Like Jamie Greene, Graham Simpson chooses to retain a list seat at Holyrood despite having defected to a party that ran a list against the Conservative one on which he was elected. We can all see why the 45-year-old Greene has joined the Liberal Democrats, but has the 61-year-old Simpson joined Reform UK because it wanted, as it purportedly does, to scrap the two-child benefit cap while renationalising steel?
Do Reform voters' PIP assessors know that they are climbing lampposts to hoist Union and Saint George's Flags? The frequent flying of those Union Flags upside down is because they were made in China. And what do they mean? Simpson campaigned to remove the protection against double jeopardy. Having been Michael Howard's Minister of State when he began to shred civil liberties in a bidding war with Tony Blair, Ann Widdecombe was the only Conservative MP to vote with Gordon Brown for 42-day detention without charge.
The voters for whom Reform longs are heading to the Greens in a growing number of places, headed to Labour in a significant number of places last year, and are heading to the Lib Dems all over the place. Ed Davey has been a Member of Parliament for 26 of the last 28 years. He is a former Cabinet Minister. He knows that Donald Trump has never heard of him. But his existing and target voters have heard of Trump.
And there are those who think that Trump has sold out. That can no longer make any electoral difference to him, and those people's new hero, Elon Musk, is ineligible to be President of the United States. But electoral difference can still be made to Nigel Farage, and Musk's anointed representatives in Britain are Ben Habib, Rupert Lowe and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, each of whom is many things, but none of whom is ineligible for election to the House of Commons. Think on.
Four years to go, all to play for.
ReplyDeleteAt both ends, if you think that way.
DeletePlenty of people are not impressed with Your Party, saying it's Corbynism 2.0 and will end the same way. If Advance UK got of the ground all bets would be off for trying to squeeze that many parties into FPTP.
DeleteWhich of her former views has Audrey Dempsey recanted? Politically, what does she have in common with Graham Simpson or Thomas Kerr?
DeleteBut being a welcome wagon can be effective. Ignored by the media, and therefore unforgivably unscrutinised, the populist vehicle of another populus is tearing through the South and the deep countryside. It already carries 72 MPs.
One of the Gaza Independents also used to be aboard it. But if they and similar had no appeal beyond Muslims (that is not the case, but what if it were?), then how would that be an electoral obstacle if, as we were constantly told, Britain were in the midst of an Islamic takeover?