Labour and the Tories have disenfranchised me

I will be voting but I'm not happy with either of the main parties. I will vote for the party I feel will do the least damage in the coming years.

Whoever you vote for, assuming it will be someone who is a member of a political party, you are ALWAYS voting for the party.

The whipping system ensures that.

If they rebel consistently, they will eventually be sacked from the party.

Integrity or lack of in politicians? Was integrity a mirage?

You cannot choose to vote for the "sitting MP rather than his party" - that makes no sense. However good that MP might be locally, if he/she represents a party with national policies that you do not want, then why saddle the country with that?

I too have an excellent local MP (Tory), but there is no way I could give his party ammunition to further mess up by voting for him on that basis.

This website - stopthetories.vote/ - tells you which candidate is the most likely to oust the Tories in your constituency - you just enter your postcode and it gives the latest polls.

I feel I’ll be voting to keep a party out, rather than for one I want in.

I always vote and this time I shall be voting for our sitting MP rather than his party. He has a good record but I think may well go this time after 20 years. Friends are saying they will spoil their paper, vote Reform to try and make a point! or just vote as they always have. Very difficult choices.

I am just like the OP and completely disillusioned with politics, full stop. However, I cannot sit at home and will fulfil my right to vote. I have been a 99% Tory voter all my life with an occasional vote for Labour in the Blair days. This time I will not and cannot put a cross for the Tories. After 14 years of their Government there should be so many things working well in this country but wherever I look, education, housing, immigration, NHS, the building blocks of our country, are all failing. Vanity projects like HS2 have wasted enormous amounts of money while those seeking justice such as the postmasters wait for decades for any solution. The infighting is pathetic and try as I might I cannot warm to Rishi Sunak. Labour don't inspire me either. Sir Kier Starmer has Angela Rayner's hand up the back of his jacket pulling his strings. At this moment it may be Reform who get my vote but standing in the voting booth that may change. But I will be standing at the voting booth.

I’m in a quandary about voting too, but will always vote because it is a hard won right. Being disillusioned is not being disenfranchised.

If the polls are correct then the Labour Party will win, but after being a lifelong Labour voter, I do not believe in the Party that they have become. They are only offering minor tweaks in Tory policy, which has clearly failed over the last decade, and are, according to Rachel Reeves, going to continue he down the austerity line.

I don’t know whether to vote strategically to unseat my ineffective sitting Tory MP, which will be against my principals, or for the Greens for example, who have no hope of winning? Oh dear!

I simply couldn't not vote. I regard it as a privilege. But it is difficult this time to know who to vote for. Sometimes, when standing in that little box with the voting paper in my hand, I get a gut feeling of who I need to vote for. I hope that works this time.

Whitewavemark2

We need to reform the FPTP system and introduce some form of PR and then your vote will always be meaningful.

Absolutely.. join Compass

I live in a constituency that always votes in a Conservative with a huge majority. In some respects I feel disenfranchised but I do always vote tactically, not that it makes any difference to the outcome.. I'd like to see a mix of FPTP and PR, perhaps bigger constituencies and a proportion of seats allocated across the country by PR.

The country voted against PR last time, given another chance, that could change.
Johnson’s 80 seat majority with both Labour and the Lib Dem’s in disarray did us no favours.
I’m in no doubt, our local Labour candidate is excellent. I’m traditionally a Labour voter so I’ll vote for her

Living in Ireland which has proportional representation, I would definitely recommend it! One of the bigger political parties tried to change it in the 60s - twice - but in referendums the people voted to keep the system.

In no way am I apathetic. On the contrary, I'm passionate about the whole subject.

Thank you for posting on this thread, you've made me think and I will take a closer look at those standing here.

I suppose the concept of voting against someone (or party) as opposed to endorsing one is an alternative way of looking at things but not one I've ever felt this strongly about.

I do wonder anyway, if on the day, I won't be able to stop myself from voting. I'd probably make a last minute dash to the polling station having argued with myself about it all day!

Whitewavemark2

We need to reform the FPTP system and introduce some form of PR and then your vote will always be meaningful.

Didn't we have a referendum on this during the coalition? I think it was 2011-only 13 years ago?
The only way you are going to get any kind of reform is to vote LibDem and look what happened last time...

Love the cartoon GG13. It’s frustrating. Not voting, however, is not really an option as it will just be considered apathy. Maybe we need a revolution but I can’t see anyone to lead it.

I agree with the previous posters. It took women a long time, blood sweat and tears to gain the vote. For that reason alone I will use my vote.
No party will provide the perfect government, so looking at it from the ‘one I hope will do some of the things I align with’ point of view might be a way forward.
I also think that a vote for a minority party at least might give a seat in opposition.

Not voting is just apathy, not protest. I find it hard to believe that there isn’t a single party standing in your constituency which has some policies you believe will benefit the country (or some you believe will damage it).

Totally agree about PR. FPTP is dreadful.

A vote for a party with no chance in your constituency is a much better protest vote than not voting. It sounds as if you would feel bad about not voting, ferry23, as I would, and so go and vote for the Monster Raving Loonies and feel better.

Not knowing who to vote for is not the same as being disenfranchised. Vote for somebody, anybody - or even spoil your ballot paper, but make the effort to vote. People fought and died to give us that right - a right which is still denied to those in some countries.

There are more than two parties.

OP, isn't there a least bad option you could vote for? Not voting doesn't necessarily show contempt; it could just show apathy. (To others, I mean.)

Well said WWM2

We need to reform the FPTP system and introduce some form of PR and then your vote will always be meaningful.

ferry23 I know exactly how you feel. But my DH has a saying that if there is no one you can vote there is someone you can vote against.

So I will be going through those on the ballot paper in my constituency eliminating the one it would most stick in my craw to vote for, then the next one I feel like and so on until only one is left.

I will probably end up voting for the Monster Raving Loony Party or the Free Occupied North Berkshire party, but vote, I will.