We’re winning over voters with our stance on Brexit

- Claire Blackman before the release of her husband, Marine Alexander Blackman, whose prison sentence for killing a Taliban fighter was reduced by the Appeal Court. “I think there’s this way where technology can dehumanise and it’s like they are saying something about someone who isn’t there. But I am there and I am real so I have to create some distance. Retaining your sanity in this industry is everything, so I care about it a lot” IN the first days of this General Election we’ve had many people wishing us luck and telling us, without asking, that they intend to vote for us.

We believe that this is because we have a good track record locally as councillors and we have a clearly different stance than both the Conservatives and Labour on Brexit.

Both these parties have voted together to trigger Article 50, to pursue a hard Brexit. This is far from progressive and why we have ruled out doing any deals with either party.

Yet we are now faced with the demand from local Labour supporters that we should simply stand aside in the forthcoming General Election to give them a clear field.

We are experiencing this as bullying and threatening behaviour with tones of “if we don’t win, we’ll blame you for getting in our way.”

We are also surprised that a professor (of social policy) believes that people who choose to vote Liberal Democrat may automatically vote Labour if there is no Liberal Democrat candidate (or a passive campaign). This is simply not true.

Voters are switching from both the Conservatives and Labour to support us. This is because many people who voted to remain in the European Union want a party that is going to speak up for their values and fight in Parliament to give voters a say on whether they want to accept the Brexit deal.

We expect that when people see the reality of the Brexit deal, see the companies leaving the UK, see the increased prices in the supermarkets, and more, they will want a say on whether we, as a country, accept it.

Only by voting Liberal Democrat will you be able to have a say on the deal. Voting for any other party is giving power to politicians in Westminster to agree whatever Brexit deal they like.

We want a progressive alliance and that progressive alliance is called the European Union. If Labour is prepared to back a Tory hard Brexit we are prepared to be the real opposition to it.