After weeks of solid campaigning, one thing I keep hearing from activists up and down the country is that we’re all speaking to voters who say they’re still undecided. They’ve read the manifestos, watched the interviews, met the candidates, but they still say they’re not sure whose name to check at the ballot box.
But if there’s one thing we know for certain after nine long and painful years, it’s what a Conservative-led government looks like. It looks like a real-life Daniel Blake, collapsing in a queue for the job centre having been declared fit to work. It looks a planet, burning, collapsing, crying out for help. It looks like a single mother in insecure work, unsure of what number the pay cheque will show this week. It looks like millions of households struggling even to put food on the table. It looks like an eight-year-old child counting coppers from her piggybank to pay for her family’s electricity.
Things aren’t going to get better, not without real change. For this piece, I spoke to as many Labour voters as I could, asking them one simple question, ‘Why Labour?’. If you’re undecided or know someone that is, read these stories, read these struggles, use your vote for decency, for kindness, for humanity. The future is ours to make and the time is now.
“I’m voting Labour because I know we can do better. Growing up in a single parent family in Liverpool with my Mum, an NHS nurse, families like mine were hit the hardest the fastest by ruthless Tory cuts. The political choice of austerity has forced families out onto the streets and created a generation deprived of a brighter future, a generation deprived of hope. We absolutely must come together to create a vision of hope a reality. We deserve better.” – Ant
“I’m a police officer and I’ve seen the impact of Conservative cuts up close. People talk about ‘cuts’ like they’re a distant concept, not something that affects our day to day lives. But when you work in public services, you can physically see it. It cuts through everything, through your resources, through your time, through your staff, through your sense of identity and purpose. This cannot be allowed to go on.” – Anon
“I’m voting Labour because I don’t want my daughters to grow up in a world where hate and dishonesty wins.” – Bethan
“I’m voting Labour because I’ve seen the ruthless ways that cruel, ideologically-driven Conservative policies, like austerity and the hostile environment, have decimated my communities. I’m voting Labour because I’m a socialist and I’m so proud and excited to see the radical offers of the real, meaningful transformation of a society that has continually failed people like me. I’ve been through some of the worst of austerity, the PIP assessments, and I’ve supported people through some of the worst of the hostile environment. I want better, not just for me, but for everyone. I’m voting Labour because 5 years of Conservative rule scares me, but 5 years of Labour rule fuels me.” – Jo
“I work in mental health services and I know that more of the same will literally kill people. That’s the severity of the situation.” – Anon
“When I was younger, we lost our home but I remember being treated with decency and respect by a system that understood that this was no one’s plan. We got access to social housing and support that changed our lives. A Labour government made sure we had a roof over our head. In 2017, when I started working for an MP in my home city, I saw first hand the cases of families in the the same situation as we’d been a decade before, but instead of happy endings, it was waiting lists with no end in sight. It was heartbreaking. Over the last 9 years, the Conservatives have built a belief that needing help is wrong. They have failed to make sure that people are paid fairly for a hard day’s work, driving those in work to use foodbanks to feed their families. I’m voting Labour because we should all be helped and supported at our most vulnerable. I’m voting Labour because under a Labour government, being poor is not a life sentence. I’m voting Labour because there is a need for change in this country – a need to build a collective, a community and a country we can actually be proud of.” – Anon
“I work with a homelessness charity and usually vote Green. Last week, we spent hours with local Labour councillors registering homeless people to vote. Boris Johnson is relying on silencing these people’s voices, these people whose lives he and his government’s policies have destroyed. In my area, it’s Labour that’s standing up for them, giving them a chance. That’s why they’ve won my vote.” – Becky
“Because every family on my street has at some point had to rely on a foodbank, including mine.” – Anon
“In the past, I’ve voted Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green. Growing up I internalised the Conservative narrative that to be successful and to benefit from society all you need to do is work harder and, as I got to university, for a time I believed that story. I was, so to speak, the perfect model of the system working. But that’s the problem, I’ve only had to work harder because the system was so heavily stacked against me and my peers. In voting in this election, I think of the people from my school who weren’t so fortunate, who became victims of knife crime, who didn’t have the opportunity to go to university. For as long as the system benefits the few, voters have to place their faith in a party that’s speaking for the many.” – George
“Realistically, we have about 10 years to save our planet. Sounds dramatic, but it’s true. If we don’t make radical changes in the next 1o years, it’ll just be too late. Labour is the only party with a real chance of winning that addresses this urgency, so for me it was an easy choice.” – James
“The world is cracking beneath our feet. The promises of trickle-down, business-knows-best politics, of the right and left, has left our communities gasping for air. Private take-overs of public spaces and services have deliberately stripped us to the bones, squeezing as much financial return for a few at a brutal cost to the many. I’m voting for a Labour government to reconnect our communities, for a political intent to remove the need for foodbanks, to stop children sinking under the poverty line. I’m voting for a Labour government because we need political leadership that will respond to climate breakdown with vision, compassion and wisdom. I’ve voting Labour for an NHS that exists to heal and soothe and fix, not use the sick as props for profit.” – Olly
“Because a Tory government made me homeless. And a Labour council put my life back together.” – Anon
The future is ours to make and the time is now. Vote Labour on December 12th.