How Swinson betrayed Remainers 29 times- It’s not ‘remain’ she wants, its power

Jo Swindon’s Christmas wish yet another coalition with the Tory’s

Out of these 29 separate important votes relating to Brexit and the EU, Swinson abstained 27 times and voted in line with Boris Johnson for the other two.

For those that have got over the shock and are no longer dazed by the Lib Dem abandonment of a second referendum the so-called ‘People’s vote,’ it has now become blatant that the Lib Dems have used the People’s vote project to garner support, not for remain, no, support for its all but redundant Party the Lib Dems themselves. It cynically used the vehicle of the Mandelson, Rudd so-called People’s vote to fill their empty vacuum of supporters.

Just when it looked like a second referendum could be achieved they gave up the ruse. Dropping all pretence of a second referendum and voting for a general election instead. Swinson’s party faced a cross-party backlash after a dramatic switch to backing a pre-Christmas general election – rather than a fresh public vote – to settle the Brexit crisis.

Blairite and People’s Vote campaigner Alastair Campbell said there was no reason for the Lib Dems not to continue fighting for a second referendum.

He tweeted: “It is literally only a few days ago that Lib Dem and SNP were saying we were days away from winning a confirmatory referendum on any deal.

“Nothing of substance has changed. It was and is there to be won.”

It is literally only a few days ago that Lib Dem and SNP were saying we were days away from winning a confirmatory referendum on any deal. Nothing of substance has changed. It was and is there to be won.

— ALASTAIR CAMPBELL (@campbellclaret) October 28, 2019

Chuka Umunna then claimed it was “quite clear” there was little prospect of the Commons backing a referendum – despite ongoing plans to attach an amendment to Boris Johnson’s EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which in all likelihood would have won support in parliament.

It became abundantly clear that their real strategy of the Lib Dems has been nothing more than a power grab all along.

Swinson so aggressively opposed a temporary Corbyn premiership that could have brought a second referendum in doing so Swinson showed she opposes Labour and Corbyn far more than she wants to remain in the EU.

The sham presidential type electioneering Swinson has embarked on with the revoke Article 50 policy as done nothing other than adding more unicorns to British politics. Swinson knows full well she would never get an outright majority. However, what Swinson can do is keep the hopes up of the die-hard remainers who will sacrifice their Party loyalty be it Labour or Tory in the vain attempt to revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU.

These remainers are the target demographic of the Lib Dems in their attempt to split the Labour vote. The Lib Dems have fielded candidates in both Labour and Tory marginal constituencies. These Constituencies are two horse races where only one of the two main Party’s have any realistic chances of winning.

The Lib Dems have attempt to mislead voters by using polling data to claim electoral advantage over rivals. This attempt at manipulating the general public into believing a vote for the Lib Dems will win the seat adds yet another negative long-term implications for trust in politicians. However, what it will do is clear the way for a Tory win if remainers fall for the false hopes in voting for the Lib Dem’s.

The Lib Dems have used the so-called People’s vote campaign to build up the all but dead Lib Dem Party over the last 3 years, now to compound that support they need the legitimacy of power and that can only come through seats at Westminster. To do that they now need to split the remain vote in Labour constituencies and double down on the remain Lib Dem voting marginals

Swinson has focused her attacks on Labour rather than the Tory Brexiteers, Swinson believes she will reassure Tory remain, supporters, that a vote for the Lib Dems will not install Corbyn in Downing Street.

Only these Conservative-held seats do the Lib Dems become real contenders to turn pro-Brexit seats into Remain strongholds. St Ives in the South West, through to Cheltenham, across to St Albans and into Richmond in London.

But the risk is that by fighting Labour as hard as the Tories, the Lib Dems split the Remain vote in other Tory-Labour marginals and let Mr Johnson through the middle: The politician who says she wants to most stop Brexit becomes the handmaiden for Boris Johnson’s Brexit instead.

The Lib Dems attack on Labour in the name of remain is just as cynical as the Brexit Party placing a candidate to stand against Dennis Skinner.

The Lib Dems know that throwing resources at seats they cannot win and peeling away significant numbers of Labour voters will allow the Tories to win.

The recent attacks on Labour leave voters is an attempting to disenfranchise the LeFT wing leave vote. This in a time when every vote counts seems very dysfunctional. The remainers hope of pushing them out of the ‘broadchurch’ of the Labour party to the waiting embraces of the Brexit Party once again diminishing the Labour vote in the Leave-voting constituency’s. The people behind these attacks are playing into both the Lib Dem and Tory camps.

The Lib Dems also know that demonising Labour as a “Brexit party” divides remainers to the benefit of the Tory Brexiteers. They know that focusing their vitriol on Corbyn strengthens the position of Johnson.

But ultimately the Lib Dems are not, by definition, an anti-Brexit party; the remain cause is secondary to increasing the number of Lib Dem seats in parliament. If your main aim in politics is to advance the partisan interests of the Lib Dems and repeat their performance in government, then this makes sense. If your only cause is stopping Brexit, however, it does not.

As Professor John Curtice pointed out, the split in the Remain vote can only help Mr Johnson. “Labour is significantly at risk of losing votes to the Lib Dems in its northern and midland marginals. That could be enough to deliver the Tories victory even if they fail to win over a single new ex-Labour voter,” he wrote in a column for the Daily Telegraph.

It is a position that simply doesn’t tally with her overriding principle to stop Brexit. But Ms Swinson is adamant that the Lib Dems fight these seats. “We’re a party standing for liberal values and an inclusive values and an internationalist perspective and people deserve to be able to vote for this in the election.”

There will be some who vote Lib Dem in three weeks time because of dishonest graphs printed on leaflets claiming that only Swinson’s party can defeat Johnson in tight Tory-Labour marginals. But the one thing you won’t get voting the Lib Dems is any recourse to stopping Brexit,

If they wake up to see a beaming Boris Johnson, relishing his newly minted Tory majority and pledging to implement a clean break Brexit by the end of January, they will feel horrified and tricked.

After all, if the Tories win the general election the Lib Dem’s can claim that this was the country voting in support of Brexit so they’d be justified in throwing in the towel and assisting to deliver ‘the will of the people’.

Helping the Tories.

Each motion voted or abstained has helped the Tories, anyone could be forgiven for thinking the are still in coalition

· 1st April 2019: Voted with Boris Johnson against the UK joining the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which provides comprehensive customs arrangement with the EU and continued participation in the single market, thus providing free movement of goods, services, persons and capital among member states and includes protocols relating to frictionless agri-food trade across the UK/EU border, thus ensuring no hard border on the island of Ireland.

· 1st April 2019: Voted with Boris Johnson not to instruct the government to ensure that any Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration negotiated with the EU must include, as a minimum, a commitment to negotiate a permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union with the EU and that it should be enshrined in primary legislation.

· 27th March 2019: Abstained on a motion requiring ministers to negotiate changes to the draft Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration so that it included a permanent customs union with the EU, close alignment with the single market underpinned by shared institutions and obligations, dynamic alignment on rights and protections, commitments on participation in EU agencies and funding programmes including in areas such as the environment, education, and industrial regulation, an agreement on the detail of future security arrangements (including access to the European Arrest Warrant and vital shared databases) and instructed ministers to ensure that they introduce primary legislation to give statutory status to these changes.

· 27th March 2019: Abstained from voting on whether or not to require the government to ensure that any Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration negotiated with the EU must include, as a minimum, a commitment to negotiate a permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union with the EU and that they should enshrine this objective in primary legislation.

· 27th March 2019: Abstained from voting on whether or not to amend the retained EU law governing financial support for rural development currently provided by both from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the Exchequer for programmes and running up to 2020, in order to allow rural development programmes to continue to operate in the UK after exit from the EU, up until 2020.

· 19th December 2018: Abstained from voting on whether or not to approve new regulations on Accounts and Reports from corporate bodies that would remove the involvement of the European Union and also remove preferential treatment of bodies from the European Economic Area. The new regulations were designed to address failures of retained EU law to operate effectively and other deficiencies arising from the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

· 18th July 2018: Abstained from voting on whether or not to authorise requiring fingerprint and facial photograph information from EU citizens, their family members, and certain others who apply for leave to remain to enable them to stay in the United Kingdom after withdrawal from the European Union.

· 17th July 2018: Abstained from voting on whether or not to empower the Government to implement obligations under the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA). This would empower the Government to change the law in the UK as required to continue the effect of European Union international trade agreements after the UK’s withdrawal from the union.

· 17th July 2018: Abstained from voting on whether or not to make it a negotiating objective of the UK to establish a free trade area for goods between the UK and the EU and if that cannot be agreed then it should be the objective of the UK to secure an agreement to enable the UK’s participation in a customs union with the EU.

· 17th July 2018: Abstained from voting on whether or not to make it a negotiating objective for the UK Government to secure an international agreement through which the UK may continue to participate in the European medicines regulatory network partnership between the EU, EEA and the European Medicines Agency, ensuring that patients continue to have access to high-quality, effective and safe pharmaceutical and medical products, fully aligned with the member states of the EU and EEA.

· 13th June 2018: Abstained from voting on whether or not to make it a negotiating objective for the UK Government to ensure that the United Kingdom has full access to the internal market of the European Union, underpinned by shared institutions and regulations, with no new impediments to trade and common rights, standards and protections as a minimum.

· 16th May 2018: Abstained from voting on whether or not to require the government to publish all papers, presentations and economic analyses from 1 January 2018 up to and including 16 May 2018 prepared for the European Union Exit and Trade (Strategy and Negotiations) Cabinet sub-committee, and its sub-committees, on the Government’s preferred post-Brexit customs arrangements including a Customs Partnership and Maximum Facilitation.

· 21st November 2017: Abstained from voting on whether or not to ensure that parliament be informed of any changes in EU & EEA provisions that might have amended UK laws around family-friendly employment rights and gender equality and their potential impact and also committed the Government to considering their implementation. This was to ensure that rights of workers and employees with caring responsibilities, and women’s rights, are no less favourable than they would have been had the UK remained a member of the EU or EEA beyond exit day.

List of recorded votes provided by Koser Saeed | Editor | Spotlight Newspaper
http://www.spotlight-newspaper.co.uk/