Well just got back from casting my vote. It wasn't an easy decision to make really.
The candidates standing in my constituency were,
- Brexit Party
- 1 Independent
- Conservatives
- Green
- Labour
- Liberal Democrats
Brexit Party - Instantly dismissed. Not a chance. The Brexit Party candidate for the constituency has also said she no longer wants to contest the seat, but it was too late for her name to be removed from the ballot. Given that Brexit Party campaign material has also been delivered to my house during the course of the campaign, and recently, I don't think this message has spread particularly well. She's dont it in order to try and 'fight against' tactical voting.
Independent Candidate - On looking into him he's a Hard Brexit supporter and running on that platform. Instantly dismissed.
Conservatives - Instantly dismissed for what should be obvious reasons.
Green - Honestly, I didn't even know they were standing in this constituency until recently. I've had zero campaign material from them through the letterbox. Looking back they didn't run in 2017, ran a candidate here in 2015 that received only 1,060 votes and didn't run a candidate in 2010. No matter what their policies it's clear that there's no point in voting Green in this constituency, especially at a time like this.
Labour - Here's where it begins to get tricky. I like Labour's policies, they're saying a lot of sensible things, however their historical fence sitting on Brexit has absolutely been a black mark against them in my eyes and I would have to say has been a contributing factor to the position the country currently finds itself in. They also currently hold this seat but I don't think I would class it as a Safe Seat. Whilst Labour held the seat in 2017, in 2015 they had to win it back from the Lib Dems who's vote collapsed due to the coalition. In 2010 the Lib Dems took the seat with a majority of 5,214, so not exactly a close race. In 2015 Labour won the seat back, but only with a majority of 2,268, with the Conservatives coming in second place. In 2017 that majority certainly increased, to 9,485, but I don't think I could describe that as safe seat territory. Especially when you consider there's a strong pro-leave base in this area. And of course, despite the party, there's still one big sticking point. Corbyn. I do not like him, I do not think he is a good leader and his personal views on the UK's membership of the EU have been made perfectly clear over the last 30 years. His apathy and at times borderline sabotage of the Remain Campaign during the referendum were disgraceful. Worse he has tried to push those personal views as party policy multiple times, only to have to be reigned in kicking and screaming by the rest of the party and even then he would still try to muddy the waters until the rest of the party put its foot down to make the actual party position perfectly clear and basically force Corbyn into going along with it.
Liberal Democrats - I went into this election without a doubt that I would be voting Liberal Democrat. They were unambiguously pro-Remain and it seemed clear that, if you wanted to send a pro-Remain message and lived in England, you should vote Liberal Democrat. The rest of their policies, whilst not as radical as Labour, were generally supportable and without a doubt a better option than what the Conservatives were offering. And then the election campaign began. At first I was on board with the message of Revoking Article 50 day one, but this position seemed to very quickly get softened and has morphed into simply supporting a second referendum. All of a sudden the Liberal Democrats Brexit position is identical to that of Labour, though the Lib Dems at least have a consistent historical message on the issue, which Labour most certainly do not. But then there's their actual campaign. In England at least the Liberal Democrats have been running campaign tricks that would be at home in the Conservative playbook. Misleading information, attempting to borderline dupe voters, just general smearing of their opponents, it's all very Conservative...very American. And then over the last few months the party has seemed to be gradually shifting to the right. Whether it's from attempting to capture more Tory votes or simply the entry of former Conservative MPs, or just both, it's impossible to really pin down, but the result can't be denied.
Then there's the added complication of that strong pro-leave support in this area. Despite the Brexit Party candidate saying she wasn't going to actively contest the seat, this message seemed to only come out 2 days ago, quite possibly far too late to make a difference to people who had already made up their mind to vote for the Brexit party. Ontop of that you've got the current attitude of voting being that people don't really consider themselves as voting for their local candidate, they're voting for the party and its leader instead. Every bit of Brexit party literature that has come through the door here hasn't had a picture of the local candidate on, it's had pictures of Farage. That popularity means you've quite likely got voters from both the Conservatives and Labour moving towards the Brexit party. Conservative voters who've gone all in on Hard Brexit, and Labour Voters unhappy with the party support for a second referendum. I doubt it would be enough for the Brexit party candidate to actually win the seat, but what if it's enough that it draws enough Labour support away to allow them to lose? I wouldn't be surprised to see more Labour support lost to the Brexit party than Conservative support, and what if that then leads to the Conservatives taking this seat?
So what do I do in this situation? Do I vote Labour to try and keep their support high enough to squeak over the line? Or do I vote Liberal Democrat in the hopes that their consistent Remain support will be enough to pull the Remain vote together and keep the seat from the Conservatives?
Even on the walk to the polling station, even as I stood in the polling booth staring at the form with the pencil in my hand, all of this was running through my head. Every time I lowered the pencil I ended up pulling it back because a new doubt entered my mind. Even when I could bring it down, I ended up moving it between those two boxes over and over.
In the end though I had to make a choice. It was a very, VERY, difficult choice and honestly I still don't know if it was the right one to make. But I had to do something, and so I did something I never thought I would do. I had to hope that the party would be able to control its leader and reign him in as it has in the past, and I gave my vote to Labour.
fair play for putting this much thought into your vote, hope your difficult choice is vindicated
