Tactical nominations unlikely to fool voters
Some politicians seem to think they can determine the result of the general election before anyone has even voted. A Remain alliance, featuring the Lib Dems, the Greens and Plaid Cymru, has sought to carve up the electoral map between them, agreeing not to oppose each other in selected seats. In Canterbury, meanwhile, the Lib Dem candidate stood down in order to help the Labour incumbent, believing her to have the best chance of defeating the Tories. Nigel Farage said yesterday that he was sticking to his plan to run candidates in around 300 oppositionheld constituencies, despite pleas from some Conservatives for him to narrow his ambitions.
The deadline for candidates to submit their nomination papers is this afternoon and, understandably, some voters are concerned that they will be denied a real choice because the party they support is not standing in their constituency. The truth is that, like tactical voting in the past, such manoeuvrings are unlikely to have an enormous effect on the eventual result. All the political parties are grappling with an electorate in a nearly unprecedented state of flux, with old tribal loyalties broken down by Brexit. Such a backdrop makes predictions about how voters will respond to constituency-level stitch-ups almost impossible to make with any confidence.
In any case, voters are persuaded by arguments, not tactical ploys dreamt up by political strategists in Westminster. Jeremy Corbyn’s case for Labour is a hysterical mix of scaremongering about the NHS and envy-fuelled assaults on free-market capitalism, all the better to obscure his party’s appalling muddle on Brexit and his own disturbing views on foreign policy matters. What do Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats stand for? Beyond an illiberal and undemocratic commitment to nullify the result of the 2016 referendum, it is not obvious.
Only the Conservatives have a compelling story to tell, an optimistic vision of the UK outside the EU, and with a Withdrawal Agreement that would deliver on the will of the people in an orderly fashion within months. It is also a vision that has propelled the Tories up in the opinion polls since the disastrous EU elections earlier this year, and arguably forced Mr Farage’s hand this week when he decided to stand down his party in Conservative seats. Once the candidate lists are finalised, the voters can be trusted to judge the quality of the argument for each party for themselves.