Some observations on tactical voting in the forthcoming General Election

The first and most obvious is this. If you say you are a Remainer, or if you understand the nightmare that No Deal will create, or want to end the threat to democracy this government is, you have to vote tactically. The converse is also true. If you don’t vote tactically, you by your actions are supporting a No Deal Brexit. You will be partly responsible for a No Deal Brexit.

If you want a Brexit that does not involve crashing out, you might tell yourself that the only way of getting a good deal is to keep No Deal on the table. But it is obvious by now that Johnson has no intention of even trying to get a deal, because he knows the EU will not budge on the need to prevent a hard border in Ireland. Amber Rudd in her resignation letter made that clear, as have many other Conservatives. If Johnson wins an election you can be sure we will leave with No Deal.

Tactical voting is second best. The first best thing to do is for Labour and the Liberal Democrat/Green alliance to cooperate, much as Farage will almost certainly do with the Conservatives. There are tons of seats where Labour have no chance to win, and plenty where the Liberal Democrats cannot win. In the current poll of polls, Labour are static on 25% and the LibDems are static on below 20%. The idea that during an election the LibDems and Labour could swap places is fantasy, and in contrast there are good reasons for thinking Labour may make some gains during the campaign. It makes no sense for the LibDes not to cooperate, and then end up with a government that will crash us out of the EU because people voted LibDem in lots of Lab/Con marginals.

Equally the potential gains to Labour in cooperating are huge, as this FT article shows. Under current polling Labour would get about 220 seats and the Tories just under 350. If the LibDems stood down in Lab/Con marginals Labour could get nearly 300 seats, beating the Conservatives. A belief that Labour will make similar gains during the election campaign as they did in 2017 is almost certainly false. May ran a terrible campaign, Cummings will not. He will employ all the social media tricks he used to win the EU referendum vote and more. In contrast to 2017, many will not vote Labour because of the antisemitism issue. Why risk the certainty of gains under cooperation for more risky options?

Unfortunately I see no signs that this kind of cooperation will happen. The Conservatives can cooperate with the Brexit party because the Brexit party is under the complete control of Farage and the Conservative party is now under the complete control of Cummings/Johnson. Both Labour and the LibDems are more democratic, and resistance to cooperation remains high. 

In addition the LibDem leadership fears that because Tory voters believe the 'Corbyn as devil' meme, they will not switch to the LibDems if they cooperate with Labour. It does not matter that non-cooperation means far more Labour seats will be lost than LibDem seats gained, increasing greatly the chances of a Johnson victory: party advantage is more important than stopping No Deal. So we have to presume that cooperation between the LibDems and Labour over seats will not happen. (In contrast, LibDem cooperation with expelled Tories seems acceptable.)

Which is why voters are going to have to do what politicians will fail to do, and vote tactically. The People’s Vote and other Remain campaigns understand that, and will be campaigning and helping with tactical voting. In most cases what to do is obvious: vote LibDem where the LibDems can realistically beat the Conservatives and vote Labour where Labour are more likely to beat the Conservatives.

The key point that I want to make is that the goal has to be to elect a Labour government, which realistically will be a minority Labour government. If that victory is more than marginal, Brexit will end one way or another. Those who say they cannot trust Corbyn on Brexit, or that Corbyn is really a Brexiter, are falling for media propaganda. There is no way Corbyn, even if he wanted to which I doubt, could go back on his commitment to hold a referendum. The trick is to hold a referendum in such a way that Remain are sure to win, and that means not having No Deal as the other option.

In contrast a minority Conservative government would do everything it can to avoid that outcome, and with Labour Leave MPs they will probably have the votes to do so. In that case Remainers would be relying on the patience of parliament and the EU which will be severely tested over five years.A more probable outcome if Labour do badly is a majority Johnson/Cummings administration. Every LibDem attacking Labour are encouraging this outcome. 

This point is important when deciding who to tactically vote for in difficult cases. If the contest is between a Labour Remainer and an independent, where the former can realistically win, then it makes sense to vote Labour because it increases the chances of a Labour government. However if that Labour MPs supports Leave, the decision is reversed, because we need a majority of MPs supporting a referendum whoever is in power. In a contest between a Leave Labour MP and a Conservative Leaver, then it is obviously important to vote for the Labour MP, because they increase the chance of a Labour led government.

Whether enough voters vote tactically in this way will determine the future of Brexit. We have, at last, a sure way of ending this nightmare of the last three years, and I fear if we don’t take it all those campaigns and every march will have been for nothing. I also fear for democracy under this government, which has shut down parliament to stifle accountability and will no doubt do so again. This could be the last chance to end Brexit and save the United Kingdom as we know it. We have to take that chance.