A very rare political post for me, but having kept quiet on original Brexit vote and regretting it after, I can’t let this one go without comment.
The Brexit referendum was supposedly a done deal for Remain and that turned out to be wrong, and this election is a done deal for the Tories according to polls and the bookmakers, but on the “every little helps” mantra I’ll try to persuade anyone who hasn’t made their minds up yet to vote against the Conservatives (a bit late I know but there may be some swing voters still left out there!)
If you already want to vote against the Tories but are not sure who best to vote for to get them out of your constituency, check out this handy tactical voting tool:
If you are still undecided then please do read on…. I’ll keep it short I promise!
- Johnson is a proven liar time and time and again. While Corbyn is not exactly a likeable character either, and I actually don’t dislike most of the main points of the Tory manifesto, out of the two of them I feel Corbyn is far more likely to actually follow through on the manifesto, and Johnson to renege on all the bits I actually liked about it.
- I believe Inequality is one of the major issues facing this country right now. I am fed up with high powered and connected individuals skimming all of the profits of productivity gains the economy makes while the workers of the country get jack-sh*t. If Tories stay in power this will only get worse. Labour promises at least to try to reverse this worrying trend somewhat.
- I want to Remain. I voted Remain back in 2016 and my stance has not changed. Labour promise to hold another referendum and so give us a chance to put all of this Brexit bullsh*t behind us.
- I prefer the Labour Manifesto. I probably should have led with this! As mentioned above I quite liked the Tory manifesto (barring Brexit) but the Labour one had a fair few more points I liked, plus a better stance on Brexit in my opinion. If you want a nice summary of the main Manifesto points that is very quick and easy to digest, the BBC have a good one here.
- I care about climate change. The Tories have made some grumblings about it but in the very recent past they have proven they couldn’t give a rat’s arse as long as there is some money to be made for their crony friends in business. They consistently tried to push through fracking despite a huge public outcry against it. They banned onshore wind FFS, again despite public opinion being overwhelmingly in favour of it (66% approval rating… they think 52% approval is good enough to Brexit so why they’ve gone against this is a mystery). A BBC Summary of the campaigns says “A Friends of the Earth survey suggested that Labour had the strongest policies to protect nature and combat climate change.” – surprisingly ranked even higher than the Green Party.
- I believe public services and spending are an important part of the economy. Contracting these sort of things out has just enriched shareholders and CEO’s of those companies, and not provided us any better service. People go on about “inefficient government” but look how much US citizens spend on healthcare per capita compared to the rest of the world. It just completely dismantles the argument that private is always best and more efficient.
- I believe in sensible regulation. De-regulation has gone way too far and has allowed the finance industry to profit immensely from other peoples misery (see 2008, plus the countless examples of companies going bust recently while employee pensions have been raided). We also need regulations to help protect the environment and workers against the “shareholder profit maximisation at all costs” mantra that is so pervasive right now.
- Tories are a party for the few, not the many – All of the above points in sum prove to me that the Tories are a party that just do not care what the majority of the country think (Apart from that one time we had a referendum, obvs), how things affect their lives, how they get by on a day to day basis. They are infiltrated by high net worth individuals who donate and bend the parties policies to their own end.
- I’m not selfish. I’m actually voting against my own short term financial interests here from what I can gather at least. But to me, this is worth it to try to get to a vision of a society that actually sounds good to live in for everyone (well, more people than the one we’re currently in, I’m not a Utopian fool). I don’t like the mainstream current narrative of the generally Tory lot that everyone is only out for themselves, that there is “not such thing as society” and is so divisive. I think we can do better if we all pull together and have common ground.
I know changing people’s minds that are already made up might as well be described as impossible, so if you vote Tory or want Brexit, that is completely fine, please ignore this post and we’ll all move on with our lives.
To this end, I had a lengthy text conversation with my Mum last night who was the one that actually bought it up, in which I comprehensively destroyed every single point she came up with that was anti-Labour. The arguments kept shifting and again and again but I disproved each one as it came up. At the end of it I just got “You are entitled to your view, as am I”. While I wholeheartedly agree with that statement, it irks me greatly when people views are clearly based on falsehoods.
Some of mine no doubt are as well, but I try to work with facts and not emotions, hence I haven’t said anything like “I hate Boris” or “Boris is a Bellend” in my list above.
I kept asking for source of her information (suspecting it’s probably the DM) but she ducked the question or got “someone posted it on facebook” – if this is the kind of thing we are up against I don’t really have much hope to be perfectly honest! 🙁
I can’t see Labour winning enough seats and just to be clear, I have no real love for Labour. If the tactical voting tool told me to vote for the Lib Dems in my constituency, I would certainly be doing that.
One final thing: I know there are many “Anti-Labour” points going around in right wing Tory rags and being shared on social media (mainly thanks for my Mother dear!) and nearly all I have seen/heard of are just straight up total boll*cks. I could have put some take downs of these in the main text but to keep this short I decided not to. However, if you want to bring anything up in the comments I will happily have a go at dismantling them on an ad-hoc basis.
Good luck to all anti-Tory voters out there!
p.s. Boris is a Bellend!!!!! 🙂
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