When people tell me “you must vote for Boris’ party or we will never get Brexit” I usually respond with “Because you trust & believe a Tory leader to actually do what he says & are willing to just hand-wave the last 3 years away?”
Well the Tories may be the only game in town in some areas, but decades of voting for the lesser evil is how we ended up with a ‘Conservative’ Party that isn’t conservative. If I thought Boris was actually serious about meaningful Brexit, I might hold my nose and vote Tory one last time. But if ‘No Deal’ really isn’t an option even now, I just don’t believe anything Boris says about truly wanting out of the EU.
Do I want to risk Corbyn getting in? I would rather he doesn’t but I am done voting Tory on the basis they are a slower acting poison than the alternative.
Reasons to believe Boris means what he says:
1. He has always been a Eurosceptic. This goes back to the days of Maastricht.
2. He led the Leave campaign.
3. He resigned as Foreign Secretary rather than support Brexit in Name Only
4. He removed the whip from a whole bunch of last-ditch remainers.
5. Dominic Cummings – a key member of the Leave campaign – is his closest adviser.
6. Steve Baker believes him.
7. Amber Rudd believes him.
Reasons not to believe Boris:
1. He did eventually vote for May’s Shit Pie of a Deal
2. If Raab says it’s govt policy that No Deal is not an option, then they aren’t serious about negotiating
From the linked Sun article: “On future Brexit talks, Mr Raab said the UK is “not going to align ourselves to EU rules”.”
Empty words. If Japanese manufacturers want to build vehicles in the UK for export to the EU, those cars are not going to be right-hand drive.
We all live in a very heavily inter-dependent world where we have to align ourselves to others’ rules in so many areas. Even hard-core No Deal Brexit would not change that reality, and Boris’s BRINO certainly won’t.
As for the credibility of Boris the Unreliable? This is the guy who recently put an embargo on hydraulic fracturing to pander to a handful of extremists who are unlikely to vote Tory in any case. No, Boris blows in the wind.
It’s all very well keeping your purity by voting in accordance with your convictions but in practice politics has always been about voting pragmatically in the way most likely to secure the outcomes you want. If more people think as you do we could end up with Corbyn and, of course, no Brexit. If that happens, then crowing on December 13th that at least you kept to your principles will seem a very empty gesture and I will be one among many who won’t thank you one little bit.
Please clamber down from standing on your principles and vote for Boris.
“but in practice politics has always been about voting pragmatically in the way most likely to secure the outcomes you want”
So how did that work out for Tory Brexit voters last time, eh? Did that secure the outcome they wanted?
“Please clamber down from standing on your principles and vote for Boris.”
I am not standing on my principles, I am not going to vote Tory because I don’t believe a fucking word Boris says. If I did, I would fight back the gag reflex and vote Tory to get actual Brexit.
“and I will be one among many who won’t thank you one little bit.”
I’d love to be wrong about Boris but frankly I don’t think so, so I really don’t give a damn who won’t thank me for voting for the same party who fucked us all over for the last three years.
How many times do you need to be lied to before you conclude you are being played for a fool & the party is broken beyond repair? I am well past that point. This is the same party who chose May as leader & then when it became clear to even the most dimwitted hardcore tribal Tory loyalist that she was lying about Brexit, they *still* refused to get rid of her when there were opportunities to do so.
If Labour wins in December 13th it will not be because Labour has appealing policies, it will be because the Tories have proven themselves utterly untrustworthy. I simply have no reason to believe a vote for Boris’ party is a vote for Brexit other than the people who lied about it last time say so.
In my Scottish seat, it seems very unlikely the Brexit party will have any change of winning – not even to Niall ever-the-optimist. That leaves my choices as the sitting Tory MP, whose only (possible and contextual) virtue is that he may obey Boris as he obeyed May while she was PM, or the SNP. It’s a lousy choice but it is not a hard one.
Anyone with a real hope of getting a Brexit party MP elected – or of casting a Brexit party vote (and so sending a message) without thereby creating a real possibility of merely exchanging an ERG or passable Tory for a LibDem or Labour MP – should do so. If I were in May’s seat, I would certainly have voted for The Brexit Party if I had only had the chance to do so. But we are where we are.
I will not detail to Perry the many arguments for caution if his seat does not meet the above – he can see all that at least as well as I. It is worth remembering that our remoaner enemies are sure Boris et al are lying. Maybe we should at least consider granting Boris the same courtesy as they do. 🙂
Meanwhile, alas, we all have the freedom that comes with knowing our individual votes are most unlikely to make the difference.
“I will not detail to Perry the many arguments for caution if his seat does not meet the above”
I get that. I am just saying why *I* can’t bring myself to vote Tory again: I don’t think it will achieve anything worthwhile & after the last three years, I am completely unmoved by anyone telling me I must yet again vote for “the lesser evil”. Voting Tory, we ended up with Theresa May, the worst PM since Chamberlain. And given her replacement had ended fracking to appease people who will never vote Tory regardless, and will not lower corporation taxes to similarly appease people who are not going to vote Tory anyway, and seems to have ruled out No Deal *publicly* if Raab is correct, and thus cannot meaningfully negotiate with the EU…
Nope, I am out.
Niall K. unfortunately wrote: “our remoaner enemies”. Niall probably meant to say “our fellow citizens who hold different opinions”. There may have been a weak excuse for inflammatory language like “r*m*a*e*” when there were hard-core opponents of Brexit blocking progress and blocking an election. But now that an election has been scheduled, there are only fellow citizens who hold a range of reasonable opinions.
Some people are convinced that “ever closer union” with the EU is the best course of action for the UK. Some think that the best way forward would be to remain in the EU, while dialing it back to a free trade area. Some are convinced that the UK should leave the EU while maintaining very close commercial relations with continental Europe. Some want to walk away from the EU with no deal. All of those are defensible positions, and reasonable people can reach different conclusions.
The sad thing is that the voting alternatives in a UK election do not provide options for that broad spectrum of views on future relations with the EU. And of course Brexit is only one of many issues on the minds of voters — and not necessarily the most important issue. The UK’s style of parliamentary democracy has real limitations!
Regardless, Boris will deliver his BRINO in the end, or some more watered down version. And then the people of the UK will have to try to find a way to stop insulting each other and work together.
I understand your anger but, as you concede, it is possible, if in your view unlikely, that Boris will obtain a respectable Brexit. If you don’t vote for him you are in principle helping those who don’t want Brexit at all. Of course I don’t know whether you live in a constituency where your vote makes any difference but if you do, please think again. I really don’t think this is a time for indulging principle over pragmatism.
Sorry, my last comment was of course for Perry.
If you don’t vote for him you are in principle helping those who don’t want Brexit at all.
But that is my entire point, David, I do not think voting Tory will lead to any kind of meaningful Brexit, therefore I will be rewarding the ‘Conservative’ Party for its actions for the last 3 years if I nevertheless vote for the fuckers regardless of expecting to be screwed by them.
I would be delighted to be proven wrong, truly, but I do not think that is likely. If I did think voting Tory = actual Brexit, I would indeed grit my teeth & yet again vote for the worthless dishonourable fuckers. But I don’t think that is the case.
And that is why I do not see this as a ‘lack of pragmatism’, I see it as not wasting my vote on people who I think will (1) not do any of the things I want them to do (2) have lied without consequence about what they actually intended.
So, given I fully expect yet more betrayal because I don’t believe a word they say any more, I will be voting on the basis there needs to be consequences to the Tory Party for the last three years. Otherwise, if there truly are none, then Britain has the political establishment it deserves.
But as I say, I hope I am wrong. But I don’t think I am.
Perry. But if you vote for anyone else you know with absolute certainty that you are voting not to get Brexit. That is my point.
As I expect that from the ‘Conservative’ Party anyway, it simply isn’t an issue for me anymore, David. Voting for them ‘on the off-chance I am wrong’ means I am also voting for other things about which I am quite certain I am right about.
And one of those things is they will see every vote for them as proof the ‘Conservative’ Party can do what it did for the last 3 years without consequence. And so we will get more of the same, year after year, decade after decade.
I said I would liked to be proved wrong, and I hope I am wrong, but I didn’t say I think I am wrong 😉
I have a great deal of sympathy for Perry’s position. As is now the norm, we’re stuck with heads-you-win-tails-i-lose uniparty electoral choices.
Without wanting to hijack the thread, one of the things I find most disgusting about modern politics is the extent to which the majors and the media work together to prevent ordinary citizens with ordinary concerns from getting into national government. Consequently, across the Anglosphere we’ve ended up with a de facto political class monopoly on political representation and a set of fake ‘national conversations’ which never amount to more than minor course adjustments in the left’s long march to dictatorship.
Granted, the peasants are revolting all around the world. I sense that present political arrangements are coming to an end. But events could go in any direction, not necessarily a good one.
For the present, though, every option on every national ballot represents a certain shafting for people like us. So who do you vote for — the chap who announces he hates you, or the one who pretends to be on your side? The chap who will openly screw you tomorrow, or the one who will sneakily screw you the day after?
To pick up on Behind Enemy Lines question about who to vote for? — Some game theorist will probably eventually write a PhD thesis on how an individual can maximize the value of his vote in a parliamentary system like the UK’s, where very few people actually vote for Boris the Unreliable and many voters find themselves in Niall K’s position — with a choice between a spineless Tory and someone who supports the wrong kind of independence.
Guessing at what that PhD thesis might conclude — a game theorist might join with Niall in saying that any individual’s vote is unlikely to make a difference to the overall result (i.e., the probable Tory majority and Boris’s weak BRINO). The objective of any individual’s vote, then, should be to encourage MPs to do a better job of representing their constituents in the future by punishing them for their past neglect of this duty.
If the incumbent in a Brexiteer’s constituency has been a strong voice for Brexit, then the Brexiteer should vote for that incumbent regardless of Party affiliation. Similarly, if the incumbent has been spineless or opposed to Brexit, the Brexiteer should vote for whichever other candidate is likely to garner most votes, regardless of Party affiliation.
To put some quantification to that — a large number of the 17 million who voted Leave in the Referendum apparently saw Brexit as a “nice to have” rather than a “must have”. So we are down to the 6 million who voted for the Brexit Party in the Euro-election. (cf the 4 million who voted UKIP in the 2015 General Election).
Let’s assume that half of those 6 million are in constituencies where there is an acceptable pro-Brexit incumbent. That could still leave up to 3 million citizens who could cast anti-incumbent votes. That is a significant number compared to the +/- 13 million total votes that both Conservatives & Labour got in the 2017 General Election.
Distributed across the UK, this anti-incumbent voting would probably not change the outcome of many races, nor would it impede Boris’s BRINO, but it would give MPs a wake-up call by significantly reducing their margins of victory. The more MPs who fear they are in marginal seats, the better!
However, to be realistic, given the British predilection for tribal voting, it is doubtful that enough of the 6 million Euro-Brexit Party voters would be prepared to break ranks with their usual General Election Party and vote against incumbents.
I very much don’t want to live in a cold wet variation on Venezuela with full on socialist expropriation and famine, so any vote against Labour, the SNP and the Greens is progress.
Also, semi-Brexit has substantial value. Once we are nominally out we will continue on the path to being psychologically out.
There is really no need to diminish Neville Chamberlain’s reputation by comparing him with May.
You are a Yank Longmuir–so we are not your fellow citizens. You are indulging in a little hobby–so kindly keep your “advice”.
Hopefully PdeH enough folk won’t share your inclination to help remain –even tho’ few would trust Johnson.
Now Fracking MAY be over and Corp Tax cuts out–but remember that it is election time so lots of what is being done is for show. As for “No Deal”–I don’t trust bog roll like the Daily Mirror to tell me the time of day.
Johnson’s deal gets us OUT. That itself is symbolic victory and an actual victory as trying to get us back in again will be some job. And the EU will be greatly damaged by our leaving –which is why they have done their damndest to avoid it.
Johnson COULD try to betray–but that is academic if you are supporting remain now anyway–which your action amounts to. A foolish giving up in despair. We need to establish a future in which the polipigs don’t get elected and then do as they feel like for the next five years.
Remember Brexit is only round one of a long war against the wannabe globo elite who plan to impoverish and rule mankind based on eco-bullshit.
If you are one who gives up at the first hurdle you will be of little use in that war.
I will be voting for Johnson–and not trusting him an inch. If he betrays as you say he May–pun intended–then the time for civil disobedience and law ignoring will have come.
That and a lot worse may be needed. But I will take all the victories I can get regardless of how imperfect. Our foes have everything to lose and will fight very hard for the wealth and power they have and hope to massively extend. You need to toughen up Mr DeHaviland if you hope to make a mark on tomorrow for the better.
No, Gavin, that is exactly not what I meant to say. My phrase was
and of course that would be wrong if said about remainers instead of remoaners.
The whole point of those Tory avoid-no-deal campaign remarks that (amongst others), displease firm leavers is the hope that remainers will believe them. Boris thinks he can suck up many remainer votes – people who either have understandable concerns about leaving or credit some project fear rumours or both – by reassuring them that their fears about Boris are needless (we’ll get a deal’) while their fears about Corbyn are anything but. Boris thinks he can do this while keeping enough hardline leaver votes to win (for the very reasons this thread is discussing).
I’ll make the wild guess that most remainers do not see Boris as a “Father, I cannot tell a lie” kind of guy (any more than anyone else does) but their very belief that no-deal has serious downsides tempts them to believe him when he says this stuff. With them, he has the plus side that he offered a deal for October-31at-leave that parliament blocked, though also the downside that he seemed very ready to leave on no deal if parliament had not first blocked that.
When I say
I am talking about a very specific group of people whom I believe are a minority of those who voted remain in 2016 or would vote it now.
I won’t be voting Conservative either.
1. They are too left wing, if I wanted socialism I would vote for a socialist party, I don’t.
2. Voting for any mainstream party is just voting for more of the same. The wishes of the electorate being ignored by ignorant imbeciles who are certain that they know best.
3. My Conservative candidate voted for the surrender deal. He voted to hand over control of his country to a hostile foreign power.
4. Delivering Brexit was part of their manifesto last time. I held my nose and voted for them just one more time in order to get it done. This time around they haven’t even given a real commitment to do it, I’m not voting for the lying bastards again.
As the past three years have proved, it never was just Brexit; that was just a focus for a much deeper divide and dissatisfaction with ever leftward politics. So, I am not going to vote Conservative-in-name-only in a forlorn hope of Brexit. It’s a battle that was never going to be, of itself, a decisive victory. Against the Long March will be a long war.
likewise, the cunt voted for may’s deal three times, so you’ll find it very hard to convince me a vote for my local incumbent tory is a vote for brexit. there is no fucking way i’ll ever vote for them again. if you keep voting for the self same people who’ve fucked you over before, they’re not the problem, you are.
” if you keep voting for the self same people who’ve fucked you over before, they’re not the problem, you are.”
Yes, precisely this.
A commenter on Archbishop Cranmer says this is the first election where he hopes the winners, absolutely regardless of party, do not implement most of their promises. Somewhat similar remarks, at least to the effect of great disbelief that anyone’s spending promises will be implemented, appear elsewhere (including BBC news interviews of the public). Arguably, high spending parties would suffer more than moderate-spending ones from such scepticism – but in seats where the Brexit party has stood down I’m not sure which party is in that latter category.
Cranmer’s commenters are a varied (sometimes intemperate) lot but they can be funny, e.g. Labour’s broadband pledge: “bringing the world-wide-web to the well-bribed pleb.” I also liked (you will understand how the word ‘like’ is qualified here):
So all non-Brexit supporters on here please explain how handing remain to the remainiacs somehow helps us or the UK . And how –if you put Jizz in –he is going to be got out again regardless of the harm he does given that he has already demonstrated utter contempt for democracy–like the Marxist shitehouse he is. Too many fools who seem to think they have charmed lives and will be above the horrific mess they are helping to cause.
In WW1 there was an intellectual naïve concept of being “all over by Christmas”.
No one now is that intellectually naïve and can calculate the shite they are helping to bring on.
But there is a kind of naïve emotionalism. Folk recognise Reality is how it IS rather than how they think it SHOULD be. But their response is to make utterly destructive emotional gestures –which –if enough do so–will make everything far,far worse than it is in a manner that will be likely unfixable. As if their bitterness and their nursing of emotional pain will compensate them for the pool of boiling shite they insist on stepping into up to their necks. And dragging the rest of us with them. Like some character during WW2 who insists he has had enough of it all and therefore is going to insist that he sits with the blackout curtains open so he can look at his night-garden. And if a shit load of bombs land on him and his neighbours that is just too bad.
Making everything much worse is NOT any sort of road to making them better. Not in our lifetimes. Please reconsider. Vote tactically and plan for a future where polipigs don’t matter so much. THAT FUTURE DOES NOT START WITH JIZZ AS PM AND THE EU AND THEIR REMAINIAC CREATURES EXULTANT WITH TRIUMPH.
Mr Ecks, if I thought voting Tory would get us Brexit, I’d vote Tory regardless of what I think of them.
If enough Brexit supporters don’t vote for Blojo it will bring us remain forever.
Voting Tory will get us over the OUT barrier on 31st Jan. The FTA deal is a point of danger. If every Brexit supporter wrote just ONE letter to Blojo assuring him that the slightest betrayal on his part will lead to widespread civil disobedience, civil unrest, the end of council tax and much worse that would do it. Yet rather than write one letter people seem more willing to hand the UK to the EU on a whim.
We will have MUCH more success in backing down Johnson’s gang alone than we will the entire shower of EU shite. Please reconsider Mr PdeH. Vote as one last attempt to do the right thing via the ballot box. If Blojo betrays then the boxes need throwing away.
Mr. X — A letter-writing campaign will make Boris the Unreliable toe the line? Really?
Mr. Farage seemed to be one of the few people in political life anywhere in the world who had both a firm objective and a spine. Yet Mr. Farage threw in the towel and turned the Brexit Party into an ineffective wholly-owned subsidiary of the Establishment Tory Party. Think about it! If the UK Establishment can do that to a rock-ribbed man like Mr. Farage, what can they do to a weathervane like Boris the Unreliable?
The Establishment does not want No Deal Brexit, and they are making sure it will not happen. The Tories will likely end up with a majority, and Boris will deliver a weak form of Brexit In Name Only which the Establishment can live with. And Parliament will not address Brexit again for a generation.
How did it work out for old Ethelred when he held his nose and paid Danegeld, telling himself this would be the last time? If you want to change the direction of governance in the UK (and you seem to be sincere about that), holding your nose and voting for the same old liars is not going to achieve it.
Didn’t read your hobbyist’s comment Longmuir. If you had something personal to lose I might have bothered–but you are just playing yourself over here like some kid at the beach with a bucket and spade.
Step back and look at the big picture, Mr. X. There are analogs around the world of what the UK Political Class has done to Brexit. 80% of US citizens say they have had enough of Political Correctness, yet the Political Class carries on delivering Political Correctness. Democratically-elected Catalonian leaders have been jailed by the Spanish Political Class. Hong Kong — where they are still at the Ecksian ‘tanks in the streets’ level and have not quite reached the letter writing stage yet.
Many countries around the world are struggling with the limitations of modern universal suffrage democracy, and the Big Intrusive Unresponsive Governments it cannot seem to control. You are not alone in your struggle! It would be wonderful if the UK could show the world something better than dutifully voting for the same old crew and hoping for a better result than before.
Mr. Ecks, just as y’all win or lose based on our elections, we in the USA win or lose based on yours. It’s all connected.
Mr. dH, take your ballot form and place an X next to the names of the two candidates most likely to win. Then, as your act of voting, erase the X next to the name of the candidate you dislike the most.
That way, you can feel pure while not helping to establish the rule of the Visigoths.
This is a debate that we have previously seen on Samizdata, of course; and probably it started before i started reading Samizdata regularly.
I used to take the view that NORMALLY one should vote for the lesser evil; that is, unless there is a damn good reason to believe that abstaining will be better in the long term. I now have more sympathy for the de Havilland position, since i have come to believe that, in the long term, Obama was probably the lesser evil, compared to McCain or Romney.
Having said that, how is this relevant to a UK election?
In a UK election, one must certainly keep in mind the party leader, but in principle one votes for a constituency representative. It seems to me that decisions should be based to a large extent on who the candidates are for your constituency — and also on what their chances are.
If you don’t like your Tory MP, it’s too bad that you can’t vote for the Brexit Party, but you can cast a symbolic vote for Margaret Thatcher.
An additional thought: if you think that there is a serious chance that Labour will win, then maybe you should sell off all the real estate that you own in the UK.
Snorri — as a piece of historical research, you might like to find a copy of the song “Taxman” by the Beatles, who were big back in the 1960s. Close listening will reveal that the highly-taxed successful Beatles were just as afraid of Conservatives politicians as they were of Labour politicians.
Listening to the reports of the various wibblings from hopeful parties on the radio, I came to another firm decision. I will not give my vote to any party who wants to spend a single penny on “Tackling Climate Change”.
Thank you Mr Ecks. We could do without emotional virtue signalling by Brexit supporters in this election. A Corbyn government would be unspeakable.
I will vote Tory. I like my local MP, and I prefer BoJo to the alternative.
The Tories were nearly an ex-party in the summer. They might still be complete untrustworthy chumps, but the did some pretty fast turn arounds, dumping Theresa out of fear and pulling out relatively popular Boris.
I have made the mistake of assuming the enemy is an implacable know all and wondering what to do.
but it was a clear error. Look how hard the whole establishment has had to work and they still haven’t yet shirked their way out of BREXIT.
They could have Brino’d through Bojo’s deal in October and didn’t.
They aren’t United or particularly clever.
British democracy is battered, bruised and abused right now, but we are all sitting round discussing it like it still matters and democracy is just a psychological trick, like free enterprise. It only works because we think it works.
So the enemy is weak and divided. Democracy still can work because we believe it can despite it opposing forces.
Labour’s spending plans and general Venezuelarising is insane. The Lib dems are offering.Nothing Liberal or Democratic. The SNP are still Britain’s national socialists.
So the question should be with a handful of days to go, how do we simple freedom types scare the Tories / CBI / Remoaners into honouring democracy?
Cancelling the telly tax payments by six million would do it? Anyone able to get the message out to the Brexit party, for Britain or whomever that a sudden six million person drop tax payers / service users for the BBC’s extreme bias would be powerful.
What else instead or as well can Brexiteers boycott to keep Bojo honest? Which super market is most Remoaner supporting? Which leccie supplier? Which farmers, could we buy NZ or British instead of French / German? Which fuel brands? Which banks? It doesn’t have to be complicated or clever, just something we can amplify across Gab, Twitter, blogs etc…….
Anything at the ballot box needs millions of people coordinated, mere boycotts work with tens of thousands?
If we keep staring at our navels and crying the the establishment are complete bastards but do nothing else and let a Labour led coalition of Remoaners in, we deserve our sunless Venezuela.
Again thank you, Mr Ecks for kicking me out of my own funk……
Itellyounothing — Stop and think for a moment. If the Tory Party was really conservative, they would have eliminated the BBC license fee years ago. That tells you all you need to know about who you are trusting to deliver BRINO.
Politicians respond to VOTES. A telly tax non-payment campaign or an Exksian letter writing campaign will affect the behavior of politicians only if they believe that failing to pay attention to that public clamor will cost them actual votes.
If UK politicians really believed there was a solid block of 17 million voters who would cast their votes solely on the issue of getting real Brexit, then we would not be having this discussion. Clearly, politicians think that only a small minority of the famous 17 million are hard core, and most of them will grumble a bit and then fall back into their accustomed voting tribes. And if the polls are accurate, the politicians were correct in that judgment.
The unsatisfactory choices are — be satisfied with Boris’s BRINO (probably further watered down after there is a Tory majority in Parliament), or vote tactically to frighten incumbent lukewarm or anti-Brexit MPs. When life gives us lemons …
Gavin, you are right.
The question to be asked is not who to vote for.
It’s how to make them deliver.
You criticize Brexiteers for giving up on victory before supporting it.
You are right.
Letting the establishment know we won’t hurt their interests when they lie is poor negotiating.
A few hundred thousand people cancelling their telly tax means it will rise on the rest. Perfect. It’s hurts remained interests.
The left protests and boycotts to take ground. Why shouldn’t others?
Politicians pretend to respect votes at elections, like you pointed out.
They give in to protests that hurt their own or their donors interests all the time.
PdH: “they will see every vote for them as proof the ‘Conservative’ Party can do what it did for the last 3 years without consequence”
Yes, this. I live in a Tory safe seat so I at least have the luxury of sending a (tiny) message.