Is There Anyone Worth Voting For?

On July 4th, after five long years of political turbulence, betrayal and scandal, Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak will battle in the general election. For myself, it is the first time I can legally vote, I was bitter to miss out at the last election. When I was deprived of that right, I felt so much excitement and anticipation for the day when I would be able to vote. Now that day will finally come. But faced with the dominance of dishonest centrist parties, I cannot help but feel apathetic and disillusioned. In this crisis of choice, this article will discuss who should you vote for and who will win! In order to establish who you should vote for, it’s important to outline the greatest priorities facing the country: affordable housing, renationalisation of key public services and utilities, the climate, immigration levels, wage stagnation and inequality. In this article, I propose which party will answer to these issues best.

In the blue corner, we have a morally decadent and economically incompetent party who are so utterly inept they’re not even good at being Tories. After 14 years of Tory reign, real wages have shrunk and average wages have stagnated at a 0.1% growth average since 2010 (according to OECD data), meanwhile, inflation has been ruinous (particularly after Truss borrowed money to cut taxes), private shareholders profit from our utilities whilst sewage is dumped into our rivers, house prices have continued to become staggeringly unaffordable, immigration has soared, taxes on the many remain high with disposable income falling (with food prices 25% higher than two years ago) as inequality skyrockets and the national debt has grown returning very little value for the taxpayer's money. Desperate to appeal to some British traditionalism through ‘culture wars’, they proclaim to bring law and order and stability to the UK whilst the glory of social reforming legacy crumbles at their ankles, knee deep in a chaos of their own making. In reality, despite the platitudes they repeat like ‘Stop the Boats’, a staggering 1.2 million people migrated to the UK in 2023 (according to the ONS) whilst Sunak appears more bent upon targeting vulnerable asylum seekers through the unlawful ‘Rwanda Plan’. Despite the constant use of the misleading figure of GDP, British living standards are more uneven and falling with Poland projected to overtake us by the 2030s. Jeremy Hunt even had the gall to suggest ‘The average earner in the UK now has the lowest effective personal tax rate since 1975’ following his March 2024 budget whilst in reality the tax burden on working people is the highest in 70 years and the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggested that tax has in real terms increased by 30% with tax threshold freezes. The treasury embarrassingly had to clarify that Hunt was referring to a very specific category of person in the average full-time, single earner without children or benefits. It's clear to see the 14-year legacy of the Tories has delivered a chaotic no-deal Brexit, corrupt management of Covid-19, austerity decimating the NHS and public services whilst private shareholders benefit and growing overpopulation putting strain on struggling wages and availability of affordable housing and rental. Now the Tory’s last hope is Rishi Sunak, a psychopathic billionaire homunculus doll dressed like he shops at the Tesco F&F back-to-school section who was complicit in conning our banks into inheriting subprime mortgage bonds as a hedge fund partner during the crash. Doesn’t really sound like the man to progress the interests of our country, does it?

Looking closely at the manifesto pledges, there is no sign that this legacy of decimation will end. With the UK already complicit in arming Israel and many Middle Eastern countries and funding protracted conflicts such as in Ukraine, Sunak wants to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030. Although the military has been scaled down, it still has the capabilities to defend itself, ultimately retains trident and could use its resources much better was it not too busy influencing immoral proxy wars. Despite domestic turmoil, the Tory’s bright solution is increasing defence spending. For Sunak, this is a better use of taxpayers’ money than National Insurance, a safety net of pensions and benefits that have improved living standards since their introduction to the UK in 1911 (with his feeble rebuttal that National Insurance is ‘just another tax’ invalidated by the fact that he has merely increased taxes in effect anyway). The Tories would sooner return us to a state of the late 19th-early 20th century than provide any reasonable improvements to living standards like affordable housing, fair public sector pay rises and properly funded public services. The only assertion of law and order has been with the authoritarian suppression of peaceful protestors with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, an Orwellian and nightmarish policy giving the government the right to determine what constitutes ‘lawful’ protest. After making the young endure a childhood through lockdown, faced with crippling university loans, dim prospects of home ownership and withering state support and services, Sunak’s headline idea is reintroducing national service to 18-year-olds. Barring the post-war consensus, the Tories have always been a party keen to grow economic inequality and drive down the living standards of the middle and working classes. However, at least they used to offer a level of law and order and border control! Now the Conservatives of 2024 can’t even be conservative. Thatcher would be turning in her grave to see the staggering flow of immigration whilst the police force is cut and defunded. Not only will Sunak continue to destroy and privatise public services (with 70% of our water outsourced to foreign companies, our inefficient closed-contract railways and growing NHS waiting lists), he can’t even deliver the strong law and order that the Tories are supposed to be good at. The routine neo-liberal greed of the conservatives has no patriotism to it. The great public institutions are sold off and the tax burden on the poorest is the highest on record whilst the super-rich continue to profit. A true nationalist would’ve dispensed with this party long ago. Even the staunchest Tories have begun to realise this with the party currently polling at 24%. It is clear to see that this manifesto will deliver more of the same economic decline and chaos layered in buzzwords and propaganda.

Meanwhile, in the red corner, we have a disingenuous and scheming neo-Blairite who points his finger at the incompetence of the Tories in parliament but has scrapped every single one of the 10 pledges that he was elected leader upon. Starmer would sooner welcome defected conservatives with open arms than allow long-standing Labour candidates such as Jeremy Corbyn to run. Putting my animosity towards Starmer’s Machiavellian Blairite antics aside, the Labour Party is still a much safer pair of hands to put the country in. The party has regressed into appealing to conservative voters with deliberate PR moves such as the constant use of the Union Jack, the goal to increase defence spending, securing borders and increasing law and order alongside the reneged promises of free student loans and even a small increase in the top rate of taxation (with even 5% enough to finance major public service reforms). Whilst the economic centrism will not give the UK the radical overhaul of the public sector it needs to be restored (barring refreshing claims that non-domicile and private school tax loopholes and tax evasion will be reformed alongside the establishment of Great British Energy), I welcome the controls of immigration and law and order. Under the tories, both of these spiralled out of control with police cuts and flowing influxes of migrants. Whether we can trust Starmer, a man who deceived his electorate at the last opportunity, remains to be seen. Still, you can be sure that the conservatives offer no credible solutions to these issues as a party who deceived the public during Covid with a litany of lies and corruption, profiting whilst the country sacrificed.

Moreover, although the UK will continue to struggle under Starmer's unambitious economic policy with funding and privatisation issues in public services, there are undoubtedly positives to Starmer’s manifesto. The establishment of Great British Energy could benefit the public massively with many issues in our energy crisis resulting from deregulated utilities outsourced to countries in crisis. This has been both inflationary, inefficient and environmentally degrading. Paired with minor NHS and education reforms such as overtime pay and breakfast clubs alongside community policing, I forecast a stabilisation of Britain with the domestication of the UK economy leading us less prone to global shocks. It is an inadequate, fairly uninspiring and pragmatic manifesto but it will not plunge our country into spiralling inequality and chaos. As tempting as it is to vengefully abstain from voting for Starmer in honour of those wronged by him in the party and his betrayal of his more economically progressive agenda, although inadequate in addressing many issues, Stamer would be a positive change for the UK.

It looks guaranteed that Starmer will be the next man in number 10 but he has caused a rift in the left. He has alienated many of the party’s left with his pro-Israel stance, another calculated move to court the media and business establishment but whilst this will likely lead to a spike in the green vote, realistically the damage will be limited. Many Muslim and left-wing voters already reside in labour strongholds, especially in cosmopolitan areas. Whilst I object to support for the religious extremism of either side, the arming of Israel must stop as cowering refugees, women and children in Rafah are being shelled and the blood is on the hands of our main two parties. I am optimistic that Starmer’s non-committal approach will be followed by withdrawing arms once he is elected, as many have encouraged him to do. The sickening betrayal of Corbyn and the left of the party and defaulting of Starmer’s initially more progressive pledges have really ruptured the left and may lead many to vote against him on principle. It may leave a bitter taste in my mouth if I vote for Labour, but ultimately the Tories have been so utterly destructive for 14 years that a Labour government would be something to rejoice. Luckily for Starmer, he’s facing the most corrupted, incompetent and desperate government in decades.

We are ultimately a two-party system and whilst a Labour PM is almost guaranteed, there has been a growth in the support of minor parties (perhaps reminiscent of 2015) as a protest to the incompetence of the Tories and Labour’s uninspiring centrism. Regarding these minor parties, it’s important to explore if any are worth voting for and if there is even potential for coalition involvement.

With the Green Party, many of Labour’s left (and those issue-voting in protest of Starmer’s Israel-Palestine stance) will funnel in to vote with a projected 5% vote share. Although the climate-conscious policies, proposals for the construction of insulated affordable housing, renationalisation of water, regulation of bus services and subsidised childcare would be positive changes, yet again it lacks the ambition and vision needed truly to overhaul the decrepit ruin of privatised public services and reduce inequality of opportunity. Similarly to Labour, they would provide many positive changes whilst still neglecting an overhaul of public services (arguably less inspiring than Labour’s plan for British energy). However, the neglect to address the staggering levels of immigration alongside a more radical stance on transgender self-identification is a turnoff for many voters. The Green Party’s association with nonsensical identity politics alienates voters such as myself despite its promising economic pledges. Coupled with its lack of candidates and near-impossible chances of election, Labour are the preferable choice.

 The Liberal Democrats also provide a variety of sensible economic changes such as a tougher windfall tax, council homes construction, immigration policing, net-zero targets, water regulation and education, healthcare and welfare changes. However, these are offset by radical gender politics denying biological science, the continued obsession with irrelevant federal constitutional reform and the character of a party that is both trivial and opportunistic. Watching Ed Davey spring into Lake Windemere and ride bicycles full throttle down Welsh cobbled streets during his campaign trail leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, as the party who facilitated the austerity that crippled this nation’s public services laughs in the face of the British public. The Liberal Democrats pair the radical identity politics of the modern left with the uninspiring centrism of neo-Blairite Labour. Whilst they would undoubtedly be an upgrade, I would urge anyone to veer clear of a party that would sooner jump into bed with the orchestrators of the last 14 years of economic decline than commit to manifesto pledges.

 Whilst surprisingly Reform UK have a range of inspiring policies such as ending the hefty interest on student loans, ensuring greater free-speech, tax relief on working people (rather than the Tories regressive system posing as faux libertarianism) and fortifying immigration controls, they will never salvage their reputation as a right-leaning populist party. Their leader is a man who shamelessly parades around on reality TV, endorses the deranged stalwart of the Republican party that is Donald Trump, forced a no-deal Brexit and even makes a living off of Cameo videos. Is Nigel Farage really the sort of serious political leader the UK deserve? The party is also littered with the conspiracies of uneducated gammons such as the blatant denial of climate change. Although its reputation may not be credible, I suspect that Reform will split the vote share by absorbing the disaffected working class of Old Labour and rupturing the Conservative party leading to an even greater Labour majority. This may be all part of Nigel’s plan to force Rishi’s resignation and finally assume the role of Conservative leader.

So, faced with this string of flawed alternatives, is Labour really the best option? Whilst I deeply despise Starmer’s betrayal of his pledges and party, having read every manifesto or indication of policy, I think that the Labour manifesto is similarly as ambitious (or unambitious!) to the Greens, Liberal Democrats and Reform in addressing economic issues whilst also retaining a serious approach to immigration, a common-sense approach to identity politics and the climate. Alongside this, although he may have betrayed his pledges, Starmer did so in an attempt to gain election and his leadership does not bare the triviality of Ed Davey and Nigel Farage (two parties of an even more unreliable and opportunistic legacy). Rats are already fleeing the sinking Tory ship as MPs defect by the day and everything points to a resounding Labour majority. However, a week is a long time in politics, never mind four. There may be twists and turns ahead in this election with the capricious public mood susceptible to unrelated events such as England’s Euro performance or even the weather and more pressingly, the possibility of a scandal surfacing (there seems always to be one around the corner). I would urge any readers of this article to vote, as uninspiring as the options may be, every healthy democracy requires turnout. Although Labour is the most credible option, I would also encourage people to consider the individual candidate at their constituency and even consider independent candidates without party allegiances such as Mr Corbyn in Islington North. However, whatever you do, whatever your past affiliations, just know that if you tick the box next to Conservative on July the 4th: you are bringing the country one step closer to another period of economic stagnation, public service incompetence, uncontrolled immigration, climate inaction, spiralling housing prices and moral corruption.