If Chris Davies’ former constituency elects a progressive MP, it WON’T be a Liberal Democrat
Appropriate: Liberal Democrat Jane Dodds’ leaflet in the best place I could find for it – my cat’s litter tray.
The debate about how to avoid a right-wing MP in the Brecon and Radnorshire constituency of disgraced former Tory Chris Davies began the instant he was ousted by a Parliamentary recall petition – and Liberal Democrats are pushing hard for their candidate, Jane Dodds.
There are just two problems: This would be replacing one right-winger with another, and it would be an attempt to install a ‘Remain’-supporting MP in a ‘Leave’-voting constituency.
Here’s the most recent ‘Political Compass’ graph showing the attitudes of the main UK political parties:
It’s from 2017 but the positions of the main parties haven’t changed. The Brexit Party would be firmly on the “right-wing/authoritarian” axis.
It seems no coincidence that the Liberal Democrat leaflet (pretending to be a newspaper) posted through This Writer’s letterbox today had nothing to say about Liberal Democrat political views or what they would do with an MP.
Let’s look at Parliamentary arithmetic: The House of Commons has 650 elected MPs, of whom seven are members of Sinn Fein who choose not to take their seats or vote. That means there are only 643 active MPs, one of whom is the Speaker. So we’re down to 642. The Conservatives have 312 of those MPs, and are currently in a confidence-and-supply arrangement with the Democratic Unionist Party (also right-wing/authoritarian) who have 10 MPs. That gives them a majority of three MPs in Parliament; the other parties and independents total 319 and the Brecon and Radnorshire seat is vacant.
Another Liberal Democrat won’t make much difference – unless they offer to go into coalition with the Conservatives again.
Meanwhile, in Brecon and Radnorshire, cruel Tory policies – initiated with the support of Liberal Democrats – are biting hard with services cut to the bone. Schools are suffering tremendous budget pressures. Social Services are falling apart. And Universal Credit is making the safety net disappear for those that are poorly paid or without work.
You wouldn’t think that, though, if you read the comments from the LDs on a Facebook group called Powys Progressive Alliance.
According to these members, the Liberal Democrats represent the only viable alternative to the Tories or the Brexit Party (which doesn’t even have any policies at all, yet), because they “have taken a few Labour voters cos of Brexit plus they already had a decent base here”, or “it’s easier to get disillusioned Tories to vote Lib Dem than Corbyn’s Labour”.
Here’s a cracking howler: “To get Labour to win you have to convince Lib Dems to vote Labour. To get Lib Dems in you have to convince Tories to vote Lib Dem. This second choice is a better/ easier / higher chance of success tactic (if your aim is to stop a Tory MP). You are not going to convince many Tories to vote Labour.” In which case, why are these Liberal Democrats trying to persuade genuine progressives from Labour, Plaid and the Greens to vote for them, rather than working on the Tories?
None of them have suggested that the Liberal Democrats could change their policies to make them more acceptable for genuine left-wingers. They would remain an authoritarian, right-wing party with authoritarian, right-wing policies, and would simply be asking people like This Writer to lend them enough votes to beat the Tories and the Brexit Party – in order, most likely, to allow them to go into another coalition to the Tories.
I’m not here to further Lib Dem ambitions for power, bought with the betrayal of Brecon and Radnorshire – again.
In any case, Brecon and Radnorshire is a ‘Leave’ constituency and that skews every vote further even than the tactical voting we’ve seen here in the past.
In the recent past, voters have turned to the Liberal Democrats because they have merrily sold us the unicorn of a chance to stay in the European Union – that simply won’t happen. The LDs picked up one European Parliament seat after another with this lie. They knew that the EU Parliament can’t vote to stop Brexit; it simply doesn’t have any power in that respect. But that’s what they told the public.
In the Westminster Parliament, as previously stated, the Liberal Democrats have just 13 MPs and one more won’t make a blind bit of difference.
The fact is that, no matter what happens in Brecon and Radnorshire, the UK is set to leave the EU – because that was the decision of the UK’s people as a whole.
Under the Conservatives, who want to leave with a deal that helps Conservatives and harms everyone else, ordinary voters like those in Brecon and Radnorshire will be harmed badly.
The Brexit Party would leave without any deal with the EU, causing even worse harm to voters (not that this is likely, even if that organisation did manage to scrape a single MP in this constituency).
As matters stand, the best – and most realistic – plan for Brexit is Labour’s. This would demand that any deal decided in Parliament – along with no deal and the possibility of remaining in the EU – would be put back to the people in a confirmatory referendum.
A vote for Labour would be a vote for a sensible solution to the Brexit dilemma – and would signal clear support for policies that 70 per cent of the people of the UK want, according to polls: Re-nationalised public services; a properly-funded, publicly-provided National Health Service; high environmental standards; high standards of goods such as groceries; a decent standard of living for everybody.
But that won’t mean anything if the signal Labour sends out is jammed by the noise of “Labour can’t win here!” and “Only the Lib Dems can stop the Tories/Brexit Party!”
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Corbyn: “What this party does is supports an agreement with the European Union to prevent crashing out, supports putting that proposal, when agreed, to a public vote” – 26 words, 127 characters.
LibDems – “Bollocks to Brexit” – 3 words, 18 characters.
A hint from the past:
“The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.” ― Adolf Hitler
I suspect that Brecon and Radnorshire may be influenced by slogans. We shall see?
This is my fear.
Labour has won two seats in Leave voting areas this year, one in Wales and they also won Peterborough against all the odds. Their success was based on issues that were important to people and directly affected their lives, rather than Brexit on.