Political Pacts are Cheating the Electorate

Since the election was announced a little over two weeks ago, there have been some big movements in the area of political pacts. With the Remain Alliance instigated between the Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid Cymru and the Brexit party making its own unilateral alliance, some voters find themselves abandoned.

As with everything nowadays, Brexit plays a huge part in this election. On the remain side, three parties, the Green’s, Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru have formed a remain alliance in over 60 seats across the UK. In practice, this means that in each seat, they are all throwing their weight behind the party with the best chance to win in a bid to get strong remain candidates into Parliament.

This may seem noble to some: politicians putting aside their ambitions and views for the greater good of a Britain in Europe,.However Brexit is just the tip of the iceberg of political issues facing the British public. An election is not a referendum and uniting behind a single issue such as Brexit leaves voters who also care about other issues lost.

But isn’t Brexit all that matters? Isn’t Brexit the issue that will define our lives forever? The jury is still out but no issue is big enough to compromise all your values for. This may seem a bit dramatic but let me paint a picture.

Imagine you are a Green voter, passionate about the environment and excited about strong socialist policies. Under this alliance, you are now inexplicably being pushed to vote for the Lib Dems and Jo Swinson. The same Lib Dems who were in bed with an austerity addicted Tory monster. The same party who supported the bedroom tax, benefit cuts and universal credit. The real kick in the face is the Lib Dems environmental record: voting to sell forests, encourage fracking and reduce subsidies for renewable energy.

In over 40 seats, the Greens have vanished into thin air, leaving the Tory-lite Lib Dems with a rather abhorrent policy record in charge. Clearly, the Greta Thunberg’s of Britain will definitely not be voting Lib Dem on December 12th. Many will probably vote Labour. But is all this political reshuffling worth it for a couple of percentage points more towards a remain candidate who already has little chance of winning for a party which has even less chance of getting an overall majority. If this remain alliance had the ability to change who would be our next prime minister, maybe this would all be worthwhile but for having such a small impact, compromising core party issues is really disappointing and disenfranchising genuinely passionate Green voters.

On the other side of the chasm, there is the Brexit Party. This week, their king, Nigel Farage, made his own leave alliance. He decided not to field candidates in seats where there is a sitting Conservative member of parliament. This is a sensible decision and will reduce the chances of a split leave vote allowing remain candidates to sneak in. Brexit is of course Nigel Farage’s raison d’etre. We can only hope that after it is all resolved in the year 2054, he will simply vanish into a puff of smoke. This election presents a real route for a second referendum which could end up halting Brexit. So, for him, making sure leave MPs sit on the benches in the House of Commons is key.

The oven ready Brexit deal which Johnson is pinning much of his campaigning on was initially rejected by Farage who called it a “reheating of Mrs May’s EU Treaty”. Farage continued to be very critical of Johnson and called for an unequivocal pledge for a no deal Brexit. Many voters agreed with this and saw his Brexit Party as the only option for a real Brexit. By taking themselves off the ballot, the Brexit Party is restricting the choice of the electorate. Voters who were inspired by the party’s pledge of a real clean Brexit are now being mugged off and told to vote for the Tories and their soft Brexit.

Similarly, with the Lib Dems, the actual impact on the outcome of the election of this decision is not certain. The Conservatives really need to win seats if they want a majority, and in many seats, they would potentially win were a Brexit Party candidate not standing. So is this fundamental shift in policy for the Brexit Party worth it for the little returns it could yield.

Although the Green voters being pushed to the Lib Dems and the Brexit voters who are being told to vote Tory have very little in common in terms of politics, they are both being left in the dust. These groups are being cheated as they can no longer vote for what they truly believe in. This entire issue stems from the outdated electoral system but in a way, these parties who would like to see it reformed, are simply caving in. If all parties had ran everywhere the result of this election would probably have been very weird due to the vote splitting it would cause. However, such a result could have presented an even stronger case for reform and proportional representation.

I feel sorry for these voters who may feel lost and I can only tell them one thing: Vote Labour.