Has Boris just had his ‘basket of deplorables’ moment?

In my drafts is a post entitled ‘Why I won’t be voting for my Tory MP at the next election’.

It’s in my drafts because I have been in two minds, for all the reasons that you would expect – she’s a grasping, globohomo remainer in a pro-Brexit seat, but she’s a government loyalist and I don’t fancy the Brexit vote being split and letting in a Labour or Lib Dem MP. It’s mathematically possible.

There must be huge numbers of people who are on the horns of the same dilemma. never wishing to vote Tory again, but loathe to vote Brexit Party only to get Labour. Our political tempers are on a hair-trigger after 3 years of bare-faced betrayals.

So when I first saw this…

… my gut instinct was, ‘right that’s it, definitely voting for Brexit party now. Fuck Boris.’

It seemed that Boris was, by association, committing a slur against anyone who’d vote Brexit party. Delingpole is taking that interpretation, as are many of the commenting hoardes.

But when you think about it, it’s actually pretty weak sauce. The story originated in the Daily Mail, which is now a pro-remain rag, and the comments are attributed to anonymous ‘senior Tory sources’. As if perfidious remainers have been magically eliminated from the government and from the CCHQ backrooms.

And in this febrile atmosphere, do we doubt that some venal few anticipate another Tory leadership election, fancy their chances, and are manoeuvring accordingly?

Anyway, it was just an impolitic way of stating the bleeding obvious: There’s no way that the Tory party can get into bed with Nigel before the election. It’d force a lot of Tory remainers into the arms of the Lib Dems. The media would have a field day holding the Tories to account for the Brexit party’s policies, which are mostly vapourware and would inevitably be made up on the hoof, under pressure of media mauling, by some of these 600 or so untested and inexperienced candidates. The united forces of the remain coalition would have a single target and a cavalcade of open goals.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be a series of tactical local agreements. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be a post-election pact, be it confidence and supply or coalition. I’m sure we needn’t actually look up what appalling shit the Lib Dems were saying about the Tories before the 2010 election.

But that coould all be for the birds. When all said and done, the chances are the Brexit party will have as big a problem breaking through as UKIP did in the general election the year after they swept the boards in the EU elections.

The party list system worked well for the Brexit party, as it once did for UKIP, because they had an amorphous cloud of candidates on the list, elected under PR. The system and protocol under which a general election would be fought is a whole different kettle of fish and when a date is named and the candidates are unveiled, there’s going to be a feeding frenzy of offence archeology from a coalition of Remainers, Momentum and Antifa. It’ll be a bloodbath. Dozens if not hundreds of Brexit party candidates will fall.

So at the end of the day, I still don’t know yet whether the Tories or the Brexit Party will get my vote. There’s a lot that can happen between now and then. Whenever then is.

AJ

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