As UK Government is apprehensive about “dire” turnout, all the more reason not to vote in the Southend West by-election

Evidently, there is some anxiety in certain quarters about the very low turnout expected at the Southend West by-election (to take place this coming Thursday). It’s being mentioned in The Times in conjunction with speculation about the future of Boris Johnson. It’s being talked about in the news publication local to the event, the Southend Echo, along the same lines.

Of course, the anxiety stems not from the fact that anticipated exceptionally poor turnout in this case will equate to a demonstration of lack of support for Johnson (because of how major opposition has declined to run candidates). The worry has to be about a potential moment when the engine driving the deception of a so-called representative Parliament,  already bilging out black smoke by dint of breaking and burning, with no oil poured on it capable of soothing the workings, finally has a cog snap out of its lodging.

Indicative of the anxiety is the change of attitude towards minor parties who did enter candidates into the race despite it (supposedly) being an unseemly and disrespectful thing to do in the circumstances of David Amess’ murder. This was at first, and UKIP was the main offender, and last November found itself “under fire” as the Echo put it. The following is an extract from the piece in question, to give the reader a flavour of how it is dedicated to outrage at the impertinance:

Daniel Nelson, a Tory councillor, and representative of the Southchurch Ward, spoke of his disgust.

He said: “UKIP’s words are utterly disgusting.

“To try to use Sir David’s tragic death for political gain and blatant publicity truly shows the true colours of UKIP.

“They truly are the nasty party of politics and although I believe democracy should always exist in the United Kingdom, it is clear that the far-right extremists of our country do not have any respect for Sir David or Sir David’s family or those that loved him dearly, such as myself.

“They should be deeply, deeply ashamed of themselves.”

Labour Party councillor and St Laurence Ward representative, Daniel Cowan, said: “It is deeply shameful that parties and individuals are considering contesting the Southend West seat, going against the convention in such cases to step aside for the incumbent party.

Noticeably, in another, later Echo article – one to be examined below – there isn’t the slightest hint of disapprobation for UKIP (far from it) or any other minor party who did field a candidate. Indeed, BBC Essex last week gave over space to a written, semi-detailed rundown of each candidate’s electioneering guff, along with videoed presentations made by most of the runners.

As such, the election begins to look like something wholly opposite to that which UK Government wanted; i.e. a process where the incumbent party is not dislodged from a seat when a military intelligence operation causes the sitting MP to be killed (please see the FBEL article, The Murder Of David Amess, And The Strange Possibility Of A Missing Patsy).

Of course, looks are entirely deceptive, because if UK Government wanted the seat to change hands, then we would have seen Labour and the Lib Dems entering the contest. So, if the reader lives in the constituency, please do not be tempted to think that there is a chance of your vote to one of these under dogs causing a great upset – there is not, as is about to be demonstrated. Instead, realise that the promotion of these minor candidates is in order to rectify the problem of a would-be Tory electorate generally discouraged about voting at all. It is about creating as much turnout as possible on top of that sure-to-vote, stalwart Tory, Acacia Avenue type (always used in these pages as the very model of deluded, obstinate conformance in the system) because UK Government knows, as well as we who write and read FBEL do, that when a very small number of people take part in an election, he who is elected has no right to call himself representative, and is illegitimate.

There’s more to say about what has been done to motivate Southend West voters, but first let us look at how weak that die-hard Tory support is likely to be.

The first clue comes from that aforementioned Times piece (published January 15th), that was discovered by being mentioned in Wikipedia, and then found reproduced in full on a reddit forum. It says this:

Conservatives campaigning for the Southend by-election next month, where they are running unopposed by the main parties after the death of Sir David Amess, warned that turnout could be dire. One veteran activist said: “I was met with a wall of disapproval such that I have never had before in 25 years of doing this.”

The context in which this is written gives the impression that the disapproval is specific, because the piece is about supposed loss of support for Johnson amongst Tory MPs with regards to the mountain-out-of-a-molehill, intelligence invented party-in-lockdown scandals.  The impression given is that the veteran activist is finding unhappiness in the electorate about particular bad conduct of the Conservative Prime Minister and staff. But what if people in Southend West were actually unhappy because, like a lot of other stuff they never voted for, they were subjected for two years to psychological warfare as if they were the population of an occupied country governed by a conquering junta? Surely there’s nothing like outrageous legislative pressure to keep oneself under house arrest (for instance) to dismantle any lingering fantasy of representative government.

Using the change in turnout, and votes for the Labour candidate in the Batley and Spen elections of 2015 and 2016 (which is cited as precedent for an uncontested by-election), and also the turnout and votes for the Conservative candidate in the Old Bexley and Sidcup elections of 2019 and 2021 (for a sample of the extent of drop-off of Tory support), the author came to the following ideas.

A benchmark for whether turnout at Southend West is low as should be expected, or low to indicate the continuation of a big problem for UK Government, is 27% – which is 18,800 voters. Of these, we might expect 89% to vote for the Tory candidate: this would be 16,732 votes, and represents 61% of the 27,555 votes for Amess in 2019. For the sake of comparison, Tracy Brabin received 80% of the votes cast for her predecessor, the Cox character. Speaking of the Labour vote, in 2019 in Southend West, it wasn’t as big as the figure estimated here for a best case scenario in terms of Tory vote, so don’t imagine, oh reader should you reside in the constituency, that you are going to make a difference by voting for the small fry.

Of course, one can hope that people will have good sense, but the author has every expectation that in the future he will have to write about a lot of idiots in Southend West who propped up the turnout figure by voting for the sundry alternative options who are placed on the ballot paper especially for the purpose of attracting people to the polling stations, and increasing turnout – but without the risk of throwing the Tories out of the seat. It should be a simple enough design to perceive, but when levels of gullibility – and, frankly, stupidity – in the population are what they are (as discussed in a preceding article to this one, Don’t Vote In The Southend West “By-Election”), blue square bricks always appear more likely to fit into yellow circle holes when the “fact” of it is assured by cunningly crafted received thinking to be lapped up by a horde of legion of know-it-all-know-nothings who are having their erroneous notions validated.

Consider, for instance, the piece from the local publication mentioned above, the Southend Echo, published 27th January. This cited the boss of PoliticalBetting.com, (“the web’s premier source for political betting”) who is reported as having said that “UKIP were best-placed to cause a shock”. Clearly, the idea is to create an authoritatively voiced impression that the Tories could lose the seat to UKIP. However, far away from the general public arena which the Echo represents, the writer of a 29th January article on PoliticalBetting, where it is foreseen that “the Tories should sweep the board”,  “has bets on the Tories to win 70-80% of the vote at 3/1 and over 80% of the vote at 4/1.”

Not then being honest, let alone based in any reality, what else can the Echo piece be called other than an effort to motivate to create turnout (be it for the apparent hopeful challenger, or for the candidate defending the seat) , using as provocation the old UKIP upstart who the traditional Tory detests more than he does Labour? What is particularly cunning and despicable in this piece is the absolution given by a flagrant lie to the would-be UKIP voter in regards the previous climate of that party being beyond the pail, so that now it is not sacrilege to participate in that way:

Convention is that major parties do not stand when an MP has been killed, which is why Labour, the Lib Dems and Green Party are not putting up candidates against Conservative Anna Firth.

There is no convention that any party does not stand when an MP has been killed, other than the one that UK Government  has recently installed – as alluded to above – so that a sitting MP could be a victim of an intelligence operation without detriment to the political landscape. This is a situation that obviously suits current requirements, but can change when needed, and things have been very different in the past. In 1990, the Lib Dems took a Tory seat in a by-election in Eastbourne triggered when the sitting MP was murdered in an act of IRA terror. The associated entry on Wikipedia tells of how this “shock defeat contributed to the end of Thatcher’s premiership in November 1990 as Conservative MPs worried if they could hold their seats at a general election if she remained prime minister.”

It is evident, then, that UK Government has no inherent qualms about hurt feelings when an agenda is at stake. Indeed, by looking at a particular attempt to manipulate at Southend West – one done in the only devious way known by UK Government and its tentacles (no matter how far flung they are from London) –  we are reminded of the broad and grand scheme of deceit perpetrated year in and year out (as this site asks its readership to understand) where it is only in appearance that UK Government is shaped by the will of voters. Reality is the exact opposite: it is by UK Government’s will that people create an outcome at elections. It is UK Government’s will to create its own power to pursue an agenda that is supreme at elections, and voters are merely tricked into providing legitimacy, and fundamentally, tricked into thinking that they provide legitimacy.  And this is exactly why there needs to be an end to compliance by not casting any ballot (because voting for a loser, or even spoiling a paper affirms the winner).  People need to be very clear in showing that they know the scam, and that they refuse to endorse it, and they need to do this in their masses, so that they can build something else to replace that which will be made illegitimate.