The Case for Tactical Voting at the 2024 GE
We have a unique opportunity to wipe out the Tories as a political force... if we decide to take it.
I wanted to share some thoughts about tactical voting as the 4 July 2024 GE looms nearer and nearer.
(Important aside: I am not trying to dictate what people should do. I am merely sharing my opinion, and explaining how I came to the conclusions I did. With that out of the way…)
Until a few weeks ago, I was all in favour of Labour winning with a small majority or even a hung parliament. (This shouldn't be news for anyone who's followed me for a while over on Twitter.)
That felt like the best chance of advancing the cause of Rejoin. It would have meant that Labour would surely have had to pivot before the 2029 GE or face certain loss.
After all, there will be no Get the Tories Out vote in 2029. Labour will have been in power 5 long years. Keep the Tories Out is not nearly as compelling for those who only lent votes to Labour with reluctance in 2024.
My view has now changed because the circumstances have changed.
We face an unprecedented and unique confluence of events:
14 years of hated Tory rule
Extraordinary mismanagement of everything from Partygate to PPE to Covid recovery to Brexit to austerity, and a thousand other insults and injuries
Reform is an exciting and novel wild-card for people who would NEVER vote Labour or LibDem or Green under any circumstances. (That shine will wear off, but they're too fresh for people to take a proper hard look at what they stand for this election cycle.)
The LibDems have partially recovered from the long shadow of the university fees fiasco
The Tories are mounting the most incompetent election campaign in living memory. Scandal follows scandal like a hail of machinegun bullets. There’s just no let-up.
All the above factors contributed to my change of heart. The key thing that swung it was the incompetence of the Tory election campaign. If they'd have been running like an oiled machine, what I am about to say wouldn't apply. But they're not. They're making a complete pig's ear of things. So it does.
Thanks to this miraculous alignment, we have a chance of wiping the Tories out. It's a small chance, but real nonetheless. They could be gone as a viable political force, with the LibDems in Opposition instead.
That would likely finish the Tories. If they can't even be the official Opposition, a lot of bad things happen to them:
They lose their 6 questions at PMQs.
The amount of Short Money they get given reduces.
They no longer have a guaranteed 17 Opposition Days to take control of the political agenda
They no longer have an automatic right to media coverage for balance purposes. (Our RW media may not give the Opposition a fair shake, but outlets such as the BBC must do so by law.)
They no longer receive national security briefings.
They no longer get advance notice of certain Government communications.
If the Tories are no longer the official Opposition, none of the above will apply to them. Instead, all these benefits would go to the LibDems.
And the Tories would be out in the cold. What they said or did wouldn't matter any more, to anyone. Sure, the RW press could still volunteer to report it. But it would be the clanging of empty vessels, without consequence.
Meanwhile we would have a party in Opposition unafraid to make the case against Brexit.
The temptation remains strong to give Labour a kicking on Brexit and other matters. Believe me - my foot is itching to swing! But they are not going to pivot between now and the GE. To think otherwise is to deny reality. I hate it. I hate that we're not talking about the stuff that really matters. But it's what we have to deal with.
Meanwhile, we have this unique opportunity to take the Tories down.
If we miss it, it's not going to come again. Scroll back up the page. ALL those factors had to come together to give us even a small chance of eliminating them as a political force. You'll agree that the likelihood of all the stars aligning twice is infinitessimal.
So this is why we need to grab the chance before it's gone. Ignore the evidence of our hearts and brains, and vote tactically instead.
Vote for whichever party - Labour, LibDem, Green or SNP - is best placed to beat the Tories in our constituency.
The answer won't be the same everywhere. Swings, no matter how large, aren't uniform. We can't say "Oh, Labour's 20% ahead so they're the right tactical vote". We also can't say "Labour's 20% ahead so they'll definitely win here so I don't need to vote tactically". There will be one correct tactical vote in most constituencies, and it will vary place by place.
If non-Tory parties are in both first and second place, and neither's Reform, you have total free rein. Everywhere else there will be one and only one correct answer when it comes to tactical voting. If that's your intent, set aside your own politics and vote for the right party to beat the Tories where you live.
You're free to vote in whatever way you like. Voting is a precious privilege, and a strongly personal choice. But as soon as you bring a "but" into the conversation, you're no longer being tactical. No matter how heartfelt your reasoning for the "but". That's ok too. But please be aware that's what you're doing.
There will be time, plenty of time, to kick Labour over Brexit once the GE is over. On July 5th, the Brexit elephant can go on parade. And the LibDems, Greens, and SNP are unlikely to be shy about talking about it.
A huge Labour majority could make a pivot on Brexit before the GE-after-next easier. That may sound like a paradox. But consider:
They will no longer have to take any notice of their Lexiter faction. Any Labour equivalent of the ERG won't have the clout to derail proceedings. They will be too far outnumbered by other MPs.
A party manifesto only lasts one election cycle. After that, there's the potential for a hard reset. Labour can put whatever they like into their 2029 manifesto.
Nothing says that GEs have to be 5 years apart. If they see electoral opportunity, Labour could call another sooner. Winning it, even with a reduced margin, would extend their time in office by 5 full years. It may be that whatever fills the vacuum left by the imploding Tory party remains a mess for ages. And that represents a real chance to take advantage of.
Upcoming issues such as ETIAS and EES will cause chaos that will be impossible to hide, or blame on anything other than Brexit. Even without Labour's cooperation, Brexit will be in the news a lot more than it is now.
But all politicians are liars. But I'm disillusioned with politics. But the parties don't stand for the things I care about. And so on, and so forth. If we set our minds to it, there's an infinite sea of "buts" to explore.
All those objections may be true. And they may be very important to you.
But eliminating the Tories should hopefully be important too.
It may even be the one thing that persuades you to vote when you otherwise were going to sit this election out. At least give the notion a chance.
The TLDR version:
We have a unique never-to-be-repeated chance to destroy the Tories as a political force. If we miss it because of political factionism, we may come to rue that decision for years or decades to come.
So take the opportunity right now to finish off the Tory party. Then worry about all the unanswered grievances afterwards. There will be plenty of time to address them. What we're buying this election cycle is that time.
Our attempt may still fail. But at least we'll know we tried, as hard as we possibly could. Good luck.