- Tuesday, April 23, 2024
By: Eastern Eye Staff
by GINA MILLER
ON June 23, 2016, nobody voted for Nigel Farage to become Prime Minister.
Still, while poll after poll has shown the British public turning against Brexit in ever greater numbers, that is the horrific prospect now ahead of us.
Yes, the man you saw on Andrew Marr’s show last weekend reacting with such fury when confronted with his own reckless and irresponsible words becoming Prime Minister of this great country.
With both the Labour and Tory parties in chaos and haemorrhaging support, Mr Farage and his well-funded Brexit Party machine is the single obvious receptacle for the hard right vote. He has no manifesto, nothing constructive to say, but his message is simple enough: everything that has gone wrong with Brexit is everyone else’s fault.
We know the remain vote is now the majority, but their votes are, by contrast, in danger of being divided in the all-important EU elections on May 23 because the pro-EU parties missed the deadline to form an alliance between Change UK, the Greens, Lib Dems, SNP and Plaid Cymru that would have seen them put aside short term party politics for the national interest.
If they won’t come together, the voters have to and in a smart, unemotional and strategic way come together and tactically vote to fight Farage and a Brexit Party that doesn’t believe in manifestos, policies or institutions – just a state of never-ending chaos.
I therefore commissioned independent and respected pollsters and analysts at Electoral Calculus to get together with ComRes to use ‘machine learning’ – the latest algorithmic method available that is also known as MRP – to identify the single pro-EU party most likely to win in each and every constituency in the country.
Machine learning is not a wonder drug for all polling’s ills, but it is a significant improvement to classic polling which applies insights from other industries to help re-establish public trust in political research. And the other important message Remain United is sending out is, above all things, to vote. A low remain turnout will assuredly benefit the Brexit Party, so even if you are unsure of which pro-EU party to vote for, you must vote for a strong pro-remain party, which means not voting Labour unless they take a definitive and unambiguous stance on remaining in the EU or backing a confirmatory vote in all circumstances and with all options, before 23 May.
When the results from these independent organisations landed on my desk, stating clearly how to increase the overall number of pro-EU MEPs being elected, I knew immediately they were going to annoy a lot of the people and parties I admire, not least the Green Party. I was adamant, however, that at Remain United the data would be king and we duly published the tactical voting recommendations we had received.
One of the worst unintended consequences of winning the fight for a confirmatory referendum or a ‘remain and reform’ outcome, is that the MEPs elected on May 23 will be our representatives in the EU Parliament for the next five years.
We must do everything that we can to reduce the chances of a band of Brexit MEPs sitting with other anti-EU MEPs from other member states with their sinister alt right agendas and set on destroying the EU from within. I am determined that we on the remain side must now get our act together because of the utter national humiliation that will come from mob being – as Jacob Rees-Mogg has conceded – as possible.
There were predictable cries of ‘how can you do this to the Green Party?,’ ‘I’ve always voted Labour and I’m sure they’ll see sense eventually’ or ‘how can you use the word ‘united’ in your name and back the SNP which wants independence for Scotland?’ but this is not a time for compromise or to worry about the diplomatic niceties, it’s a hard-nosed fight to hit back at a hard Brexit-backing insurgence.
Of course I do not support independence for Scotland, but the SNP has been shown to be the dominant pro-Remain party in Scotland and for that reason I can’t suppress the result and can only say let’s leave the issue of Scottish independence for another day. We know Labour’s position on Brexit only too well, and, as for the Greens, no one who cares about the environment should do anything to divide the vote and thereby increase the likelihood of the Brexiteers – who necessarily can’t acknowledge climate change as it can only be addressed internationally – getting still more power.
The EU elections matter as never before.
A lacklustre showing from the divided pro-EU parties will, fairly or unfairly, be taken as a sign that the country wants to embrace Mr Farage and the grim vision he has for our country: a place where the NHS, so far from receiving £350 million a week in extra funding, will be privatised and sold off in chunks to rich American financiers and where treatment will only be possible with health insurance; a place where his rich friends and backers will be able to amass ever greater fortunes at the expense of their employees and customers as they relax rules, regulations and protections; a country where it won’t be a good idea to be a member of a minority faith or weak or poor or ill or gay or old or foreign as Mr Farage sets about aiding and abetting Mr Trump as he re-shapes the world.
The thought of that nightmare becoming a reality makes me focussed on outcomes not the sensibilities of remain politicians or their supporters who think I should side with them or massage the data to their advantage. The defeat of Mr Farage and what he represents is all that matters now. This is why I am not too proud to beg you all to turn out on May 23, to vote tactically if you are willing, but above all things just to VOTE!
Gina Miller’s tactical voting website can be found at www.remainunited.org
