A vote for Reform is a vote for Labour?

Politics at play – vote X, get Y

This post explores the notion, coined by the Conservative chairman, that voting for Reform in the 2024 General Election will put Labour in power. I would counter that it’s a ridiculous and desperate lie.

To be precise, Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden told Sky News that “It’s quite clear that a vote for Reform, all it’s going to do is help Keir Starmer get into Downing Street.”

This was very quickly taken up by other Tory MPs and morphed into the shorter and catchier “a vote for Reform is a vote for Labour.”

I’ll come back to why that’s a blatant lie shortly.

Funny, isn’t it?
It will be no surprise to some of you that I get laughed at by one segment of social media for saying this.
Usually, it should be noted, these naysayers are very active in news and political threads, typically only have one follower, claim to live abroad, and are fond of words like “Brexshit”, “gammon” and “EU”. In any given post, on say GB News, Darren Grimes, Reform UK, they won’t reply to one or two people but scores.
Some just ‘like’ mockingly with the laughing emoji, at everything, like a demented person. Others, botlike, paste the same sentence time after time, day after day, week after week.

Funny how logic escapes them, I think. And curious that they spent so much time on sites populated by people and views they seem to hate. I understand the whole ‘echo chamber’ concern, but seriously, the bile from some of them… They really need to get over losing the 2016 referendum, it’s been 8 years! Needless to say, if Brexit or Reform supporters approach their hallowed spaces (*cough Guardian*), packlike, they turn feral real fast.

The numbers don’t lie

Any attempt to dismiss this soundbyte is met with derision by many (too shortsighted to think for themselves).

Here’s the thing…

Firstly, factually, a vote for Reform is a vote for Reform. That’s the whole point of the ballot box. To claim otherwise is ludicrous.

Secondly, OK, I’m being too literal, pedantic even, so let’s look at the suggested meaning, that voting Reform will result in Labour winning the next general election.

This is the lie. Even a few seconds on Google will show you that it is a ridiculous and desperate claim, that is it a bare-faced lie.

One site I follow is that of Mark Pack, President of the Lib Dems. He has a page dedicated to collating the latest general election voting intention opinion polls (So, YouGov, etc.). Consistently, for many months now, the Conservative party has polled around 22 points behind Labour. Sometimes a bit better, sometimes a lot worse, but 22 points on average.

Put in more concrete terms, Labour are looking at getting 45% of all votes!

This translates into a predicted 479 seats, perhaps as many as 551 seats. In comparison, the predictions for the Conservatives are only 93 seats (and zero for Reform )

I’m not going to argue with the experts, but I’m thinking it pans out more like 400 for Labour, 120 for Conservatives, 40 for Reform.

The point is, however you spin this, with or without Reform splitting the vote, Labour are going to win by a landslide. It was ‘a done deal’ by last Christmas. All Sunak has done since is dig his hole deeper, desperately hoping for a win, somehow.

The truth of the matter

To paraphrase the Conservative chairman:

It’s quite clear that a vote for Reform, all it’s going to do is cost us (the Conservative party) even more seats. Keir Starmer gets into Downing Street either way.

So, it isn’t about stopping Labour getting in, it’s about making their utter defeat in the polls less humiliating!

THAT is the truth of the matter.

The latest Yougov figures:
Labour: 46% of all votes
Tories: 21% (down 25% from last GE)
…

The Conservatives are going to be destroyed. The Reform vote split just makes their losses so much worse.

Why are people too stupid to understand this?

 

Meanwhile, the Conservative’s continute to peddle the message on Facebook and social media, employing the Scooby gang (badly).

Here’s another, the text is more accurate, but still hides the lie: Keir Starmer knows that the more people who vote Reform, the more seats he will win in Parliament. The message is accurate, but the true meaning is ‘Keir Starmer knows that the more people who vote Reform, the more seats Conservatives lose as he wins in Parliament’.

Conservative party: “Keir Starmer needs you to vote for Reform on July 4th.

Labours voters nod and say, “Okie dokey then” and switch their vote to Reform

‘Things can only get better’ plays loudly in the background.

 

Ironically, perhaps, Reform turned this on it’s head with a message saying ‘Vote Tory, get Labour’. Peas of a pod, plus, if we are being fair, Reform’s Lee Anderson was Conservative too, though in his case he was shoved out, rather than leapt across. It’s even funnier and rather darker if you look into the rumours of why Natalie Elphicke crossed over. A number of other Tory MPs are crossing over just to save their hide, well their seat and all the plunder hidden within it!

---

People on social media are swallowing the spin

“My god this will be an absolute disaster for this county. If labour win a huge majority, then you can kiss goodbye to ever get rid of them. Voting age to 16. All non British allowed a vote. All illegals get to vote. All stacking the deck. If the country lets this happen then shame on them. Dont tell me to vote reform as that helping them.”

it is not a lie at all, just common sense, sadly lacking in reform votings case. If you split the vote of the two main parties one of them becomes a winner. And in this case if labour win by a huge majority we are F——-. And reform voters will help screw us.

As I pointed out at the start, polls consistently put Labour around 45% (up to 48%), with Tories hovering around 22%. At this point nothing will turn the tide and nothing can or will save the Conservatives. Maybe not as bad at this post suggest, but they will loose over 200 seat, perhaps even 300.

“A vote for Reform is a vote for Labour” is a lie, a desperate, panicking lie. It’s maths, not rocket science.

Now…

For instance, YouGov poll (May 7th-8th):
Labour: 48%
Conservatives: 18%
Reform UK: 13%

Even if 100% of Reform votes went to Tory (so combined 31%) it would make no difference. Labour get a landslide win.

Also, because of First Past the Post, rigged as it is, even getting 31% of the total votes doesn’t guarantee the Conservatives will win a single seat.

I mean, sure, probabilistically speaking, I reckon it will translates to about 180 seats (or say 130 for Tory, 50 for Reform), but Labour’s majority is still unbeatable.

Unless something dramatically changes!

So, claiming “a vote for Reform is a vote for Labour” is a lie, the implication being “you will cost us the general election, handing a win to Labour” – rather than the truth: ‘you will cost us many seats, a number of which will go to Labour’. Not the same thing, hmmm.

AND all this is before you consider that over a third of current Tory MPs – 120 last count – have announced they are stepping down. Resigning rather than facing an ignoble defeat at the ballot box. And that the Conservative party does not have the time to vet and select the ever growing number of their MPs that are resigning – or crossing over to Labour.

If all the dissatisfied voters gave Reform a try, maybe it will make a difference. Can we even trust Reform? Who knows, but we know we can’t trust Tory or Labour.

The way I look at it is this:

I can’t remember a time in British history when the ballot box so desperately needed to include “none of the above”.

 

“The right ‘honourable’ member is crossing the chamber to join the opposition (who, presumably, have diametrically opposed views). Let me be clear, they are doing this for the greater good and not out of fear of losing their seat (high salary, expenses, jollies and perks) in a general election. Trust me, I’m a politician”

Honourable?

You keep using that word…

---

Labour win the 2024 General election by a historic landslide

The people that swallow the line that ‘a vote for Reform is a vote for Labour’ are deluding themselves. According to every poll – for many many months – Labour are going to win by a unbeatable landslide, with close to 50% of all votes. A split will cost Tories many seats, but it will not make a difference to who wins the next general election.

If voting intention polls – many, many polls – are a good indication (which actually there are), it’s a done deal, Labour win by a landslide.

So, if you peddle this “A vote for Reform is a vote for Labour” lie – started by the Conservative chairman, so obviously a biased source – well, what does it say about you?

The Tories HAD a close to 58% majority and lots of goodwill, which they threw away. Now it’s down to around 22% – a tiny fraction of Labours 45% plus.

Most Tory voters (like me actually) will split along these lines:

This ludicrous argument is no difference from saying “A vote for the Green party is a vote for Labour”. It is delusional.

Costing the Conservative 100 seats is not the same as costing them the election. The recent local by-elections make this screamingly obvious. The general election – which was being put off until the last minute in the hope of a miracle – is already decided and all the MPs lining up to ‘cross the chamber’ were already Labour at heart anyway and or just in it for themselves.

However you spin it, the Tories are facing their worst defeat ever AND THEY DESERVE IT.

The only good that can come of this is if the Conservatives are so badly decimated that MPs actually bear in mind that when ignore a nation for long enough, the nation will turn on them, remind them that they work for us!

---

Reform UK is for old people

Nice try, but I can’t see many young folks voting reform ?

I don’t think people like this understand how ugly politics is going to get this year, or how badly the average Brit is gonna get screwed over. As a side note, the person responsible for the above quote chose Motorhead’s Lemmy as his avatar, so is unlikely to be a young soul themself.

For a start, Sunak has said they if he’s elected, the Conservatives are bringing back national service. Good luck getting young folk to vote Tory.

Half of them don’t even know what gender they are and curl into a ball offended if you get their preferred pronoun wrong. Image that lot being told, “OK, you are joining the army” … while reading rumours of WW3 on social media.

Here’s the thing though:

According to the Tory party, a vote for Reform is a vote for Labour, this being 15% of votes. Were it not for Reform, they could be hoping for around 35% of votes. Not enough to win, but not as humiliating defeat.

Solution? Announce a polarising intention to bring in National Service.
(The quote figure is 53% would support this, so 47% would not. Notably close to the referendum split, eh!)

Right off the bat if they had 35% of the vote, they just chopped that down to under 20%.
But as they are only at 22% and came up with a policy that could potentially half their votes, they end up below even Reform.

Added to this, it gets even more intriguing…
He sent Cameron off to Europe, telling them to expect an October election here. He sent his minions off to the BBC to tell them the same, that we are looking at an October election.
Then, while everyone is out the office, something spooks him and he legs it out the back door and across to Buckingham place to talk to the king:

It gets even more interesting from there, I think.

It is doubtful that Sunak even told his ministers of his intentions, much less the backbenchers.

He dropped that bombshell on them and the whiff of betrayal and defeat as potent and noisome as a curried egg shart in a crowded elevator wafted around the corridors of power than day! Menial staff reportedly heard sobbing, muffled choking and gasps for air as it spread through the chambers. Angry gnashing of teeth and dire, rebellious mutterings soon followed!

So, his own MPs didn’t know what he was planning – and yet Labour stooge Steve Bray was nearby, ready, his boombox preloaded with Blair’s key tune, Things can only get better.

…

Meanwhile, on the Labour camp, Starmer counters by telling us that 16-year-olds they can have the vote with him. That’s going to cost him a lot of votes, not enough to hurt, but enough to make a difference. But it sends a message that “We’d give you a say on this, unlike Sunak”.
If he goes ahead with it, it will bite him on the arse, but that’s for the future.

…

Staying in the Labour camp, Starmer had backed Israel over Gaza, costing him a good chunk of the ‘Muslim vote’. Good luck getting them to vote Labour…

But wait, there’s more…

A political Muslim group have offered Starmer a deal to get their support back – to be precise Starmer has to meet 18 of their “demands”.

At then end, they continue, adding: “There’s more, but that will do for starters”

Will Starmer cave in? If so, what does it say about him, his party, and their intentions for the UK?

A planned and concerted tactical vote by Muslims could easily cost labour 30, perhaps up to 50 seats*. It doesn’t matter though as Labour are expected to win up to 500 out of 630 seats, so losing a few score makes no odds.

*(Not this time, but a Muslim party (such as the planned and rejected ‘Party of Islam’) could easily gain a number of seats in 2028).

Needless to say, next thing you know, they are flip flopping on Israel and Gaza and Labour will acknowledge Palestine as a state if elected.

Labour cannot be trusted.

---

Immigration has no effect on housing?

Another of the usual crowd began by listing various reasons for the housing crisis, mostly blaming the Conservatives, then decided to throw himself on the fire by saying that:

The reason for the housing shortage is:
…
9. Nothing to do with immigration.

Any counter was met with, “did you even read what I wrote?”

I did and I agreed with the first 8 points, but when you have those 8 points, you know you have those 8 points and still allow close to 1.5 million people (net) entry to live here, then it is a problem. A serious problem, so to claim that additional strain on the system doesn’t exist is moronic.

For a start to accommodate that number you need to build a city at least the size of Liverpool – EVERY YEAR.

Along with that you need to built infrastructure to match- power grids, power stations, sewage farms, roads, waterworks, dentists, schools, hospitals, a city worth of specially trained staff and experts, the whole nine yards.

Staying with Liverpool, it has half a dozen large hospitals and it took 20 years, £600m AND a national scandal to replace just one of them – and it’s still a mess and not up to standard. That’s just to offer 640 beds to patients.

Forgetting the boatloads of illegals arriving every day – sometimes by the thousand – legal immigrants are arriving (net) at the rate of around 2,000 a day.
It will get much worse under Labour.

This, therefore has everything to do with (uncontrolled) immigration. It is not sustainable.

 

And here it comes…

 

Being the one of ‘the usual crowd’ – you know, the lot that believe genuine immigration concerns = racist xenophobic bigot – he was instantly dismissive of Reform voters, which in Brexit terms is half the population.

Anyway, as expected, he trots out the “you’re just a racist” slur, ‘cos that is always a good fallback for them when they are losing an argument.

My counter was an improbable but mathematically fair counter:

There he is, sipping Earl grey in the garden, just opening his copy of the Guardian and “MY GOD! The cloth cap brigade are on the move!”
Front page news. People for the Midlands and north of Britain, fed up with the rain, are moving south to his area.

Headline news: 700,000 Scousers, Brummies, Mancs and Yorkshireman are moving down to Dorset!

Net effect, house prices and house rentals rocket, waiting lists for dentists, hospital treatment etc increase exponenially, securing a place for young Tobias in the best schools becomes a full time job. Talking of jobs, salaries sink and unemployment rockets. Crime explodes as a consequence.

But shhh, don’t say anything, they are just Brits like us, even if they are, urghhhh, working class northerners.

The following year, Monsigneur de Cruz is still moaning to his wife about how they were cheated out of the referendum back in ’16. He is now prematurely grey and sporting deep frown lines from scowling at people in cloth caps.
With a choking gurgle, he falls off his garden lounger, clutching his pearls and moaning loudly.
Open beside him, the Guardian warns:
“800,000 Glaswegians are relocating to Dorset over the coming year!”*

Not to worry though, it’s the past governments fault. The addition of 1.5m people to the region has nothing to do with immigration.

*A footnote adds Dorset can expect 900,000 from Ireland as a result of the Great Guinness Famine, caused by EU water companies dumping raw sewage into the Liffey.

(As the scandal itself became headline news for weeks the offical responsible did, when presssured, offer to give up his OBE, but settled on keeping it and accepting a €4.8m golden parachute. Sir Keir congratulated the man for the honourable behaviour. Dubliners in particular were less than satisfied, saying “We don’t even have a pot to piss in but those bastards shat in it first! Justice my arse!”)

Pedants might argue that “well no, ‘cos that number would be spread across the country.” Well, no, for two reasons. Firstly they are mostly heading towards particular areas, notably Greater London. Also, it’s about load bearing. Whether you are a civil engineer building a bridge, a network engineer, or a government, you have to understand about balance, load bearing, stress and breaking points, allocation of resources…

This was not done because neither the will, the money, nor the manpower was available. But they continued to stress the system past breaking point anyway because:
… didn’t want to offend (this group)
… EU laws (‘cos Brexit)
… LOL!

---

That was the week that was: Sectarian politics

MARCH 2024

The problem is we (we being the government, the media etc) NEED to have this conversation – but won’t.
They are too scared – and or too ‘woke’ and too obsessed with political correctness – to offend.

Contentious but considering the – weakness – within the House of Commons lately with regard to Gaza:
Firstly, this is not OUR fight. This is a conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Secondly, not taking any side and stepping away from all the deaths within Gaza, Hamas launched the attack and associated reported atrocities on over 1,000 innocents. They knew how Israel would react to this terrorist provocation, but they did it anyway. Then played the victim card…

And now MPs are seemingly quaking in the House of Commons in case they ‘vote the wrong way’ or say or do anything to offend the legions of pro-Palestine protestors camped outside. A fair comment, perhaps, as a number of them were reportedly being targetted and threatened by pro-Palestine campaigners.

According to most sources, the Conservative (rightly in my opinion) are a good 20 points down in the polls because they are weak and unpopular. Pathetic, I’d argue. In the Rochdale by-election, Tories votes were down 20%. So it pans.
What didn’t pan was Galloway winning with a landslide because he went with a (arguably) contentious pro-Palestine campaign to win the Muslim vote.

I’ve seen the stuff a number of Muslim groups and the Muslim Council are up to*, that nudge close to vote tampering, but rather than being “offended”, or “Islamophobic”, I’m genuinely impressed with the effort they put into.

Vote the “right way” or else be replaced is the message. (This was months before they were emboldened to issue “demands” to Starmer). This was amply emphasised in Rochdale this week.

See, but here is the problem:
Galloway didn’t win because of what he promised to do for the people of Rochdale (Muslim or otherwise), he won because of mob rule (however impressively organised). He won because he said, out loud, “**** you, Labour, I support Gaza.”

This was repeated in other local by-elections, notably in Leeds when the Green councillor, rather than yelling “Just stop oil” or “Free solar panels for pensioners” shouts, Allahu Akhbar. This Is For Gaza.
Honestly, WTF has Gaza got to do with local concerns in a Yorkshire town!?

Increasingly, the turn out for polls, by-elections, and general elections is getting smaller all the time. This is because – many would agree – we (the average person in the street) have no-one to vote for. No-one is looking out for people outside the Westminster bubble. Tories are a joke, Labour died decades ago and – following Blair – has been spinning in its grave ever since. Smaller parties have no chance.

But – and again, I reiterate, I’m impressed, rather than “afraid” (Islamophobic my arse…) – Muslims as a group appear more organised, more motivated. If Rochdale is repeated across the country over the next few General Election – (as I believe both Labour and the Tories fear (oh, the irony!)) – then the result will be political chaos for generations to come.

One day, perhaps 40 years years from now, the UK may well wake up and find itself a theocracy instead of a democracy and wonder how this happened in such an otherwise enlightened age. I don’t think they’ll like being told, “Well, the government of the day didn’t want to offend anyone!”

But let’s not talk about this now, we don’t want to offend…

Here’s a few links and quotes to raise eyebrows:

On the matter, the definition of sectarian politics, to automatically describe it as ‘racist’ is dumb. The trouble in Ireland, orange vs green, wasn’t and isn’t about colour, but differenting religious views, there being catholic vs protestant.

Good to bear in mind when you reach for the ‘racist’ or ‘xenophobe’ stamp. Anyway, I’m an atheist – I “believe” all organised religions are just crazy cults that got too big!

 

---

Footnote: Sunak, too little, too late

 

This is a comment I made to Steve Baker (MP) a few months ago, after, laughably, he said Rishi Sunak was doing a good job:

Besides too little, too late and zero belief in anything the current PM has to say, he couldn’t even organise a message to the nation outside #10 without being drowned out by rantings from the “small and vocal minority” he was telling us he was going to sort. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic.

I don’t believe this was a response to the mobs of pro-Palestine protestors that have been outside Westminster for weeks.

Nor do I believe it was due to threats to MPs as they would be given protection details if necessary (though I imagine any number of MPs will have been pressing for action if they felt threatened).
(It should be noted that a month after this Steve Baker was accosted outside his office by a pro-Palestine protester, felt threatened and was ready to call for police assistance and protection)

No, this was a knee-jerk reaction to the Rochdale by-election and MPs seeing the writing (and their lost seats) writ large upon the wall within months.

I imagine every MP in the Conservative party knows you are polling at least 20% points down in every single poll. Seeing the likes of Galloway win with a landslide though, that had to land below the belt. I’ve been a Tory supporter for most of my life, but now… you’d have to be comatose to miss how little the elected leaders and Westminster bubble care about the little people.

Most of the UK is politically disenfranchised. Tory is no longer Tory, Labour ceased being Labour decades ago, and the two-party system keeps the merry-go-round spinning.

Until it doesn’t, as with the Rochdale by-election (rounded):

TalkTV share this, from March 2024:
“Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has warned “our democracy itself is a target” for extremists and “there are forces here at home trying to tear us apart” as he addressed the nation from Downing Street.”

See also The rise and rise of sectarian politics