The tories aren’t any better and they’re the only real alternative
That’s peak English voter thinking and it’s exactly why the UK is as shit as it is.
Classic Aye, always gotta find a way to shit on the English for being stuck in a shitty system that most of them didn’t vote for (a situation which is completely exculpatory but only when it applies to Scotland, apparently).
Look. Don’t vote for Labour if you’re in a safe seat. Absolutely. Do whatever you can to force them into an alliance or at least to stop taking left-wing votes for granted.
But if you’re in a Lab/Con marginal and you vote for a minority party, you’d better hope Labour ends up winning your constituency in spite of you, because even fewer of us will survive another Tory government than would a Labour one.
We’ve have over a decade of Tory rule because of England. It’s not ‘shitting on the English’ to point that out and I have the right, along with everyone else in the devolved nations, to be frustrated with that. We are powerless to stop it because of the Democratic deficit within the UK.
No, not all English people vote Tory. But there’s been a complete lack of rallying behind any party that’s pushed for proportional representation (and progressive policies for that matter)
Labour are doing so well in the polls because the Tories are shit. They have all but totally collapsed, and now the Tory voters in England feel comfortable voting Labour because Labour have shifted so far right.
I’m tired of seeing people look at the two parties with near identical policies and going ‘more of us will die under the Tories’ - that’s only true if labour opt for different policies and judging by the headline above that’s not going to be the case.
“peak English voter thinking” certainly comes across as shitting on he English, and I think if you dialed the self-righteousness down a bit you’d realise that. I agree that people have a right to be frustrated with the current state of affairs. I agree that people in the devolved nations have an especial right to be frustrated with it. I do not agree that a realistic assessment of what’s the case in most constituencies is “peak English voter thinking” that’s causing all the UK’s problems.
Yes, we need more people to vote for third parties to oppose the Lab/Con rightward ratchet. You will note that I explicitly recommended this. But in many constituencies, doing that at the next GE will split the left vote and bring in the Tories. It’s a shit system and we need to change it but you know what that means? It means we stop Only Doing Politics For General Elections. It means we need to actually put in the work to take councils, to build local party support, so that there will be fewer constituencies that are either safe for one of the big two or lab/con marginals.
It does not mean we talk exclusively about how bad those two are and how nobody should ever vote for either of them and harm-reduction thinking is fundamentally stupid or (implicitly-exclusively) English, with maybe a sprinkling of how one regional party is better. You know what those things do? They don’t encourage people to actually improve politics. They just get left-leaning people not to turn up at all.
I hope you’re proud of that, but I’m certainly not.
Speaking to Op here, for clarity’s sake:
I want to give more words to my opinion of this but I don’t have the mental energy, so imma keep this short
responding to ‘but we don’t have any other choice’ with 'english people say this all the time (derogatory)’ is… bad? It doesn’t… help? Or educate? Or accomplish any of the goals you have shown you care about, and which this blog is mostly about? It really does just come off as shitting on english voters? And pushing away leftist voters from voting altogether? Like it’s not practical?
Like, I know you have more cohesive feelings and opinions on practical efforts, I’ve seen you comment on them before. Would not a post you could link to about practical ways to change things be a better way of handling shit like this rather than what feels more like just… negging?
I genuinely wouldn’t say this if it were a personal blog, you’re a person, you’re allowed to not be completely professional in your entire life. But like… on a political blog, if you make comments like this, you’re going to push people away from voting which I’m pretty sure is not what you’re going for
I entirely agree. Unfortunately, this is one of Aye’s blind spots, I think — the understandable resentment over the general state of the UK and Scotland’s position within it, not to mention the incredibly obnoxious britnats he occasionally deals with, seem occasionally to sublimate into a general “England bad, Scotland good, everything bad is English voters’ fault, fuck 'em” attitude which can be useful for the specific cause of Scottish independence but isn’t great for things like Westminster elections.
It’s fine to analyse my blind spots or whatever. I’ve been running this blog for 10 years and it’s definitely made me a lot more jaded because I often get asked the same questions over and over.
My snarky comment there was deliberate and intentional. I’ve tried to take the tactical route and if I was in a better mood last night I’d probably have tried again. I normally talk about the alternatives and what strategy English voters can take.
Voters are going to sleepwalk into voting for Labour in the next election.
Labour who have said there will be no money for infrastructure projects, or public sector raises. Labour who are going to continue the privatisation of the NHS. Labour who’ve said the Tories haven’t been hard enough on immigration, who have dropped their support for trans rights, and who couldn’t stand with unions during the rail strikes.
Yes, I’m being flippant, of course not all English voters want things to stay as they are. Some of them will feel trapped and scared.
But when there’s examples of other parties in the devolved nations advocating for and actually doing different policies to make society a bit better - it’s frustrating as hell to say there’s no alternative.
There’s Greens & LibDems - England could do something great and force the hand of the two major parties to do deals. Even in Tory/Labour swing seats - there’s definitely enough of you to cause an upset. Also fight for proportional voting.
It’s all well and good to say we’ll focus on taking councils etc - but Westminster needs a boot up the arse, and electing a labour majority who will continue the exact same policies as the Tories isn’t going to help anyone.
We’ll be in the exact same position in 4 years time, except you’ll have more people disillusioned because Labour kept things as they are.
