The least-worst

The election, then.

It’s a strange one. All elections have their oddities, but this one more than most: everyone claims they don’t really want it, but we’ve got it anyway; the parties are campaigning on all sorts of policy announcements, but we all know its about Brexit. In my case, casting my vote is essentially by picking the least worst, and that is, for me, decided by simple calculation at the consituency level.

The first election I was able to vote in was in May 1979, when Callaghan’s Labour government was defeated by Thatcher’s Conservatives. I voted Labour in that election and at almost every one subsequently. I have said for some time now that I will not vote Labour again while Jeremy Corbyn or his outriders have control of party and policy. Having said that, were I in, for example, Birmingham Yardley or Leicester West, I’d vote for Jess Philips or Liz Kendall without hesitation.

But I’m not in either of those constituencies, I’m in Edinburgh West which, these days, is Lib. Dem/SNP marginal. When I first came here it was held by the Lord James Douglas-Hamilton for the Conservatives (on old consituency boundaries). I don’t like the Lib. Dems. I don’t like the enthusiasm with which they propped up the first Cameron government and its economic illiteracies; I don’t like their casual approach to presentation of statistics in election advertising; and I don’t like their technocratic approach to policy. In fact they have only one thing in their favour in this constituency–they’re not the SNP.

A couple of posts back, David McGovern left a comment regarding respecting the result of the Brexit referendum if you don’t agree with the the outcome. This is something I considered here in July 2016 and here.

We’re now three and a half years, two general elections and three Conservative leaders distant from the referendum. What the passing of time and circumstance has made clear is that the referendum result was for a principle and direction but devoid of any meaningful detail on the practical outcome. To the extent that the promoters of the policy did specify detail, they have been shown to be wrong. I think respecting the result of the referendum in the abstract is one thing, but accepting it in the abstract does not entail accepting any old bullshit that May or Johnson put before us.

So my vote this time will be going the same way as last time, but for slightly different reasons. I want to vote to reject the version of Brexit that the hard-right of the Conservatives is promoting, and I’m not interested in Corbynistas. So my choice is either Lib. Dem. or SNP (the Greens in Scotland are just the SNP with allotments). That makes the Lib. Dems. a pragmatic, if unenthusiastic, choice as the least-worst.