If I vote ReformUK Won’t It Let labour In?

If I vote ReformUK Won’t It Let labour In?

I get asked about this quite a lot. In our two party system, which has been established for a long time, it is the common trope used to keep people voting for the two main parties.

Fear of the opposition is an easier sell than trying to promote positive policies for your own party.

What the Tories are saying when they trot out this argument is as follows: “We know we are useless but they will be  worse than we are, so please stick with what you know.”

The maths doesn’t support labour getting in, in the Mid Bedfordshire constituency, or at least it didn’t until the 19th October 2023.

The most votes a labour candidate has ever got is 17,000. Interestingly, the most they received was 2017 under Corbyn, almost 1000 more than 1997 peak Blair.

The Tories got 38,000 in 2019 against Labour on 14,000.

To see the Tory vote collapse in the Mid Beds by-election was spectacular. Some say that they did well to receive the 12,600 votes that they did receive.

Did we enable a Labour win or send a message to the Tories that they need to change direction?

We received 1489 votes as our vote was squeezed by the three way battle for victory. In by-elections, the spending cap is £100,000 maximum. It is an insane amount of money and beyond the budget of all but the three largest, best funded parties.

We competed as well as we could under the circumstances, no excuses, just an explanation. If you wonder why they can put 20+ leaflets through your door while we only manage 3 or 4 it is because of their deep pockets.

In the end the gap between Labour and the Tories was just 1192 votes. If we hadn’t stood then the Tories would have kept the seat and would have less to think about right now.

As it is the Tories lost both Mid Bedfordshire & Tamworth by-elections because Reform UK stood candidates.

We want to change UK politics & maing the Tories change direction is party of tha process.