It was Not a Leave Versus Remain Campaign

If this was the Brexit General Election, then it hasn’t balanced the Leave versus Remain argument. It has been, rather, a contest of Leave the European Union versus a whole bunch of policies – because we’ve had Boris Johnson and his ‘Get Brexit done’ lie of a slogan versus Jeremy Corbyn and his neutral stance.

Some photos of children in hospitals have given a sideways shove to the control exercised through the Tory election machine – notice how the press do their duty with the same fed stories. It may help to show the truth against the consistent spin and claims: Johnson so far has got away with it.

Jo Swinson hasn’t been able to compete. She can’t get a look-in, or rather when she does it is along with a jumble of others. Nevertheless, the actual Brexit division, leave versus remain, may be happening at constituency level, begun by the Brexit Party deflating its own tyres. The result is that as support for this party declines, the Brexit vote coheres and the remain vote looks split, because Labour can, via its other agenda, attract some remainers. The Liberal Democrats have also been hampered by their reputation for participating in austerity, for which they have only themselves to blame. Jo Swinson’s apology for measures attacking the poor sounds as hollow as the apologies for dumping free tuition fees once in government. The anti-austerity agenda is as much about what has happened as what will happen.

Nevertheless, the voting options are narrow. If I still lived in New Holland, I would have to vote Labour. This is despite being culturally, intellectually, and politically, Liberal. In East Hull, I can help build the Liberal Democrat vote in a safe Labour seat.

Or at least I thought so. There is a chance that the Tories could win even in a place like East Hull. So should I now vote Labour? I think the answer is no, because if the Tories do win in East Hull then they would be on an incredible landslide anyway. So I think I have the luxury of a first choice vote – one to waste. This is again the issue of First Past the Post, a rotten system when there are four parties, and one that has been upheld in the media campaign to squeeze out the remain case.

Seeing this, I’ll vote for remain. I think. I don’t like the local Labour candidate, and did say I would not vote for him. But I am not wholly decided yet. I don’t like State Socialism as a means to solve problems, but I accept we need to solve them and do need some rebalancing in the economy. I don’t find the Corbyn political office effective, and it suggests incompetence in governing. But it couldn’t be as bad as the present shower in office, devoid as it is of an ethical heart – it is heartless and lying is to be expected.

I’ll likely vote Liberal Democrat but do so despite the campaign and not because of it, in how it actually failed to make an impact.

Liberal and Thoughtful Website creator; critical examiner of social sciences and theology, religious liberal, ‘terror blogger’.