Why voting is important to me:
🔹It is the only time to officially have your say.
🔹You only get this chance once every five years.
🔹Whatever petitions or protesting or writing to MPs that you do in the future can be ignored.
🔹Hell, the tories have made several types of protesting an arrestable offence
@mattgrayyes Too many struggled and suffered for the right (that many would wish to have) that allows me to go to a polling station and put an "x" in a box.
Countless numbers could see that this simple act is so very important, so I have very little intention of letting them down.
@mattgrayyes All this 100%, I’ve already returned my postal vote. If you are entitled to vote, please do. UK politics is heavily skewed to appease the elderly population (as they’re the ones who statistically vote reliably) and us young folks are the ones left picking up the pieces (à la Brexit).
This aside, I do want the campaigning to be over, it’s been exhausting.
🔹Labour may be as transphobic as the tories at the moment, but they're not the only alternative in many places.
🔹The Green Party, Lib Dems, and some independents have both progressive policies and may have a chance of winning in your constituency.
🔹It's not just about the parties.
You can look at the policy voting record for your current MP, and see if they voted for, against, or abstained things like LGBTQ+ rights and welfare policy.
@mattgrayyes Although voteforpolicies anonymises the policies, I found it interesting how obvious Reform's policies were: other parties phrased their policies as "we're going to improve things by doing X", and even if I might not always agree with what they want to do, I can appreciate that they want to put effort in to get an improvement. Reform's policies are almost all "stop doing X" and "roll back plans to do Y" - not put effort in to effect change, just completely stop change from happening
@mattgrayyes
If everyone votes tactically, the Tories will end in third place. We will have the Lib Dems asking the questions at PMQ and every select committee, challenging Labour on policy.
I can vote against the conservatives without voting for labour so I can still moan and complain about the next PM whilst using the phrase "I didn't vote for that!"
Unless of course there is some mad political seismic shock where Ed Davey becomes PM, then by all means blame me for the next 5 years
@mattgrayyes I vote because I want people who are not like me to be comfortable as well. I'm a cis-gender, white, generally comfortable middle class arse. I want more people to not worry about living.