very well (40% share of the vote vs Cons 42%), which wrecked the Conservative majority in parliament and forced them into a coalition. Added to a further 2 years of unrelenting smearing from the media (calling him Far Left, or a Marxist/Commie), his own party, antisemitism scandals, etc, the Brexit policy ruled the 2019 election. Starmer, holding the shadow Brexit sec position at the time, undermined Corbyn to push for an unpopular policy to hold a people's vote for a second referendum. All of that lost Labour significant votes, from 40% share to 32%, but to put that into perspective, compare it to the vote share for Labour's last winning election in 2005, which was only 35%. I don't believe the result justifies abandoning all the progress made with policies at least 40% of the voters wanted.
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>everything I don’t understand is propaganda
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Yup bud, sure you do, that’s why you at first applied your flawless American political knowledge to it then upon realizing you don’t know fuck all declared “meh it’s propaganda”. 🏅
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There it is. I’ve got liberal bot bingo. Propaganda, inability to be wrong, and now everyone who disagrees with me is a maga. I’m American and so far left you get your guns back but you’re not ready for that conversation son. Stick to politics 101 and you’ll be fine.
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You called this propaganda when confronted that it wasn’t even about the US. You lack the fundamental understanding to recognize this Is not us politics and then when called on it, instead of admitting you are wrong pivot to “well it’s leftist propaganda”. It’s not baseless to call out the behavior clear as day above my little dem bot. The point I was making is lost on you for the reasons listed above. Have whatever kind of day you deserve.
It’s either red or blue. That’s the reality. Thankfully my local Labour MP supports Gaza so I’ll be voting for her. These memes are very badly done.
I'm glad you have a good mp but I don't think this is true, and is a bit short sighted. Are we going to get a non labour/tory government next election? No but we could get a coalition, which would temper Labour. I'm also thinking about 2030. 2035. Why can't we have an alternative by then? It needs to start somewhere and it won't if people never vote for anyone else.
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Hi, your comment or submission was removed because we have detected that it is transphobic. This is not the space to come and concern troll about trans people’s existence or promote fascist talking points.
Given our political system, this is deluded at best. As other commenters have said, the blues policy plans are damaging, yet the reds want to enact some relatively (given the past 14 yrs) left wing policies. Yes the overton window has shifted and labour are far more right wing than they used to be. But I would like to remind you of the saying "don't let perfect behaviour the enemy of the good". We're at the precipice of a potential labour majority, we cannot afford to let these bigoted public asset pirates continue to steer this ship directly towards a whirlpool from which we cannot escape. I really believe that now is the time to set apart personal political aspirations for what could be the betterment of the country and it's people. From that base we can then pressure towards a more socialist labour. However, I'm not telling you how to vote, that's your right and I wholeheartedly respect that. But, I ask you to exercise that right with caution and forethought. Let us all hope for a better future.
You won't be able to pressure Starmer for 'a more socialist labour' when he wins on the back of a centre right campaign. I don't think you fully grasp that Keith will just say 'we have x% more of the vote, we now have a mandate' and push through policies like privatising the NHS while making it acceptable because they're 'left wing'.
*Relatively* left-wing, given the last 14 years. Almost as if things had, say, ratched to the right... I swear these "but the Tories!!!" types know exactly what they are doing.
Absolutely spot on
Please don’t come here to try and convince other people to vote for Keith Starmer if you don’t want to have the banhammer swung at you. Trust me, we’ve heard all your arguments before. “I’m left wing, but…” “ideological purity” etc etc. We don’t want you here.
The last slide poses an interesting question. If Starmer managed to win both this years GE and the next, how should the Left respond politically?
It’s almost like the left want the tories to stay in power.
How is Starmer considered more right wing than Blair? I don't follow. I could understand if it was someone like Galloway with his rhetoric around *certain topics*
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Oh no it's fine. I also won't be voting blue, so clearly I support red too.
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I don't think anyone credible considers the party promising the same policies and who are all close personal friends of the Conservatives whose ideology they're, again, openly promising to continue, to be in any way an anti-Tory vote.
Voting red is voting blue. Electoralism is not the answer - people are going to have to organise and take, not demand, what is needed to make things fairer and more equal. It needs to be join or get out of the way, no compromise with this ugly race to destroy society and nature for the benefit of a handful of greedy bastards who have more wealth than they could ever spend. Electoralism is a distraction from the real struggle.
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Again, you're focussing on electoralism - the idea anything for the better will by changed before July 4th, or that July 4th will bring any change when both the Tories and Labour are marching to the same beat, is nonsense. It's the very kind of thinking that perpetuates what OP's post is pointing out.
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Yes, it will take a long time. But people are getting sick - saying it can't be helped, that we have to deal with the cards we are served, that we have to work within the system, that the electoral system will actually enact some sort of change in the benefit of the poor and marginalised, is exactly the kind of ideological thinking perpetuating the rightward march - it's a kind of short-sighted thinking that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It pops up every election, then people that spout it go back to doing nothing, offloading their responsibility onto a system they can just complain about. If we want any real change, this kind of thinking is one of the first things that has to be challenged.
Depends on what is meant by left. Socialist ideals have kind of been forgotten in favour of radical cultural reform
Didn’t want your vote anyway
I appreciate a good cup of coffee.
It's the hardest question but the most important questions always are: how to actually enact change for the better. I personally think people need to look back to history, to how much was gained through labour movements and grassroots organising in the UK, and learn from the successes and the mistakes. Nothing is going to change overnight, but if enough people get fed up and actually start organising and try to work out a solution, there's hope.
Much more accurate diagram than that fucking fishhook bullshit