(opinion) Britain will have its second referendum - at the EU elections on 23 May

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/18/european-elections-second-brexit-referendum-vote-register

Britain will have its second referendum – at the EU elections on 23 May

Timothy Garton Ash

Thu 18 Apr 2019 06.00 BST Last modified on Thu 18 Apr 2019 08.46 BST

In just five weeks’ time, Britain will have a referendum on Brexit. This will take the form of elections to the European parliament, but in reality this will be a pre-referendum, or, if you like your neologisms ugly, a preferendum. So there is now one simple task: to maximise the vote for parties that support a confirmatory referendum on Brexit, giving the British people a democratic choice between accepting the negotiated Brexit deal and remaining in the EU.

If Labour’s manifesto clearly commits to that confirmatory referendum, then Labour is among those parties. If Labour is not clear enough, then turn to the Liberal Democrats, Change UK, the Green party, the Scottish National party or Plaid Cymru. At the end of the day, what will matter more than the precise allocation of seats is that we can say: “X million people voted for pro-European, pro-referendum parties, while only Y million voted for unambiguously pro-Brexit parties such as Ukip, Nigel Farage’s new Brexit party and the Conservatives.” In this vital, bottom-line reckoning, there is no such thing as a wasted vote. Every single voice will count.

There is still a small chance that Conservative MPs will be so terrified of electoral Armageddon for their party on 23 May that they will swing behind Theresa May’s deal in a desperate final meaningful vote in parliament, thus aborting this election at the last minute; but the probability is small and a chance we have to take.
(snip)

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. I took the figures from yesterday's YouGov poll, tried to divide them up as Leave and Remain

and got a 50-50 split: https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2304159

[T_i_B]

2. Expect Farage's brexit pity party to do well

Tories and Labour need to start challenging Farage properly in order to stop Brexshitters flooding to the new brexit pity party.

As to the remain side, Labour are a lost cause and the remain parties need to collaborate and work together a lot more.

[Denzil_DC]

3. That's a dangerous and counterproductive line.

Labelling this a "referendum" or "pre-referendum" is nonsense and is highly likely to backfire.

The lines in the post mortem will be split without nuance: pro- and anti-Brexit.

As things stand, Labour - the only UK-wide party likely to make a significant showing - is still trying to straddle that line, no matter what lip service is paid to the prospect of its supporting a second referendum or what spin its spokes are putting on its conference vote or its manifesto, and no matter what its current MEPs - perhaps understandably pro-Remain - may think or say.

Pro-Brexiters no doubt will, as they did in the last general election, shuffle a Labour vote into the Leave column. Of course - they'll shamelessly grasp at anything to justify claiming support for their stance. If push comes to shove, they'll point to Tory and other Leave voters so disgusted with the EU and May's failure to deliver that they intend to boycott the election, and default to "the will of the people" and cite their 17.4 million as usual. If nominally pro-Brexit parties prevail, Garton-Ash will have scored an own goal.

Garton-Ash touches on the complexities of the D'Hondt system (Northern Ireland uses single transferable vote, which Garton-Ash doesn't mention). We have close experience of it here in Scotland, where we run a "modified" version of it for our Scottish Parliament election. It's very difficult to game through the sort of tactical voting he suggests.

Nevertheless, I do hope for a large turnout. MEP elections have long been the poor relation in UK electoral politics, not least because people (outside Northern Ireland, as said) find it hard to get their heads around voting for a party list rather than an individual, which is partly why UKIP gained a foothold in past Euro-elections and why most people would have difficulty naming their MEP. Partly I feel like that because it's not now a foregone conclusion that we'll actually leave (I'm not holding on to any false hopes, though), and if we do end up remaining in the EU, I want serious, committed MEPs to be in office, not spoilers or makeweights, especially as the political makeup of the next European Parliament doesn't look very promising at the moment.

If Garton-Ash wants a second referendum, let him carry on campaigning for it. This is a different beast.

[T_i_B]

4. The system in EU elections may be hard to game...

....but that's the approach a lot of people appear to be trying to take in these elections. FPTP habits clearly die hard. Trying to encourage tactical voting for remain parties when it's difficult to see what the tactical choice actually is.

Voting or against individual candidates is only relevant with the top individual on the party list, as that's the only one with a chance of being elected. Interestingly enough, both Greens and Liberal Democrats have prominent Sheffield Councillors at the top of their regional list for Yorkshire. This means that in both cases I can vote for those parties in the hope of electing an individual I would want

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. I found a list of the lists for each party and region

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/eu-election-candidates-full-list-14441523

Here in South East England, we have 10 MEPs, so even this time, some 2nd choice candidates will get elected - in 2014, it was 4 UKIP (1 of whom was kicked out after her chief of staff fiddled her expenses; the other 3 are now 'Brexit') and 3 Tory (1 of whom is the 'Change UK' top choice now).

But this time it says I should get to vote for Lord Buckethead! Ooh, it's tempting ...