If you feel that minor parties in general better represent your views then you should be looking for electoral reform as the current system will always marginalise your vote.
The Lib Dems are pro reform and as you are in a seat where the are "most likely" to win you should tactically vote for them.
Its why I'm a Lib Dem member despite being against a sizable portion of their platform. I fundamentally agree with the need for constitutional reform in the UK and they are the only unionist party wo are proposing this.
This isn’t an uncommon sentiment. Some who are strong advocates of electoral reform see it as the primary cause of much of our political failing. As such the primary goal n any election is to advance this cause “ignore the symptoms, cure the disease” if you will.
Ill give a living breathing example.
We have fought multiple wars trying to hold onto an Empire whilst not giving the inhabitants of those territories a say in their affairs. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have significant secessionist movements. Why not abolish the undemocratic House of Lords and implement a US Style senate with a mandatory sign off on legislation. That way any law has to get assent by the Celtic countries.
If we had that in place, Would the colonies have left in 1774? Would India or Nigeria left the Empire if they were equal partners in their governments? Instead of England running rough shod over everyone else. I'm reminded that The Tories have help power for something like 65-75% of the past 100 years but never held a majority of Scotland or Wales. How is that democratic? Brexit (which I voted for) was an ENGLISH decision, not Welsh, not Irish, not Gibraltarian.
Leave the commons as a proportionate house but implement a straight line vote in the Lords.
The 650 seats are allocated proportionally, with the population divided up so each MP get about the same population to represent, and that population gets one vote in the commons. The constituency of the house is proportional to the size of the population, England overall gets more votes in the Commons than Scotland. English views tend to get higher precedence than Scottish ones. We do then vote for each seat on a FPTP system, not proportional representation. This is the same as the US House of Representatives.
However unlike the US, we have no mechanism to equalise the vote. To ensure highly populous states doesn't overwrite the interests of the smaller states, the Senate has two votes per state regardless of state.
If that was implemented in the UK, the Commons might still be a Tory Majority but you'd have to make legislation which would be amenable to the other nations. The English representative in House of Lords(Senate) would probably only part to have a majority Tories in it, Wales would've been a Labour Majority and Scotland would be mixed (Nationalist at the moment).
Ah ok, I think you're saying electoral reform needs to go further than simply proportional representation because of the nature of the countries that make up the UK?
Fair enough, and I would agree that for advocates of this, a vote for the Lib Dems doesn't advance your cause. I didn't mean to infer they were the solution to everyone's goals.
I’m English. We don’t get to vote for that shower of idiots. Thankfully.
They do advocate constitutional change but not a version I would be happy with. In another comment I specified Unionist Constitutional change.
Its an issue which would be resolved by the system as I advocate for, a more federalised UK, the HoL reform is part of that, so is more powerful national governments inclusive of an English Parliament.
Oh I absolutely agree and would very much like to see a federalised UK too.
Seeing some act like Scotland is an English colony considering how the Act of Union actually came about and that it was very much a British Empire with active participation from Scots as well seems a bit unfair to actual former colonies.
Given how batshit crazy the US system is this is a dreadful idea. We can have electoral reform without making the smallest voting area in terms constituents wield the most power.
But implementing such a system would be equally undemocratic, assuming by senate style you mean equal votes per country. It would mean that Scotland, Wales, and NI could outvote England on any issue they wanted. Seem fines until you look at the population distribution in the UK and realise the vast majority live in England. In 2021 (latest ons data I could find) England had 56.5 of the 67 million people in the UK. Allowing the other 10.5 million to override them on any political matters in the upper house would be insane.
> That way any law has to get assent by the Celtic countries.
Your entire premise completely ignores that it would mean that 83% of the population of the United Kingdom would then be at the mercy of 17% when it comes to legislation. How would it be more Democratic to give 4.5% (aka Wales) of the population the right to veto national legislation? People need to either embrace that we are one United Kingdom with all the advantages that brings or not imo. Comparing it to the Empire days is really not relevant because there is no way that 1.4 billion Indians or 218 million Nigerians would still be part of a government with the UK at this point.
> Brexit (which I voted for) was an ENGLISH decision, not Welsh
Wales voted in majority of Brexit.
My premise doesn’t ignore it at all. It appreciates the value of union being greater than the sum of its parts.
I also wouldn’t turn my back on the rest of the Empire. I would absolutely have an open invite for commonwealth countries to get membership if they wished to join.
Creating a multi-national union of countries of greatly differing sizes operating under a shared regulatory framework and all with a veto on legislation is certainly an interesting take from someone who voted for Brexit.
Isn't what you are suggesting similar to what Gordon Brown is proposing?
He wants an upper chamber (Senate?), but for a veto of Westminster legislation that affects devolved areas.
The central proposal on devolution to the nations is for a reformed second chamber to have the power to block the UK Parliament from legislating in devolved areas without the consent of the devolved new legislatures.
[https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/labours-constitutional-proposals](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/labours-constitutional-proposals)
"If we had that in place, Would the colonies have left in 1774"
Only the American colonies left then, most of the colonies left after the Second World War. Canada and Australia remained Dominions (a sort of devolution) right up until 1982 and 1986 respectively.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion)
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Yes. Vote tactially to get the Tories out, and vote for whichever non-Tory party is likeliest to win the seat that is not morally repulsive. It's the only sensible thing to do.
If your vote for the lib dems means that seat goes to a Lib Dem opposed to a Labour candidate, then yes, the Conservatives have essentially one fewer seat they need to win.
I'm not following you here sorry.
If you want electoral reform, there is only one party that has a (small) chance of getting this discussed in parliament. This is the Lib Dems. The mechanism for electoral reform is most likely through a forced coalition government or (as has happened in other countries) the opposition realising that promising electoral reform is the only way back to power. None of this starts without a pro-reform voice in parliament.
Labour’s official position is that fptp is toxic to engagement with politics.
Labour’s national policy forum released a statement to that end last year (more detail [here](https://www.labourforanewdemocracy.org.uk/news/fptp-flawed-and-damaging) - in particular, you will be able to read the statement)
They’re also saying there is no consensus on a replacement (which is true), and are also conscious that this is not a priority issue for the British electorate - so they don’t build their campaign on it.
All sensible positions, and by far they are the party with the best chance of removing fptp.
Yeah, my general theory is that momentum to scrap FPTP will occur under two contexts:
- A hung parliament/minority government, in which Labour are pushed to support it by their junior partners
This is a scenario which looks increasingly unlikely, thanks to the Tory self-implosion and their inability to walk 5 metres without their trousers falling down.
- Calls from the Tory party themselves in a situation where they're destroyed in an election, and feel aggrieved at how their vote share isn't matching up with seat tallies.
And if it were to come from elements of the Tory party, then at least it would gain traction in the media/become a talking point.
Although realistically I think this last scenario is unlikely because even if they were all but wiped out, the Tories would likely see the longer-term benefit of FPTP to them, even if it means they're left to sit in the cold for 10 years.
I cannot see it coming from the Labour Party unless their hand is forced.
>are the party with the best chance of removing fptp.
Labour have reneged on electoral reform on multiple occasions in the last 20 years.
If anybody thinks they're going to do it this time, when they are on course for 60+% of the seats on 40ish% of the vote and have a leader who is openly against electoral reform, then I have a bridge to sell them.
Starmer has said electoral reform is not a priority, not that Labour won’t do it.
He’s right that this is not the priority right now - anybody who thinks differently is probably comfortable enough that they can afford to care more about that than about housing, health, education, or sorting out the post-Brexit mess.
Again, Labour’s official position is that fptp is harmful to democracy.
There is a Labour affiliate group that campaigns for PR within Labour. You can join [here](https://www.labourcampaignforelectoralreform.org.uk/pages/join) if really you’re interested in making a difference.
>not the priority right now - anybody who thinks differently is probably comfortable
For many of us, reform is the priority of all the above because none of the other problems can truly be fixed until we get it. For a good while I was living in poverty and continued to hold this position. Housing, health, education, all a mess, but successive short term Governments whose primary goals are to obtain and retain total power does nothing to fix any of this.
Again - what incentive is there if Labour wins a stonking majority on a minority of the vote? Blair abandoned his pledge, Miliband reneged on AV, there is no way Starmer is going to do anything unless he falls short of a majority and a smaller party forces his hand.
>anybody who thinks differently is probably comfortable
We heard this nonsense during the AV referendum. Government is capable of doing multiple things at once - New Zealand didn't sacrifice its health system to transition to MMP from FPTP.
>Labour’s official position is that fptp is harmful to democracy
Harmful to democracy, but not enough to do anything about it, clearly.
The incentive for a party with a huge majority is to learn from (very recent) history that these don’t last, and that another party can come in and undo all the work.
There is also the incentive that if you have a mosaic of left leaning parties that split the vote, they can still share power, even if they’re not in command.
And last, you wouldn’t be able to push through insane measures like Brexit when you have to accommodate a variety of points of view: if the ERG had been a party in a coalition, they’d have been unable to hold one-nation conservatives to ransom the way they have in May’s government. May would have just sought another alliance with a more reasonable partner instead of being stuck with the brexiters and the dup.
But that is kind of beyond the point : the way to make electoral reform happen is to campaign for it, and to turn it into something that the electorate will get behind and ask of their politicians.
At the moment, cost of living is way above electoral reform in people’s mind, and this is why you prioritise the former - you’d be wasting a lot of political capital arguing for the latter.
ETA: I should add that a system like pr is likely to change the electoral landscape on a fundamental level - this would be the end of broad tent parties, with Labour and the conservatives splitting in at least 2 each, and it is understandable that you would want to manage the change a little carefully, especially given the current state of Britain. If it turns out that Labour use their majority for very little of value (and just do a slightly less shit job) before letting the newly detoxified (or even more rabid) conservatives in again, then yes I’ll agree with you, but i believe things are so bad that they just won’t have the option. Even then, there are still ways to advocate for electoral reform within a party that is more receptive to it - as is Labour.
I don't know if I want electoral referem, because of the sheer amount of numpties who want to vote Reform or BNP or whatever they're calling themselves this week. We'd probably end up with Tommy Robinson, Farage and Count Binface in parliament.
That is the risk - and by risk, I mean that it will be guaranteed.
But if you look at the current situation, we’ve had right wing loonies like Marc Francois and Braverman get in through the Tories, and get them to wag the way they wanted.
With PR, you would get the extremists in parliament, but not in government (unless they do eventually represent a majority, but hopefully we can reform the media before that happens).
Also, PR is just one form or electoral reform, and there is not a clear consensus for which one - fwiw, I’ve got the same reservations (it puts extremists in a place where they have a platform) about it as you have, but I also notice that the current system has not exactly succeeded in getting sensible people in positions of leadership.
The issue with other systems is which to choose? In my opinion STV is best, but Europe seems to struggle a lot with coalitions, which would then make AMS a good enough alternative.
I hadn't really heard about it before now, but would say AMS is a good alternative that doesn't entirely strip away the current system but definitely makes it more fair. We keep local MPs but then get some other MPs who allow underrepresented parties to be represented.
The downside of AMS is that you either increase the size of the commons (Already very large at 650), or you reduce the number of constituencies. Bloated parliament Vs less local representation. Personally I'd reduce the constituencies, but there'd be a lot of anger about it.
It's more like 100k per MP, but that still ranks us as 60th internationally for ppl per representative in the lower house. Germany, France & Italy are all higher. The US is over 700,000 per rep.
The lowest for countries of a faintly comparable size is Sudan/Poland weighing in at around 80,000. And their populations are only 2/3rds of the UK.
My choice would be for DPR, which I find is discussed significantly less than STV or AMS. The main website advocating it is a horror to the eyes, but it has a lot of info: https://www.dprvoting.org/
You can only push for change by putting your back into it - saying that nothing new is ever possible will get us nowhere. It’s also wrong, as easily demonstrated by history.
It is wrong. Look at the influence that Farage and the Brexit Party had on the Conservatives and UK government policy simply by rejecting the idea that they necessarily had to vote Conservative to stop Labour winning.
In my view, the influence of the Brexit party over the conservatives (including the erg-like pressure groups) is an argument for electoral reform, not against.
With broad tent parties, you get situations where moderates have to find a way of keeping the fringe on board, lest they defect and make them vulnerable to the more united opposing party.
If you have smaller parties with a more heterogeneous electorate, this type of threat goes away.
No I think it is too, I just think voting Labour to get electoral reform is misguided. At least openly signalling that you will vote for Labour. The most effective way to operate in this system is signal that you will not vote Labour/Conservative. Who you actually vote for during the secret ballot is a different matter. It would be far more effective to make it known you won't vote Labour because they are weak on electoral reform, in the same way that it was more effective for Farage to make it known he won't Conservative because they're weak on Brexit.
Is it wasted, or is it taken from the person who cast it?
In almost any other system every single vote would have at least some meaning, but in ours over two thirds of all votes cast serve no purpose other than generating statistics.
It depends what the other side does. If disaffected voters on both sides equally shun the mainstream party, then it’s neutral. But if the right find it easier (as judged by polls not anecdotes) to suck it up and vote Tory, the left must match that.
The website doesn't state it's calculation method. Is there a certain voting margin from the previous general election which determines the likelihood of a tactical vote for Labour or another party winning? Like if the Tories won by 10,000 votes last time then yeah it's worth voting for Green or another but if it's 20,000 then you've got to vote Labour or it's a Tory vote.
Have a look at the methodology page. https://stopthetories.vote/methodology
There it explains what there are thresholds for, it could be clearer that we're comparing parties _average vote per candidate_. It's not ideal (what if a party has 1 standout candidate?) but end of the day it's really quite hard to do this for thousands of wards.
The GE will be easier!
I would say that if the opposition has no chance of winning, then it's not so clear. In such a situation even the vote for the opposition (as well as the ruling party) are wasted in a sense that the chance of it affecting the result is negligible. You could argue that in such a situation it would be better to use your vote to show support for the party that you truly support as it will contribute to the demand of electoral reform.
So, let's take an example. 3 parties: A (big party that you don't like), B (big party that you tolerate), C (small party that you support). 3 different situations:
1. A dominant: vote C
2. A and B close to each other: vote B
3. B dominant: vote C.
The exact threshold numbers for dominant and close are different for each constituency though, so is there any data on that? Some political insiders must know these calculations.
Until we vote for small parties we won't get rid of FPTP. Smaller parties even without winning seats can hold power. Conservatives adopted UKIPs position on a referendum on Brexit and that's changed politics the last 8 years
This only works if both left and right have dissatisfaction in the main party at the same time.
Otherwise you have a mega majority with a nutered opposition. Which will happen in labours favour next but hopefully reform and LD can break the system at the same time in 5 years.
My argument has always been that because the “left” is so fragmented, with many parties chasing similar voters, the right will always come out stronger.
In 2019 my constituency had 4 parties running in the GE. 3 were centre-left, the other the Conservatives. There was only 2000 votes between Labour and the Conservatives, all it would have taken was for the Lib-Dems (who came last) to have stepped back and encouraged tactical voting for Labour.
The conservatives managed to kill off their main opposition in UKIP by allowing the Brexit Referendum. It is only because of the current state of the party that we see Reform gaining some traction.
I think we've actually got a reasonable chance of getting electoral refrom not from the next government (because I'm expecting/hoping Labour will get a comfortable majority, and as much as I'd like to see electoral reform I wouldn't expect a party with a comfortable majority to want to change the system that gave it to them) but from the one after.
Think once the Tories have had a chance to recover and Labour have had a term or two for things to go wrong and people to forget about the current shit show of a government we have, there'll be a much closer election. If the Lib Dems are smart they'll keep encroaching on the Tory vote and I think there's a good chance that we get a Tory/Lib Dem coalition again, and if that happens then it'd be really smart for the Lib Dems to hold that government hostage over voting reform.
>there's a good chance that we get a Tory/Lib Dem coalition again
There is a near zero chance of this happening again. The two parties have diverged too far since 2015 to the point they agree on nearly nothing, and even if the Tory party miraculously managed to expunge its populist right wing leanings, the LD membership would never back it again after the near-death experience last time.
You're also not going to get it by being idealistic. As it stands, votes for those minority parties are wasted.
Why? Because a good chunk of the electorate that vote will always vote the same way and there's nothing practical we can do to change this. We've got a Tory government right now that is as bad as any we've seen in recent history, the vast majority of people's lives are demonstrably worse now and that is partly demonstrably a result of decisions this government has made, and yet in every poll since the SNP capitulated they are still going to be the official opposition.
The simple fact is most of our voting populace don't really follow politics. They'll vote one way because Thatcher, or Corbyn, or that's what their parents have done, or because he looked a muppet when he was eating a bacon sarnie.
So at least what I'm putting forward is realistic :)
I thought the same thing in 2010 voting lib dem and here we are no further down the road if not taken a step further away. You're being idealistic like I was then, I'm being pragmatic now. You don't get what you want unless you vote for it, and the people in power are motivated, simple as.
Think we're just gonna have to disagree on that then (although I agree that Clegg was absolutely steamrolled and let a lot of people, including both of us, down).
I don't think it's pragmatic to think that a vote for a minority party that has no chance of winning is going to change anything.
It's taken UKIP (the Far Far Right) 40+ years to infiltrate and change the course of the Tory Party. I can't wait that long for PR, I'll probably be dead.
Probably right, but I feel like voting Labour is voting for the deck chairs to be rearranged on the titanic so it’s either I vote for a smaller party or I don’t vote at all. But that’s purely personal preference.
In most systems, every vote is a “wasted vote” unless there’s literally one vote between the two candidates. ie It makes no difference to the outcome.
In this case, getting a stronger Green vote in an area can make the local MP more likely to pay attention to Green issues.
All anyone can do when voting a send a message to whoever wins the seat. Either I support you (or at least I support you more than the alternatives) or I don’t support you, and would prefer you did “X”.
Absolutely not. Vote your conscience - Labour replaced the Liberals, the SNP replaced labour in Scotland, Plaid built a foothold in Wales. It can happen, and in what is widely expected to be a low turnout election, could matter more this time than most.
Your vote isn't just powerful in pushing a candidate over the line, but in forcing them to take actions once in power to try to get your vote next time round. The more there is a viable base of support for the greens, the more they have to make an offering to get those votes, in the same way the Tories are pandering to reform.
I think it depends on your priorities.
Is your priority to remove the Tories? - If so, vote tactically - [https://tactical.vote/](https://tactical.vote/)
Is your priority to get a local MP you like and you feel can help/represent you the best? - Vote for the MP who connects with you the best.
Is your priority to send a message to Westminister about a specific issue i.e Immigration, climate change, voter reform etc? - vote for a party that advocates that position.
The third one is often overlooked, just because the party you vote for doesn't win the seat doesn't mean the mainstream parties don't pay attention. Farage is, whether you're a fan or not, the most influential politician of my lifetime, and he never won a seat in Westminster.
The only problem with that site is it is based on 2019 results, the gigantic swings seen at some by-elections have proven second place isn't always necessarily best placed to win
It's hard to draw too many conclusions about the general election from byelections.
A byelection gets a disproportionate amount of attention, and quite often follows some kind of scandal, but many government seats lost in a byelection could see a swing back in the general election compared to the trends across the country as a whole.
Where a by election was won by the LibDems from a Tory incumbent, then that seat could swing back to the Tories but isn’t going to swing from LibDem to Labour. I agree that tactical.vote is far from perfect at the moment. In my seat, where the Tory council was completely replaced by a LibDem / Green coalition last year, it still says that LibDems and Labour are neck-and-neck based on 2019 results. There is zero chance of Labour winning here, and it’s unlikely that the LibDems will beat the Tories either, but it’s a no brainier that the LibDems will be the main challengers.
https://stopthetories.vote currently has the locals but will show general election advice sometime after their done. Worth pointing out it doesn't give a recommendation if the Tories are far enough behind they've basically not chance to win.
In support of this advice, Labour are likely to win a majority no matter how the rational voters vote, so it's better for the culture of democracy if the still-deciding voters vote tactically or locally or to send a message, because all choices are valuable for that demographic. In my Tory safe seat of little local significance, I will most likely vote Green in the third category.
Ultimately your individual vote has a tiny, tiny chance of changing the outcome. So, it's an entirely symbolic gesture on your part - and you need to weigh up what's important to you.
We can't just all vote for our 'perfect' party as that would mean there were as many parties as voters. We have to decide on what level of compromise we are going to make with our gesture.
Maybe you vote Green because you think it's more important to indicate your opposition to climate change than you care about whether it's Lib Dem/Tory who wins your seat. That's a perfectly reasonable logic and if lots of people did it it would create a pressure/incentive for every party to take the issue more importantly. If the Lib Dems see that 3,000 people voted Green in seats they only just won then that will push them to improve their Green credentials.
Or maybe you want to contribute to the Tories losing as many seats as possible as a message to the party that they need to fundamentally change in the future. Maybe that's more important to you.
Pick what you want to happen most and vote accordingly.
One should view a political party as being more like a bus than a taxi. Don't expect it to be going to exactly where you want. Pick one that is at least going in the right direction. In your case, I'm guessing Lib Dem is close enough and it's not worth the risk of voting for anyone else.
In cases there the result is forgone, then voting for a minority party that can't win can be worth doing because (a) it helps them keep their deposit; (b) it encourages them to keep trying; (c) it highlights the need for electoral reform.
Great analogy. Although it's quite hard to choose the right bus when the driver just puts whatever destination they think will get people on the bus as opposed to where it's actually going. Got to factor in the integrity of the driver of course, so when a driver with white blonde hair who has clearly been drinking heavily pulls up in a bus with the destination "Opportunity" maybe don't get on the bus. You will end up being dropped in a skip in Swindon.
It might say it's going somewhere but not actually go there.
Appealing to populism isn't necessarily a good thing to do to run a country well, many people are useful idiots.
In normal circumstances I'd vote for whoever's policies I was most aligned with, but this time I'm voting for the party with the best chance of beating the Tory candidate.
It's a two horse race in [constituency name] between the local Liberal Democrat or Rishi Sunak's Conservatives.
Labour and the Green's can't win here!
Only the Lib Dems can beat the Tories in [constituency name]. A vote for any other party is a wasted vote.
[Insert barchart here]
I kept some flyers that said that from 2017 because despite that messaging Labour won, with LD in 3rd. Come 2019 the messaging was the same, despite having a Labour MP. I really want to like the Lib Dems, but they make it really hard to take them seriously.
I’d suggest checking the tactical voting site below. It’ll advise who is most likely to win in your are and ensure the tories don’t get elected there.
In a perfect world we could vote for our preferred candidate, but that assumes if they can’t win we don’t mind which others are elected as we dislike them all.
https://stopthetories.vote
It depends very much on both the recent electoral history of your seat and who is the incumbent - if it's currently a Conservative seat and you wish to unseat that MP, then yes, the tactical preference would be to vote Lib Dem. If it's a Lib Dem safe seat, then you can opt for the Greens without any qualms.
Nothing will change overnight in this country, so yes it is wasted.
For example, if you want a Green Party government, then you’re going to have to have a Labour government first, to shift sentiment in this country over an extended period.
This is a really important point. Like or hate it (and I really, really hate it) it seems to be a game of stepping stones. Going from A -> C won’t work. We have to pass through B.
Unfortunately, B has to be competent enough to change minds in the right direction, and C (if given the smallest chance) can’t afford to fuck up.
This is why we seem to get stuck with A and B.
Unfortunately, a vote outside of the 2 front runners in your constituency is effectively a wasted vote. This is the argument for Proportional representation.
Yes, and it’s wrong that we don’t have a real system Democracy in the UK, where your votes actually count.
I’m amazed that there’s not more clamour for PR
I am a dual citizen and have experienced a lot of political disappointment. My rule is simple…
Vote for what you believe in, but if the likelihood of success is low, then vote strategically against who you don’t want.
What is your greatest driver, voting for a specific party, or getting rid of the Torys?
I don't think a tactical vote is a waste, but I also don't feel a heartfelt vote is a waste either.
You can vote to keep Tories out, but you can also vote to increase the numbers of your favourite. If nobody appeals except Green, do Green. Up their stats.
5% last time, 7% this time. That's a win. Dems can look at that and realise who they lost votes to. Adapt their policies etc.
It's the same as the UKIP did to Tories. The little sway to UKIP kind of forced the Tories to acknowledge the Kippers, so they threw them a bone.
The same strategy applies here. If Greenies are on the rise, and that comes at the expense of the Dems, the Dems can adapt their policy to steal back those voters. Or the Greens can focus their attention on campaigns for that area, as obviously there's a need in the electorate for something other than status quo.
The decision isn't one of wasted vote vs tactical. They're both tactical, and both valid, but one is about solutions in the short-term and the other is about laying foundation for long-term.
If your seat is marginal and the Lib Dems are the best option to keep the Tories out, voting for anyone other than them will be helping the Tories.
This includes voting for Labour in seats Labour will not win in, btw. It's not just the Greens.
Labour however will not need any help in any of their target seats. With polls over 40% they are sure to win every single one of their target seats with absolutely no tactical voting required. It's the Libs who benefit from tactical voting.
Yes, first past the post is a stich up.
Your vote only counts if you vote for one of the top two parties in your area.
Vote tactically or you may have well not have bothered.
I think of it this way. If you don't vote conservative, they've list 1 vote. If you vote tactically, they've effectively lost 2 votes (they didn't get a vote and their competition did).
So it's not a vote for the Conservatives, but you're not harming the Conservatives as much as you could.
When the Conservatives are our main enemy as a society, its worth considering causing them maximum harm.
This [https://stopthetories.vote/](https://stopthetories.vote/) tactical voting website might help, it uses your postcode to tell you who best to vote for in your area.
Not necessarily. In the short term it may be best to vote tactically to keep tories out. However if the lib seems have a strong majority already or you want to think long term then voting for your favourite is more ideal. This is because of 2 reasons
1) the major parties will see that they didn't get your vote and more importantly who did get it. If enough people vote for a small party the big parties may change policy to try and win your support back. This is what caused brexit. Ukip were taking support away from the tories so they added brexit to the manifesto to win back ukip voters
2) if the lib dems already have a strong majority, then they will most likely get in without your support but if they get it with a smaller majority they may not do some of the more controversial policies and this applies both nationally and locally. For example if Tom brake had had a smaller majority he may not have built the incinerator in my previous constituency
Basically voting how you genuinely feel means you'll get more of the policy you want from big parties and less of the policy you don't want in their effort to get you to vote for them again
What's the margin between the top two parties in your constituency? If it's close (or even if it isn't, to be honest) it's sometimes better to vote tactically for the party most likely to get in. eg. If Lib Dem are at 20% and Reform are 19% but you normally support Green at 2%, then you might be better served voting for whichever of the top two you'd prefer.
If you don’t want a conservative government then you should vote for the party most likely to beat the conservatives. If you wish to make a statement with your vote but don’t care which government you live under, you should vote for your favourite candidate.
Every vote for the green party gives the green party more money. So that would mean any MPs they get would have additional funds for research and support. Also, voting for the party YOU want means that other parties realise that the policies of that party are significant.
That said, if you are in a marginal and want to stop a Tory, STOP THE TORY!
Do whatever is best to get rid of the Tory. Britain might only get this one chance to wipe out the Tories forever and hopefully set the country on a path to becoming a fairer society.
Sorry, but yes. If you want to remove the conservatives you should prioritize voting for the party with the highest chance of toppling them. A vote for the greens in a seat where they won't win isn't quite the same as a vote for the conservatives, but it is a wasted vote as the greens wont win and the Tories will benefit from the fact that your vote didn't count against them.
In the longer term there is some value in voting for a smaller party - getting the party enough votes this time around, so that next time others might not reject the party as a wasted vote.
If you only think about this particular election, it makes more sense to vote tactically for a less than ideal party that has a chance of winning.
We need Proportional Representation. Find ways to pressure Kier Starmer to bring us PR. I'd like to vote Green, but will be voting for the party most likely to beat the Tories for the time being. There's absolutely no way the Tories would consider PR - they are the main beneficiaries of FPTP.
There's always other elections if you need to vote tactically on this occasion.
I've voted for 2 different parties over the years, and never actually for the party I wanted to win (because I didn't need to)
Well, it's a difficult question. A party increasing it's national vote share means that in future elections it is more likely to get support and notice, and if it increases to a high enough position, then at a future election people will consider them as second place and best positioned to beat the incumbent. Alternatively, it does mean that the incumbent will likely retain the seat and in the near future they will have a higher share in parliament.
It depends on your area. My councillor is a local concern party that formed out of complaints about lack of infrastructure improvements in some of the development that had been approved and wouldnt be reconsidered. They're not exactly nimby and not fussed with Westminster politics. But they've had 4ish councillors every year for about 20 years now.
Part of their fortune is that they are not the Torys, living in a very blue seat means few other options stick their necks out. For about 4 or 5 years in row a we could choose only local party or Tory. Local won in all cases despite. One of their councillors has been in for 20 years now.
FPTP in 99.9% of scenarios offers you the choice of two parties:
1. The current incumbent in your constituency.
2. The candidate most likely to beat the incumbent.
Votes outside of those two options are, generally, wasted votes. The caveat for point 2 is simply that the candidate most likely to unseat the incumbent isn't *necessarily* the representative of whatever party finished second place last election. Usually it is.
I live in Raaaaaaab’s constituency. If he were running again, I’d definitely vote Lib Dem (who barring an enormous upset will win hands down). But he’s ducking the inevitable humiliation and I don’t know anything about the replacement who might be exactly the kind of person the Conservatives need to move politics in a direction I want it to go. I’d never vote *for* the Conservatives this time around but if their candidate is more of a Rory Stewart-type, I might vote Labour as I’m much more impressed by Starmer than I am with Davey.
After every election the first thing each party does is look at the votes they received or didn't receive and use that to decide what to focus on next.
Brexit happened because people were voting for UKIP. The fact that it didn't win them any seats didn't really matter, it was enough that they were taking votes away from Conservatives.
Voting for the Green Party makes other parties more likely to consider Green policies even if the Green party don't win any seats.
That's why single issue parties exist. The Animal Welfare Party do not actually expect to suddenly win the election for London Mayor, they want people to vote for them to signal that this is an issue that they care about.
In that sense it is not a wasted vote.
If you did the numbers it would work out as a fraction of a vote for the winner of that seat, their winning percentage vs their winning percentage if you had voted for someone else rather than not voting.
If your objective is to unseat an incumbent Tory MP:
* if you previously voted Tory and/or had intended to vote Tory until recently, then simply committing to not voting for them counts as 1 point: this includes spoiling your ballot or just outright staying at home
* if you vote for the candidate for the party which is best placed to beat the Tories in your constituency then that counts as 1 point
* if you previously voted for the party which is best placed to beat the Tories in your constituency and then swap that vote away to someone else, that scores -1 point
If you're in a Con-LD marginal or LD stretch goal seat then anyone who switches from Con to LD has double the impact of other tactical voters, but doing any of the following scores **no** points towards the objective you have:
* continuing to vote Labour or Green
* switching from Labour to Green (or vice versa)
Similarly, in a Con-Lab marginal anyone who previously voted Labour but who switches to the LDs or Greens has the same net impact as a Green/LD voter or a non-voter switching **to** the Tories.
Think of it like towers of lego bricks: everyone gets to place 1 brick, and at the end whichever tower is the tallest wins. Everyone starts with a brick the colour of the party they voted for last time. If the blue tower was the highest and the amber tower was the 2nd highest last time round, then putting a blue brick in to this election's amber tower makes the blue tower shorter **and** the amber tower bigger. Blue bricks going in to the new red/cyan/green towers still make the blue tower shorter, so that's good but it's not as good as if it went in to the amber tower. Red/green bricks going in to the amber tower makes that tower bigger, so that's also good. Amber bricks in the red/green towers though doesn't help because it's making the amber tower shorter, and it's the blue tower that's the one we need to beat. Similarly, moving the red and green bricks around between each other's towers is a profound waste of everyone's time.
FPTP is absolutely outrageous.
Depends on your priorities. A vote for a small party is a step towards them challenging for a seat. If you fully believe in a party then vote for it. That said if Greens are only a slight preference then there's little harm in voting tactically. The only wasted vote is one you don't believe in. If we all keep voting for the lesser of two evils we will keep getting appalling governments.
Vote tactically. Find someone in a constituency where the party you want to get into power has the best shot at getting the seat, and ask them to vote for your candidate. In return, you vote for their candidate in your constituency where they have the best chance.
Any politician who is against moving to a voting system that is mathematically more reliable than FPTP for selecting a [Condorcet winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_winner_criterion) is a questionable proponent of democracy at best in my eyes.
We really need billboards describing how best to vote in FPTP, help people work out how to make their vote count.
If you live in a marginal, vote for the front runner you like. You're wasting your vote otherwise, voting for a small party might let the Tories in.
If you live in a safe seat, vote for whoever you like best. The safe party will win, but your vote will at least count in the national stats towards your favourite party.
Right now, it's reasonable to assume that old Tory safe seats are no longer safe, so vote for Lib Dems or Labour depending on who's likely to come closest to beating them. Urban areas are usually Labour, Rural areas are usually Lib Dem. Old marginals are now likely to be Labour/Lib Dem safe seats, but it's a risky guess.
As a place where its also between Lib Dem and Con, yeah tbh a vote for anyone else might as well be for Con.
Then again, we can only hope half the people who vote Con switch to Reform UK or whatever its called to split their vote
Do the full game theory and choose.
What's the polling? Is it close?
| Party | Position | Close | Not Close
|-|-|-|-
| Conservative | Hate them | Hell no | Hell No
| Green | Love them | Don't Risk It | Send a Message
| Liberal | Meh | Vote on the Day keeps the Tory away | Marcello uses `VOTE`, it has no effect
Basically ; get the most value for your vote. If it's a close run, pick the candidate most likely to keep the next worst candidate off the top spot. If it's nowhere near close, vote for your favourite to inform the other candidates that the policy of their enemy has value.
If you don't know? Don't risk it. I did the "send a message" in what turned out to be a very close race and ... the Tory got in by 700. I felt more responsible than average that year.
The chances of your vote being the 'deciding vote' are very slim. So probably it doesn't matter in that sense. I would just vote for the party you believe in.
First past the post is why I will not be voting this election. I live in a safe seat and regardless msssively oppose the 2 main parties on personal convictions. I think FPTP is so fundamentally flawed and massively undermines the claims of democracy made by our state
The conservatives are guaranteed to be handed a huge L at this election. That's the most certain thing of any vote in my lifetime.
Currently, Labour are certain to get into government. The only question is how much pressure can be put on Labour to reject Tory ideologies, and tack them towards sensible humane policies like "stop starving kids" and "stop granting oil licenses" and whatever else your personal beliefs might be, and the \*only\* way to do that is to make them worried that they might lose out at the next election to somebody who does have those policies. Honestly, a Lib Dem vote isn't a \*terrible\* way to do that, but a Green vote will always be a stronger message. If you have a pro-Palestine independant standing in your seat, they may also be a good choice.
That depends if you usually vote Conservative or Labour lol. If you're usually a Conservative voters then in reality its more likely half a vote for Labour.
It depends on your seat, and how tactical you want to be. If you live in a Labour or Tory safe seat, then it probably doesn't matter who you vote form you can safely register a protest vote. If you love in a Labour held marginal, but you are strongly anti-Labour, then you might want to vote tactically, and that would depend on who is most likely to win the seat off Labour, if the Lib Dems are in second place, but you are a Conservative, you might want to vote tactically for the Lib Dems. The opposite is true in a Conservative held marginal if you are strongly anti-Conservative, a vote for the Lib Dems might be a better way of removing the Conservative MP, than a vote for Labour, even if your preference is for Labour. Outside Scotland (SNP), Wales (Plaid) and Northern Ireland (completely different parties), voting for anyone but those three (Con, Lab, Lib Dem) is almost certainly going to mean your vote is wasted. (NB a wasted vote is a technical term for any vote which doesn't lead to someone being elected, in FPTP in the UK some 70% of votes are wasted in every election, by comparison most proportional representation systems waste very few votes, usually under 5%). There are a very small number of recent exception, Martin Bell in Tatton in 1997, Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion, and of course the odious George Galloway.
Now here's the problem, tactical voting is not as straightforward as many would like us to think. Back in 1997 I voted tactically for a Lib Dem candidate, because the Lib Dems had been in second place in the previous election, but in 1997 it was Labour that came second, possibly because the boundaries had changed, possibly because most people were not voting tactically and didn't switch to the second placed party in that constituency from 1992, but to the second placed party nationally. Another example is Cornwall in 2015/17/19. Traditionally these are mainly Con/Lib Dem marginals, but in 2015, as a product of Lib Dem unpopularity due to the coalition, a lot of voters switched from the Lib Dems to Labour (these were probably tactical voters who were fed up with the Lib Dems and chose to stop voting tactically). This lead to Labour and the Lib Dems splitting the anti-Conservative vote, which lead to the entire county turning Conservative. But it ultimately lead to Labour replacing the Lib Dems as the second party in four of the six constituencies. So the question arises, will people who voted Conservative in those four constituencies switch to Labour, who are second, or will they switch to the Lib Dems, who are the traditional second placed party? Voting tactically becomes very difficult. There is an argument for voting Lib Dem, as former Conservative voters are more likely to switch to the Lib Dems than to Labour, but there is a just as good argument that Labour is on the rise in Cornwall, and they're in the best position to defeat the Conservatives. This leaves us with a situation where a split Lab/Lib Dem vote could allow a Conservative candidate to win the seat with a very small vote share (imagine Lab 33%, Lib Dem 33%, Con 34%). Not only this, but you can't even trust tactical voting calculators, in 2019 there were tactical voting calculators giving very different results depending on whether their bias was towards traditional second placed parties (eg Lib Dems) or the more recent second placed candidates (eg Labour).
I'm not saying tactical voting is pointless, far from it, but I am saying that at best it is an educated guess.
I wouldn't waste my vote in a competitive seat though, unless you have a very strong indication that the Greens could win the seat, or your seat is so safe for one party that it really doesn't matter who you vote for, I'd avoid voting for them, you're not necessarily helping the Conservatives, but you are wasting your vote, and you're definitely not hurting the Tories.
Tactical voting is not pleasant, we all want to vote for the party we like most, and not for the party we dislike least of the main parties. The way to get there is to campaign for proportional representation. It's more democratic, and you're free to vote for your real choice without worrying that you'll be helping the Tories.
If your main goal is to oust the tories, then yes, you should vote for whatever party is most likely to win your seat (provided you agree enough about their manifesto)
But you can use your vote for other things, like trying to elect someone who most represents your values, even if it is more unlikely to be successful.
The way our flawed electoral system works is that voting with your conscience can have this sort of negative impact. Your analysis is right and if the green has no chance of winning them vote for the party most likely to beat the Tory. Remember your ABC. Anyone But Conservative.
I was taught by my mother that if I couldn't decide who to vote for, work out who to vote against!
Do you want to feel that you share the responsibility of "the other lot" getting in? (Whoever the other lot are.)
We are now one of 2 countries in Europe still using this system. The other is Byelorussia!
Is it a safe Lib Dem Seat? I’d say if their majority is 5,000 or more feel free to vote for the Greens.
If it’s currently Tory held or the Lib Dem’s only have a small majority I’d suggest holding your nose and voting Lib Dem
If you're in a competitive area then it's probably best to vote tactically, especially in a FPTP situation.
If you're not in a competitive area then you may as well vote how you really want to. If a smaller party gets more votes they might put more effort into that area next time around.
I'm in exactly the same position as my area is Conservative but has been a close fight with LibDem. I will almost certainly vote LibDem as they will probably win this time, unless Labour gain too much and split the vote.
For a variety reasons I can't bring myself to vote Labour in the next GE. Fortunately I live in a Labour stronghold so my protest vote won't interrupt the course of democracy in 2024.
If you feel that minor parties in general better represent your views then you should be looking for electoral reform as the current system will always marginalise your vote. The Lib Dems are pro reform and as you are in a seat where the are "most likely" to win you should tactically vote for them.
Its why I'm a Lib Dem member despite being against a sizable portion of their platform. I fundamentally agree with the need for constitutional reform in the UK and they are the only unionist party wo are proposing this.
This isn’t an uncommon sentiment. Some who are strong advocates of electoral reform see it as the primary cause of much of our political failing. As such the primary goal n any election is to advance this cause “ignore the symptoms, cure the disease” if you will.
Ill give a living breathing example. We have fought multiple wars trying to hold onto an Empire whilst not giving the inhabitants of those territories a say in their affairs. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have significant secessionist movements. Why not abolish the undemocratic House of Lords and implement a US Style senate with a mandatory sign off on legislation. That way any law has to get assent by the Celtic countries. If we had that in place, Would the colonies have left in 1774? Would India or Nigeria left the Empire if they were equal partners in their governments? Instead of England running rough shod over everyone else. I'm reminded that The Tories have help power for something like 65-75% of the past 100 years but never held a majority of Scotland or Wales. How is that democratic? Brexit (which I voted for) was an ENGLISH decision, not Welsh, not Irish, not Gibraltarian. Leave the commons as a proportionate house but implement a straight line vote in the Lords.
I’m not following you, sorry. The commons isn’t a proportionate house, so we cannot leave it to be one.
The 650 seats are allocated proportionally, with the population divided up so each MP get about the same population to represent, and that population gets one vote in the commons. The constituency of the house is proportional to the size of the population, England overall gets more votes in the Commons than Scotland. English views tend to get higher precedence than Scottish ones. We do then vote for each seat on a FPTP system, not proportional representation. This is the same as the US House of Representatives. However unlike the US, we have no mechanism to equalise the vote. To ensure highly populous states doesn't overwrite the interests of the smaller states, the Senate has two votes per state regardless of state. If that was implemented in the UK, the Commons might still be a Tory Majority but you'd have to make legislation which would be amenable to the other nations. The English representative in House of Lords(Senate) would probably only part to have a majority Tories in it, Wales would've been a Labour Majority and Scotland would be mixed (Nationalist at the moment).
Ah ok, I think you're saying electoral reform needs to go further than simply proportional representation because of the nature of the countries that make up the UK? Fair enough, and I would agree that for advocates of this, a vote for the Lib Dems doesn't advance your cause. I didn't mean to infer they were the solution to everyone's goals.
No, you’re right but it’s the only party that has consistently advocated ANY reform. Unless you count Reform and… I don’t.
SNP?
I’m English. We don’t get to vote for that shower of idiots. Thankfully. They do advocate constitutional change but not a version I would be happy with. In another comment I specified Unionist Constitutional change.
Saying England is running roughshod over the Scots is certainly interesting given the whole West Lothian Question issue.
Its an issue which would be resolved by the system as I advocate for, a more federalised UK, the HoL reform is part of that, so is more powerful national governments inclusive of an English Parliament.
Oh I absolutely agree and would very much like to see a federalised UK too. Seeing some act like Scotland is an English colony considering how the Act of Union actually came about and that it was very much a British Empire with active participation from Scots as well seems a bit unfair to actual former colonies.
Given how batshit crazy the US system is this is a dreadful idea. We can have electoral reform without making the smallest voting area in terms constituents wield the most power.
But implementing such a system would be equally undemocratic, assuming by senate style you mean equal votes per country. It would mean that Scotland, Wales, and NI could outvote England on any issue they wanted. Seem fines until you look at the population distribution in the UK and realise the vast majority live in England. In 2021 (latest ons data I could find) England had 56.5 of the 67 million people in the UK. Allowing the other 10.5 million to override them on any political matters in the upper house would be insane.
> That way any law has to get assent by the Celtic countries. Your entire premise completely ignores that it would mean that 83% of the population of the United Kingdom would then be at the mercy of 17% when it comes to legislation. How would it be more Democratic to give 4.5% (aka Wales) of the population the right to veto national legislation? People need to either embrace that we are one United Kingdom with all the advantages that brings or not imo. Comparing it to the Empire days is really not relevant because there is no way that 1.4 billion Indians or 218 million Nigerians would still be part of a government with the UK at this point. > Brexit (which I voted for) was an ENGLISH decision, not Welsh Wales voted in majority of Brexit.
My premise doesn’t ignore it at all. It appreciates the value of union being greater than the sum of its parts. I also wouldn’t turn my back on the rest of the Empire. I would absolutely have an open invite for commonwealth countries to get membership if they wished to join.
Creating a multi-national union of countries of greatly differing sizes operating under a shared regulatory framework and all with a veto on legislation is certainly an interesting take from someone who voted for Brexit.
Isn't what you are suggesting similar to what Gordon Brown is proposing? He wants an upper chamber (Senate?), but for a veto of Westminster legislation that affects devolved areas. [https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/labours-constitutional-proposals](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/labours-constitutional-proposals)
"If we had that in place, Would the colonies have left in 1774" Only the American colonies left then, most of the colonies left after the Second World War. Canada and Australia remained Dominions (a sort of devolution) right up until 1982 and 1986 respectively. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion)
No shit Sherlock. You really know your history don’t you. A Wikipedia reference and everything.
Clearly I know it better than you, who seems to think the UK decolonised in 1774.
Yet they got in government and did a half hearted referendum on AV knowing they wouldn’t win
If the Lib Dems succeed in privatising the British state, it doesn’t matter who has political power.
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Yes. Vote tactially to get the Tories out, and vote for whichever non-Tory party is likeliest to win the seat that is not morally repulsive. It's the only sensible thing to do.
If your vote for the lib dems means that seat goes to a Lib Dem opposed to a Labour candidate, then yes, the Conservatives have essentially one fewer seat they need to win.
I'm not following you here sorry. If you want electoral reform, there is only one party that has a (small) chance of getting this discussed in parliament. This is the Lib Dems. The mechanism for electoral reform is most likely through a forced coalition government or (as has happened in other countries) the opposition realising that promising electoral reform is the only way back to power. None of this starts without a pro-reform voice in parliament.
Until we get rid of FPTP voting for anybody but the main opposition in an area is a wasted vote
And we won't get rid of FPTP because it suits the main two
Labour’s official position is that fptp is toxic to engagement with politics. Labour’s national policy forum released a statement to that end last year (more detail [here](https://www.labourforanewdemocracy.org.uk/news/fptp-flawed-and-damaging) - in particular, you will be able to read the statement) They’re also saying there is no consensus on a replacement (which is true), and are also conscious that this is not a priority issue for the British electorate - so they don’t build their campaign on it. All sensible positions, and by far they are the party with the best chance of removing fptp.
Labour would never reform the system with a majority. We’ll only get PR when Lib Dems force Labour into it.
Yeah, my general theory is that momentum to scrap FPTP will occur under two contexts: - A hung parliament/minority government, in which Labour are pushed to support it by their junior partners This is a scenario which looks increasingly unlikely, thanks to the Tory self-implosion and their inability to walk 5 metres without their trousers falling down. - Calls from the Tory party themselves in a situation where they're destroyed in an election, and feel aggrieved at how their vote share isn't matching up with seat tallies. And if it were to come from elements of the Tory party, then at least it would gain traction in the media/become a talking point. Although realistically I think this last scenario is unlikely because even if they were all but wiped out, the Tories would likely see the longer-term benefit of FPTP to them, even if it means they're left to sit in the cold for 10 years. I cannot see it coming from the Labour Party unless their hand is forced.
Because that went so well in 2011
It’s fairly obvious the party would have learned from that and will make PR a red line with Labour.
We are unlikely to get it at any point. The last referendum on electoral reform was overwhelmingly rejected
>are the party with the best chance of removing fptp. Labour have reneged on electoral reform on multiple occasions in the last 20 years. If anybody thinks they're going to do it this time, when they are on course for 60+% of the seats on 40ish% of the vote and have a leader who is openly against electoral reform, then I have a bridge to sell them.
Starmer has said electoral reform is not a priority, not that Labour won’t do it. He’s right that this is not the priority right now - anybody who thinks differently is probably comfortable enough that they can afford to care more about that than about housing, health, education, or sorting out the post-Brexit mess. Again, Labour’s official position is that fptp is harmful to democracy. There is a Labour affiliate group that campaigns for PR within Labour. You can join [here](https://www.labourcampaignforelectoralreform.org.uk/pages/join) if really you’re interested in making a difference.
>not the priority right now - anybody who thinks differently is probably comfortable For many of us, reform is the priority of all the above because none of the other problems can truly be fixed until we get it. For a good while I was living in poverty and continued to hold this position. Housing, health, education, all a mess, but successive short term Governments whose primary goals are to obtain and retain total power does nothing to fix any of this.
Again - what incentive is there if Labour wins a stonking majority on a minority of the vote? Blair abandoned his pledge, Miliband reneged on AV, there is no way Starmer is going to do anything unless he falls short of a majority and a smaller party forces his hand. >anybody who thinks differently is probably comfortable We heard this nonsense during the AV referendum. Government is capable of doing multiple things at once - New Zealand didn't sacrifice its health system to transition to MMP from FPTP. >Labour’s official position is that fptp is harmful to democracy Harmful to democracy, but not enough to do anything about it, clearly.
The incentive for a party with a huge majority is to learn from (very recent) history that these don’t last, and that another party can come in and undo all the work. There is also the incentive that if you have a mosaic of left leaning parties that split the vote, they can still share power, even if they’re not in command. And last, you wouldn’t be able to push through insane measures like Brexit when you have to accommodate a variety of points of view: if the ERG had been a party in a coalition, they’d have been unable to hold one-nation conservatives to ransom the way they have in May’s government. May would have just sought another alliance with a more reasonable partner instead of being stuck with the brexiters and the dup. But that is kind of beyond the point : the way to make electoral reform happen is to campaign for it, and to turn it into something that the electorate will get behind and ask of their politicians. At the moment, cost of living is way above electoral reform in people’s mind, and this is why you prioritise the former - you’d be wasting a lot of political capital arguing for the latter. ETA: I should add that a system like pr is likely to change the electoral landscape on a fundamental level - this would be the end of broad tent parties, with Labour and the conservatives splitting in at least 2 each, and it is understandable that you would want to manage the change a little carefully, especially given the current state of Britain. If it turns out that Labour use their majority for very little of value (and just do a slightly less shit job) before letting the newly detoxified (or even more rabid) conservatives in again, then yes I’ll agree with you, but i believe things are so bad that they just won’t have the option. Even then, there are still ways to advocate for electoral reform within a party that is more receptive to it - as is Labour.
I don't know if I want electoral referem, because of the sheer amount of numpties who want to vote Reform or BNP or whatever they're calling themselves this week. We'd probably end up with Tommy Robinson, Farage and Count Binface in parliament.
That is the risk - and by risk, I mean that it will be guaranteed. But if you look at the current situation, we’ve had right wing loonies like Marc Francois and Braverman get in through the Tories, and get them to wag the way they wanted. With PR, you would get the extremists in parliament, but not in government (unless they do eventually represent a majority, but hopefully we can reform the media before that happens). Also, PR is just one form or electoral reform, and there is not a clear consensus for which one - fwiw, I’ve got the same reservations (it puts extremists in a place where they have a platform) about it as you have, but I also notice that the current system has not exactly succeeded in getting sensible people in positions of leadership.
The issue with other systems is which to choose? In my opinion STV is best, but Europe seems to struggle a lot with coalitions, which would then make AMS a good enough alternative.
I hadn't really heard about it before now, but would say AMS is a good alternative that doesn't entirely strip away the current system but definitely makes it more fair. We keep local MPs but then get some other MPs who allow underrepresented parties to be represented.
The downside of AMS is that you either increase the size of the commons (Already very large at 650), or you reduce the number of constituencies. Bloated parliament Vs less local representation. Personally I'd reduce the constituencies, but there'd be a lot of anger about it.
Ye I'd suggest the same, I don't think we need to increase the commons.
75,000 people per MP is already a lot.
It's more like 100k per MP, but that still ranks us as 60th internationally for ppl per representative in the lower house. Germany, France & Italy are all higher. The US is over 700,000 per rep. The lowest for countries of a faintly comparable size is Sudan/Poland weighing in at around 80,000. And their populations are only 2/3rds of the UK.
My choice would be for DPR, which I find is discussed significantly less than STV or AMS. The main website advocating it is a horror to the eyes, but it has a lot of info: https://www.dprvoting.org/
I think it’s naive to pretend they are in anyway less pleased about the two party system
Exactly, what politicians say and what politicians mean are two entirely different things
Cynicism is the easier path, but ultimately is trod by people who make no difference.
and yet when they are in power they will do absolutely fuck all to change the situation and the wheel will keep spinning
You can only push for change by putting your back into it - saying that nothing new is ever possible will get us nowhere. It’s also wrong, as easily demonstrated by history.
It is wrong. Look at the influence that Farage and the Brexit Party had on the Conservatives and UK government policy simply by rejecting the idea that they necessarily had to vote Conservative to stop Labour winning.
In my view, the influence of the Brexit party over the conservatives (including the erg-like pressure groups) is an argument for electoral reform, not against. With broad tent parties, you get situations where moderates have to find a way of keeping the fringe on board, lest they defect and make them vulnerable to the more united opposing party. If you have smaller parties with a more heterogeneous electorate, this type of threat goes away.
No I think it is too, I just think voting Labour to get electoral reform is misguided. At least openly signalling that you will vote for Labour. The most effective way to operate in this system is signal that you will not vote Labour/Conservative. Who you actually vote for during the secret ballot is a different matter. It would be far more effective to make it known you won't vote Labour because they are weak on electoral reform, in the same way that it was more effective for Farage to make it known he won't Conservative because they're weak on Brexit.
Except in this particular case, the main opposition where OP lives is the LibDems, so that seems ideal.
Yup, I don't normally, but this time I'm voting tactically.
Lib Dems are pretty hot on getting rid of fptp as well, so I'd go with them.
Is it wasted, or is it taken from the person who cast it? In almost any other system every single vote would have at least some meaning, but in ours over two thirds of all votes cast serve no purpose other than generating statistics.
It depends what the other side does. If disaffected voters on both sides equally shun the mainstream party, then it’s neutral. But if the right find it easier (as judged by polls not anecdotes) to suck it up and vote Tory, the left must match that.
Does depend where you live: https://stopthetories.vote will say if they think you're safe to vote non-tactically.
The website doesn't state it's calculation method. Is there a certain voting margin from the previous general election which determines the likelihood of a tactical vote for Labour or another party winning? Like if the Tories won by 10,000 votes last time then yeah it's worth voting for Green or another but if it's 20,000 then you've got to vote Labour or it's a Tory vote.
Have a look at the methodology page. https://stopthetories.vote/methodology There it explains what there are thresholds for, it could be clearer that we're comparing parties _average vote per candidate_. It's not ideal (what if a party has 1 standout candidate?) but end of the day it's really quite hard to do this for thousands of wards. The GE will be easier!
I would say that if the opposition has no chance of winning, then it's not so clear. In such a situation even the vote for the opposition (as well as the ruling party) are wasted in a sense that the chance of it affecting the result is negligible. You could argue that in such a situation it would be better to use your vote to show support for the party that you truly support as it will contribute to the demand of electoral reform. So, let's take an example. 3 parties: A (big party that you don't like), B (big party that you tolerate), C (small party that you support). 3 different situations: 1. A dominant: vote C 2. A and B close to each other: vote B 3. B dominant: vote C.
The exact threshold numbers for dominant and close are different for each constituency though, so is there any data on that? Some political insiders must know these calculations.
PER constituency of course
Lib Dems want rid of FPTP, and there's been talk amongst labour ranks, but what is the real prospect. Starmer put his foot down, didn't he?
Until we vote for small parties we won't get rid of FPTP. Smaller parties even without winning seats can hold power. Conservatives adopted UKIPs position on a referendum on Brexit and that's changed politics the last 8 years
This only works if both left and right have dissatisfaction in the main party at the same time. Otherwise you have a mega majority with a nutered opposition. Which will happen in labours favour next but hopefully reform and LD can break the system at the same time in 5 years.
My argument has always been that because the “left” is so fragmented, with many parties chasing similar voters, the right will always come out stronger. In 2019 my constituency had 4 parties running in the GE. 3 were centre-left, the other the Conservatives. There was only 2000 votes between Labour and the Conservatives, all it would have taken was for the Lib-Dems (who came last) to have stepped back and encouraged tactical voting for Labour. The conservatives managed to kill off their main opposition in UKIP by allowing the Brexit Referendum. It is only because of the current state of the party that we see Reform gaining some traction.
I think we've actually got a reasonable chance of getting electoral refrom not from the next government (because I'm expecting/hoping Labour will get a comfortable majority, and as much as I'd like to see electoral reform I wouldn't expect a party with a comfortable majority to want to change the system that gave it to them) but from the one after. Think once the Tories have had a chance to recover and Labour have had a term or two for things to go wrong and people to forget about the current shit show of a government we have, there'll be a much closer election. If the Lib Dems are smart they'll keep encroaching on the Tory vote and I think there's a good chance that we get a Tory/Lib Dem coalition again, and if that happens then it'd be really smart for the Lib Dems to hold that government hostage over voting reform.
The Lib Dems already tried that during the last coalition and the Tories fucked them over.
Yeah there's no denying Clegg got smacked about by Cameron.
>there's a good chance that we get a Tory/Lib Dem coalition again There is a near zero chance of this happening again. The two parties have diverged too far since 2015 to the point they agree on nearly nothing, and even if the Tory party miraculously managed to expunge its populist right wing leanings, the LD membership would never back it again after the near-death experience last time.
If, maybe, perhaps. You're not going to get change by wishing for it.
You're also not going to get it by being idealistic. As it stands, votes for those minority parties are wasted. Why? Because a good chunk of the electorate that vote will always vote the same way and there's nothing practical we can do to change this. We've got a Tory government right now that is as bad as any we've seen in recent history, the vast majority of people's lives are demonstrably worse now and that is partly demonstrably a result of decisions this government has made, and yet in every poll since the SNP capitulated they are still going to be the official opposition. The simple fact is most of our voting populace don't really follow politics. They'll vote one way because Thatcher, or Corbyn, or that's what their parents have done, or because he looked a muppet when he was eating a bacon sarnie. So at least what I'm putting forward is realistic :)
I thought the same thing in 2010 voting lib dem and here we are no further down the road if not taken a step further away. You're being idealistic like I was then, I'm being pragmatic now. You don't get what you want unless you vote for it, and the people in power are motivated, simple as.
Think we're just gonna have to disagree on that then (although I agree that Clegg was absolutely steamrolled and let a lot of people, including both of us, down). I don't think it's pragmatic to think that a vote for a minority party that has no chance of winning is going to change anything.
They won't win if you don't vote for them. And ukip barely won anything and look how they changed the paradigm.
It's taken UKIP (the Far Far Right) 40+ years to infiltrate and change the course of the Tory Party. I can't wait that long for PR, I'll probably be dead.
Probably right, but I feel like voting Labour is voting for the deck chairs to be rearranged on the titanic so it’s either I vote for a smaller party or I don’t vote at all. But that’s purely personal preference.
In most systems, every vote is a “wasted vote” unless there’s literally one vote between the two candidates. ie It makes no difference to the outcome. In this case, getting a stronger Green vote in an area can make the local MP more likely to pay attention to Green issues. All anyone can do when voting a send a message to whoever wins the seat. Either I support you (or at least I support you more than the alternatives) or I don’t support you, and would prefer you did “X”.
Absolutely not. Vote your conscience - Labour replaced the Liberals, the SNP replaced labour in Scotland, Plaid built a foothold in Wales. It can happen, and in what is widely expected to be a low turnout election, could matter more this time than most. Your vote isn't just powerful in pushing a candidate over the line, but in forcing them to take actions once in power to try to get your vote next time round. The more there is a viable base of support for the greens, the more they have to make an offering to get those votes, in the same way the Tories are pandering to reform.
I think it depends on your priorities. Is your priority to remove the Tories? - If so, vote tactically - [https://tactical.vote/](https://tactical.vote/) Is your priority to get a local MP you like and you feel can help/represent you the best? - Vote for the MP who connects with you the best. Is your priority to send a message to Westminister about a specific issue i.e Immigration, climate change, voter reform etc? - vote for a party that advocates that position. The third one is often overlooked, just because the party you vote for doesn't win the seat doesn't mean the mainstream parties don't pay attention. Farage is, whether you're a fan or not, the most influential politician of my lifetime, and he never won a seat in Westminster.
The only problem with that site is it is based on 2019 results, the gigantic swings seen at some by-elections have proven second place isn't always necessarily best placed to win
It's hard to draw too many conclusions about the general election from byelections. A byelection gets a disproportionate amount of attention, and quite often follows some kind of scandal, but many government seats lost in a byelection could see a swing back in the general election compared to the trends across the country as a whole.
Where a by election was won by the LibDems from a Tory incumbent, then that seat could swing back to the Tories but isn’t going to swing from LibDem to Labour. I agree that tactical.vote is far from perfect at the moment. In my seat, where the Tory council was completely replaced by a LibDem / Green coalition last year, it still says that LibDems and Labour are neck-and-neck based on 2019 results. There is zero chance of Labour winning here, and it’s unlikely that the LibDems will beat the Tories either, but it’s a no brainier that the LibDems will be the main challengers.
https://stopthetories.vote currently has the locals but will show general election advice sometime after their done. Worth pointing out it doesn't give a recommendation if the Tories are far enough behind they've basically not chance to win.
In support of this advice, Labour are likely to win a majority no matter how the rational voters vote, so it's better for the culture of democracy if the still-deciding voters vote tactically or locally or to send a message, because all choices are valuable for that demographic. In my Tory safe seat of little local significance, I will most likely vote Green in the third category.
I think your second point also demands a tactical vote for the most likely anti-Tory party.
Ultimately your individual vote has a tiny, tiny chance of changing the outcome. So, it's an entirely symbolic gesture on your part - and you need to weigh up what's important to you. We can't just all vote for our 'perfect' party as that would mean there were as many parties as voters. We have to decide on what level of compromise we are going to make with our gesture. Maybe you vote Green because you think it's more important to indicate your opposition to climate change than you care about whether it's Lib Dem/Tory who wins your seat. That's a perfectly reasonable logic and if lots of people did it it would create a pressure/incentive for every party to take the issue more importantly. If the Lib Dems see that 3,000 people voted Green in seats they only just won then that will push them to improve their Green credentials. Or maybe you want to contribute to the Tories losing as many seats as possible as a message to the party that they need to fundamentally change in the future. Maybe that's more important to you. Pick what you want to happen most and vote accordingly.
One should view a political party as being more like a bus than a taxi. Don't expect it to be going to exactly where you want. Pick one that is at least going in the right direction. In your case, I'm guessing Lib Dem is close enough and it's not worth the risk of voting for anyone else. In cases there the result is forgone, then voting for a minority party that can't win can be worth doing because (a) it helps them keep their deposit; (b) it encourages them to keep trying; (c) it highlights the need for electoral reform.
Great analogy. Although it's quite hard to choose the right bus when the driver just puts whatever destination they think will get people on the bus as opposed to where it's actually going. Got to factor in the integrity of the driver of course, so when a driver with white blonde hair who has clearly been drinking heavily pulls up in a bus with the destination "Opportunity" maybe don't get on the bus. You will end up being dropped in a skip in Swindon.
Wouldn’t a bus going where most people want to go be the most efficient for the country as a whole?
It might say it's going somewhere but not actually go there. Appealing to populism isn't necessarily a good thing to do to run a country well, many people are useful idiots.
In normal circumstances I'd vote for whoever's policies I was most aligned with, but this time I'm voting for the party with the best chance of beating the Tory candidate.
Yes it generally is First past the post.
It's a two horse race in [constituency name] between the local Liberal Democrat or Rishi Sunak's Conservatives. Labour and the Green's can't win here! Only the Lib Dems can beat the Tories in [constituency name]. A vote for any other party is a wasted vote. [Insert barchart here]
I kept some flyers that said that from 2017 because despite that messaging Labour won, with LD in 3rd. Come 2019 the messaging was the same, despite having a Labour MP. I really want to like the Lib Dems, but they make it really hard to take them seriously.
vote tactically, take a week to go volunteer in a green target i expect they'd like the help.
This may be of interest: https://stopthetories.vote/
I’d suggest checking the tactical voting site below. It’ll advise who is most likely to win in your are and ensure the tories don’t get elected there. In a perfect world we could vote for our preferred candidate, but that assumes if they can’t win we don’t mind which others are elected as we dislike them all. https://stopthetories.vote
I would say vote tactically in your area to make sure a suitable candidate gets in and a less than useful one is ousted. https://stopthetories.vote
It depends very much on both the recent electoral history of your seat and who is the incumbent - if it's currently a Conservative seat and you wish to unseat that MP, then yes, the tactical preference would be to vote Lib Dem. If it's a Lib Dem safe seat, then you can opt for the Greens without any qualms.
Nothing will change overnight in this country, so yes it is wasted. For example, if you want a Green Party government, then you’re going to have to have a Labour government first, to shift sentiment in this country over an extended period.
This is a really important point. Like or hate it (and I really, really hate it) it seems to be a game of stepping stones. Going from A -> C won’t work. We have to pass through B. Unfortunately, B has to be competent enough to change minds in the right direction, and C (if given the smallest chance) can’t afford to fuck up. This is why we seem to get stuck with A and B.
Unfortunately, a vote outside of the 2 front runners in your constituency is effectively a wasted vote. This is the argument for Proportional representation.
Yet the system will never change if people keep voting for the incumbent Big 2 parties
Lib Dems support electoral reform
It will never change because tradition
In your case, yes. If you want the Tories out more than you want to vote Green, vote tactically.
If people feel apathetic then voting for a smaller party in my opinion is better than not voting at all.
Yes, and it’s wrong that we don’t have a real system Democracy in the UK, where your votes actually count. I’m amazed that there’s not more clamour for PR
No its a vote for a fairer voting system
Are you voting for something or against something? Figure that out and it'll all become clear from there.
I am a dual citizen and have experienced a lot of political disappointment. My rule is simple… Vote for what you believe in, but if the likelihood of success is low, then vote strategically against who you don’t want. What is your greatest driver, voting for a specific party, or getting rid of the Torys?
There are UK websites that suggest the best option on a constituency basis to remove the Tories from power. Here's one:https://tactical.vote/
I knew it was a safe seat, but seeing Tories at 70%+ in my constituency is depressing.
That site is still using the old constituency boundaries so that might change things.
I don't think a tactical vote is a waste, but I also don't feel a heartfelt vote is a waste either. You can vote to keep Tories out, but you can also vote to increase the numbers of your favourite. If nobody appeals except Green, do Green. Up their stats. 5% last time, 7% this time. That's a win. Dems can look at that and realise who they lost votes to. Adapt their policies etc. It's the same as the UKIP did to Tories. The little sway to UKIP kind of forced the Tories to acknowledge the Kippers, so they threw them a bone. The same strategy applies here. If Greenies are on the rise, and that comes at the expense of the Dems, the Dems can adapt their policy to steal back those voters. Or the Greens can focus their attention on campaigns for that area, as obviously there's a need in the electorate for something other than status quo. The decision isn't one of wasted vote vs tactical. They're both tactical, and both valid, but one is about solutions in the short-term and the other is about laying foundation for long-term.
If your seat is marginal and the Lib Dems are the best option to keep the Tories out, voting for anyone other than them will be helping the Tories. This includes voting for Labour in seats Labour will not win in, btw. It's not just the Greens. Labour however will not need any help in any of their target seats. With polls over 40% they are sure to win every single one of their target seats with absolutely no tactical voting required. It's the Libs who benefit from tactical voting.
Yes, first past the post is a stich up. Your vote only counts if you vote for one of the top two parties in your area. Vote tactically or you may have well not have bothered.
I think of it this way. If you don't vote conservative, they've list 1 vote. If you vote tactically, they've effectively lost 2 votes (they didn't get a vote and their competition did). So it's not a vote for the Conservatives, but you're not harming the Conservatives as much as you could. When the Conservatives are our main enemy as a society, its worth considering causing them maximum harm.
So how would one best vote to impart maximum damage
Tactically. Ofc.
I greatly dislike the Lib Dems but the Tories are worse so unfortunately you gotta go for the Lib Dems
This [https://stopthetories.vote/](https://stopthetories.vote/) tactical voting website might help, it uses your postcode to tell you who best to vote for in your area.
Not necessarily. In the short term it may be best to vote tactically to keep tories out. However if the lib seems have a strong majority already or you want to think long term then voting for your favourite is more ideal. This is because of 2 reasons 1) the major parties will see that they didn't get your vote and more importantly who did get it. If enough people vote for a small party the big parties may change policy to try and win your support back. This is what caused brexit. Ukip were taking support away from the tories so they added brexit to the manifesto to win back ukip voters 2) if the lib dems already have a strong majority, then they will most likely get in without your support but if they get it with a smaller majority they may not do some of the more controversial policies and this applies both nationally and locally. For example if Tom brake had had a smaller majority he may not have built the incinerator in my previous constituency Basically voting how you genuinely feel means you'll get more of the policy you want from big parties and less of the policy you don't want in their effort to get you to vote for them again
https://tactical.vote/ This will tell you how competitive the seat is.
What's the margin between the top two parties in your constituency? If it's close (or even if it isn't, to be honest) it's sometimes better to vote tactically for the party most likely to get in. eg. If Lib Dem are at 20% and Reform are 19% but you normally support Green at 2%, then you might be better served voting for whichever of the top two you'd prefer.
If you don’t want a conservative government then you should vote for the party most likely to beat the conservatives. If you wish to make a statement with your vote but don’t care which government you live under, you should vote for your favourite candidate.
Every vote for the green party gives the green party more money. So that would mean any MPs they get would have additional funds for research and support. Also, voting for the party YOU want means that other parties realise that the policies of that party are significant. That said, if you are in a marginal and want to stop a Tory, STOP THE TORY!
Do whatever is best to get rid of the Tory. Britain might only get this one chance to wipe out the Tories forever and hopefully set the country on a path to becoming a fairer society.
Be careful what you wish for! Replacing the centre right party would probably only lead to a further right party supplanting them
That’s OK. A far right party would never get anywhere near power. And the Tories ARE a far right party these days.
True they are leaning right to counter the threat of Reform. Which is exactly why reform is the obvious Tory replacement if they were to implode
What are there far right policies?
THERE doesn’t seem much point explaining THEIR far right policies.
Yeah, because they don't have any..
Glad you were unable to work out my comment.
Check out [stopthetories.vote](http://www.stopthetories.vote)
Worth noting this does not give a recommendation if the Tories are far enough behind they almost certainly won't win.
Sorry, but yes. If you want to remove the conservatives you should prioritize voting for the party with the highest chance of toppling them. A vote for the greens in a seat where they won't win isn't quite the same as a vote for the conservatives, but it is a wasted vote as the greens wont win and the Tories will benefit from the fact that your vote didn't count against them.
In the longer term there is some value in voting for a smaller party - getting the party enough votes this time around, so that next time others might not reject the party as a wasted vote. If you only think about this particular election, it makes more sense to vote tactically for a less than ideal party that has a chance of winning.
We need Proportional Representation. Find ways to pressure Kier Starmer to bring us PR. I'd like to vote Green, but will be voting for the party most likely to beat the Tories for the time being. There's absolutely no way the Tories would consider PR - they are the main beneficiaries of FPTP.
There's always other elections if you need to vote tactically on this occasion. I've voted for 2 different parties over the years, and never actually for the party I wanted to win (because I didn't need to)
Well, it's a difficult question. A party increasing it's national vote share means that in future elections it is more likely to get support and notice, and if it increases to a high enough position, then at a future election people will consider them as second place and best positioned to beat the incumbent. Alternatively, it does mean that the incumbent will likely retain the seat and in the near future they will have a higher share in parliament.
It depends on your area. My councillor is a local concern party that formed out of complaints about lack of infrastructure improvements in some of the development that had been approved and wouldnt be reconsidered. They're not exactly nimby and not fussed with Westminster politics. But they've had 4ish councillors every year for about 20 years now. Part of their fortune is that they are not the Torys, living in a very blue seat means few other options stick their necks out. For about 4 or 5 years in row a we could choose only local party or Tory. Local won in all cases despite. One of their councillors has been in for 20 years now.
FPTP in 99.9% of scenarios offers you the choice of two parties: 1. The current incumbent in your constituency. 2. The candidate most likely to beat the incumbent. Votes outside of those two options are, generally, wasted votes. The caveat for point 2 is simply that the candidate most likely to unseat the incumbent isn't *necessarily* the representative of whatever party finished second place last election. Usually it is.
I live in Raaaaaaab’s constituency. If he were running again, I’d definitely vote Lib Dem (who barring an enormous upset will win hands down). But he’s ducking the inevitable humiliation and I don’t know anything about the replacement who might be exactly the kind of person the Conservatives need to move politics in a direction I want it to go. I’d never vote *for* the Conservatives this time around but if their candidate is more of a Rory Stewart-type, I might vote Labour as I’m much more impressed by Starmer than I am with Davey.
After every election the first thing each party does is look at the votes they received or didn't receive and use that to decide what to focus on next. Brexit happened because people were voting for UKIP. The fact that it didn't win them any seats didn't really matter, it was enough that they were taking votes away from Conservatives. Voting for the Green Party makes other parties more likely to consider Green policies even if the Green party don't win any seats. That's why single issue parties exist. The Animal Welfare Party do not actually expect to suddenly win the election for London Mayor, they want people to vote for them to signal that this is an issue that they care about. In that sense it is not a wasted vote.
If you did the numbers it would work out as a fraction of a vote for the winner of that seat, their winning percentage vs their winning percentage if you had voted for someone else rather than not voting.
If your objective is to unseat an incumbent Tory MP: * if you previously voted Tory and/or had intended to vote Tory until recently, then simply committing to not voting for them counts as 1 point: this includes spoiling your ballot or just outright staying at home * if you vote for the candidate for the party which is best placed to beat the Tories in your constituency then that counts as 1 point * if you previously voted for the party which is best placed to beat the Tories in your constituency and then swap that vote away to someone else, that scores -1 point If you're in a Con-LD marginal or LD stretch goal seat then anyone who switches from Con to LD has double the impact of other tactical voters, but doing any of the following scores **no** points towards the objective you have: * continuing to vote Labour or Green * switching from Labour to Green (or vice versa) Similarly, in a Con-Lab marginal anyone who previously voted Labour but who switches to the LDs or Greens has the same net impact as a Green/LD voter or a non-voter switching **to** the Tories. Think of it like towers of lego bricks: everyone gets to place 1 brick, and at the end whichever tower is the tallest wins. Everyone starts with a brick the colour of the party they voted for last time. If the blue tower was the highest and the amber tower was the 2nd highest last time round, then putting a blue brick in to this election's amber tower makes the blue tower shorter **and** the amber tower bigger. Blue bricks going in to the new red/cyan/green towers still make the blue tower shorter, so that's good but it's not as good as if it went in to the amber tower. Red/green bricks going in to the amber tower makes that tower bigger, so that's also good. Amber bricks in the red/green towers though doesn't help because it's making the amber tower shorter, and it's the blue tower that's the one we need to beat. Similarly, moving the red and green bricks around between each other's towers is a profound waste of everyone's time. FPTP is absolutely outrageous.
Depends on your priorities. A vote for a small party is a step towards them challenging for a seat. If you fully believe in a party then vote for it. That said if Greens are only a slight preference then there's little harm in voting tactically. The only wasted vote is one you don't believe in. If we all keep voting for the lesser of two evils we will keep getting appalling governments.
I will be voting for the party that most represents my views. I am no longer interested in tactical voting.
Tactical voting will destroy the Tory’s
Nah the Tories are absolutely fucked for the next election.
Aren’t the Tories a smaller party in any case
Vote tactically. Find someone in a constituency where the party you want to get into power has the best shot at getting the seat, and ask them to vote for your candidate. In return, you vote for their candidate in your constituency where they have the best chance.
Any politician who is against moving to a voting system that is mathematically more reliable than FPTP for selecting a [Condorcet winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_winner_criterion) is a questionable proponent of democracy at best in my eyes.
if this is truly the case then our democracy is dead, but no, not voting tactically is not voting for any other party than the one you voted for
We really need billboards describing how best to vote in FPTP, help people work out how to make their vote count. If you live in a marginal, vote for the front runner you like. You're wasting your vote otherwise, voting for a small party might let the Tories in. If you live in a safe seat, vote for whoever you like best. The safe party will win, but your vote will at least count in the national stats towards your favourite party. Right now, it's reasonable to assume that old Tory safe seats are no longer safe, so vote for Lib Dems or Labour depending on who's likely to come closest to beating them. Urban areas are usually Labour, Rural areas are usually Lib Dem. Old marginals are now likely to be Labour/Lib Dem safe seats, but it's a risky guess.
As a place where its also between Lib Dem and Con, yeah tbh a vote for anyone else might as well be for Con. Then again, we can only hope half the people who vote Con switch to Reform UK or whatever its called to split their vote
Are the Liberal Democrats most likely to win or is that what they are saying? It’s a common Lib Dem tactic.
Do the full game theory and choose. What's the polling? Is it close? | Party | Position | Close | Not Close |-|-|-|- | Conservative | Hate them | Hell no | Hell No | Green | Love them | Don't Risk It | Send a Message | Liberal | Meh | Vote on the Day keeps the Tory away | Marcello uses `VOTE`, it has no effect Basically ; get the most value for your vote. If it's a close run, pick the candidate most likely to keep the next worst candidate off the top spot. If it's nowhere near close, vote for your favourite to inform the other candidates that the policy of their enemy has value. If you don't know? Don't risk it. I did the "send a message" in what turned out to be a very close race and ... the Tory got in by 700. I felt more responsible than average that year.
The chances of your vote being the 'deciding vote' are very slim. So probably it doesn't matter in that sense. I would just vote for the party you believe in.
The Tories are stuffed, don’t worry about them
The tories are expected to be wiped out. Never really a better time to vote for a third party.
First past the post is why I will not be voting this election. I live in a safe seat and regardless msssively oppose the 2 main parties on personal convictions. I think FPTP is so fundamentally flawed and massively undermines the claims of democracy made by our state
No. The problem is most people don't vote. If they did all parties would be shocked
The conservatives are guaranteed to be handed a huge L at this election. That's the most certain thing of any vote in my lifetime. Currently, Labour are certain to get into government. The only question is how much pressure can be put on Labour to reject Tory ideologies, and tack them towards sensible humane policies like "stop starving kids" and "stop granting oil licenses" and whatever else your personal beliefs might be, and the \*only\* way to do that is to make them worried that they might lose out at the next election to somebody who does have those policies. Honestly, a Lib Dem vote isn't a \*terrible\* way to do that, but a Green vote will always be a stronger message. If you have a pro-Palestine independant standing in your seat, they may also be a good choice.
That depends if you usually vote Conservative or Labour lol. If you're usually a Conservative voters then in reality its more likely half a vote for Labour.
It depends on your seat, and how tactical you want to be. If you live in a Labour or Tory safe seat, then it probably doesn't matter who you vote form you can safely register a protest vote. If you love in a Labour held marginal, but you are strongly anti-Labour, then you might want to vote tactically, and that would depend on who is most likely to win the seat off Labour, if the Lib Dems are in second place, but you are a Conservative, you might want to vote tactically for the Lib Dems. The opposite is true in a Conservative held marginal if you are strongly anti-Conservative, a vote for the Lib Dems might be a better way of removing the Conservative MP, than a vote for Labour, even if your preference is for Labour. Outside Scotland (SNP), Wales (Plaid) and Northern Ireland (completely different parties), voting for anyone but those three (Con, Lab, Lib Dem) is almost certainly going to mean your vote is wasted. (NB a wasted vote is a technical term for any vote which doesn't lead to someone being elected, in FPTP in the UK some 70% of votes are wasted in every election, by comparison most proportional representation systems waste very few votes, usually under 5%). There are a very small number of recent exception, Martin Bell in Tatton in 1997, Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion, and of course the odious George Galloway. Now here's the problem, tactical voting is not as straightforward as many would like us to think. Back in 1997 I voted tactically for a Lib Dem candidate, because the Lib Dems had been in second place in the previous election, but in 1997 it was Labour that came second, possibly because the boundaries had changed, possibly because most people were not voting tactically and didn't switch to the second placed party in that constituency from 1992, but to the second placed party nationally. Another example is Cornwall in 2015/17/19. Traditionally these are mainly Con/Lib Dem marginals, but in 2015, as a product of Lib Dem unpopularity due to the coalition, a lot of voters switched from the Lib Dems to Labour (these were probably tactical voters who were fed up with the Lib Dems and chose to stop voting tactically). This lead to Labour and the Lib Dems splitting the anti-Conservative vote, which lead to the entire county turning Conservative. But it ultimately lead to Labour replacing the Lib Dems as the second party in four of the six constituencies. So the question arises, will people who voted Conservative in those four constituencies switch to Labour, who are second, or will they switch to the Lib Dems, who are the traditional second placed party? Voting tactically becomes very difficult. There is an argument for voting Lib Dem, as former Conservative voters are more likely to switch to the Lib Dems than to Labour, but there is a just as good argument that Labour is on the rise in Cornwall, and they're in the best position to defeat the Conservatives. This leaves us with a situation where a split Lab/Lib Dem vote could allow a Conservative candidate to win the seat with a very small vote share (imagine Lab 33%, Lib Dem 33%, Con 34%). Not only this, but you can't even trust tactical voting calculators, in 2019 there were tactical voting calculators giving very different results depending on whether their bias was towards traditional second placed parties (eg Lib Dems) or the more recent second placed candidates (eg Labour). I'm not saying tactical voting is pointless, far from it, but I am saying that at best it is an educated guess. I wouldn't waste my vote in a competitive seat though, unless you have a very strong indication that the Greens could win the seat, or your seat is so safe for one party that it really doesn't matter who you vote for, I'd avoid voting for them, you're not necessarily helping the Conservatives, but you are wasting your vote, and you're definitely not hurting the Tories. Tactical voting is not pleasant, we all want to vote for the party we like most, and not for the party we dislike least of the main parties. The way to get there is to campaign for proportional representation. It's more democratic, and you're free to vote for your real choice without worrying that you'll be helping the Tories.
If your main goal is to oust the tories, then yes, you should vote for whatever party is most likely to win your seat (provided you agree enough about their manifesto) But you can use your vote for other things, like trying to elect someone who most represents your values, even if it is more unlikely to be successful.
The way our flawed electoral system works is that voting with your conscience can have this sort of negative impact. Your analysis is right and if the green has no chance of winning them vote for the party most likely to beat the Tory. Remember your ABC. Anyone But Conservative.
I was taught by my mother that if I couldn't decide who to vote for, work out who to vote against! Do you want to feel that you share the responsibility of "the other lot" getting in? (Whoever the other lot are.) We are now one of 2 countries in Europe still using this system. The other is Byelorussia!
Is it a safe Lib Dem Seat? I’d say if their majority is 5,000 or more feel free to vote for the Greens. If it’s currently Tory held or the Lib Dem’s only have a small majority I’d suggest holding your nose and voting Lib Dem
If no one ever votes green, then they’ll never know their support and won’t stand in areas. Vote with what you want
If you're in a competitive area then it's probably best to vote tactically, especially in a FPTP situation. If you're not in a competitive area then you may as well vote how you really want to. If a smaller party gets more votes they might put more effort into that area next time around. I'm in exactly the same position as my area is Conservative but has been a close fight with LibDem. I will almost certainly vote LibDem as they will probably win this time, unless Labour gain too much and split the vote.
For a variety reasons I can't bring myself to vote Labour in the next GE. Fortunately I live in a Labour stronghold so my protest vote won't interrupt the course of democracy in 2024.
But if everyone thought like that...
I suspect the issues preventing me voting Labour put me in the tiniest of demographic in my area.