Remember how shocked you felt waking up to the result of the last General Election? Or how devastated you felt upon hearing that Trump had become President of the United States? Well, if you don’t want to wake up with this feeling on June 9th 2017, you can do something about it.

Politics has taken a worrying turn recently, both in Britain and around the world.

We need to beat the rise of the far right and avoid another 5 years of a strengthened Conservative government. To make this happen, progressive people and parties need to work together in the General Election on 8th June to ensure the Conservatives do not win.

If you’re someone who might normally vote Labour, take the step in this General Election of voting for the progressive party with the best chance of beating the Conservatives in your constituency – even if it’s not your usual party of choice. Every vote makes a difference, and with tactical voting you can reassure yourself that someone else in another constituency may well be voting for your party in return!

You may well have concerns about voting tactically in the forthcoming General Election, and that’s understandable. You may feel let down by the Liberal Democrats during their time in the coalition government, or uneasy about some of the policies of the Greens.

It’s not always easy for conscientious, caring people to put aside our party loyalties or suspicions about other parties or individuals within them (whether it’s the local candidate or the leader). Voting is something we – quite rightly – take seriously.

But when the stakes are this high we need to make sacrifices – even if voting for another party seems alien or even uncomfortable for us. We only have ourselves to blame if we fail to overcome our relatively minor differences in order to unite against the massive threat in front of us, as the consequences of a big Tory win are frightening. An increasingly hard-right, hard-Brexit government committed to further dismantling the public services that so many of us rely on, and exacerbating the already shocking economic inequality in this country. What’s more – a government with a strong majority, being able to do this with impunity for five years, and probably more.

The time has come to put aside tribal political concerns or any gripes about other progressive parties, as these pale into insignificance against the main aim – to stop the Tories strengthening their overall majority in the country.

Your vote could be the one that tips the balance in your constituency, so if you want to see a fairer, kinder and more sustainable Britain, let’s put aside our political prejudices and loyalties on 8th June and vote smart – to ensure the Conservatives don’t get in again.

Take action now!

Here’s a site to help you decide who to vote for in your constituency.

And here’s a site if you want to ‘swap’ your vote with someone in another constituency – so you know that someone else is voting for your favoured party where it really counts!