Starmer Project woes continue; Labour-Lib Dem coalition now openly discussed; more reason not to vote in Tiverton & Honiton by-election

According to the author’s own calculation – admittedly a rough and ready kind of reckoning – the Liberal Democrats could pull off another unbelievable feat, and win the Tiverton and Honiton by-election due to take place on 23rd June. The swing, as per said computation, would be 29.3%, at a turnout of 45.8%, with the Lib Dems taking 50% of the vote.

The trouble is, of course, that this is based on a scale created by precedent set by the Chesham and Amersham, and North Shropshire by-elections of 2021, and the trouble with that is there was almost certainly cheating in the North Shropshire one to pull off what should have been a highly improbable, if not impossible Lib Dem win.

For a fuller treatment of this, the reader should see the articles The Reason For The Battering Of Boris Johnson – And, Will There Be Cheating? (link),and Comparison Between Christchurch And The Fish-Stinking North Shropshire By-Election Is Evidence For The Psyop To Force Starmer As PM (link).

Additionally, there’s update to consider in support of the accusation of cheating: in the latter of the two articles just cited, there was tell of an email sent to Shropshire council asking where to find information regarding the number of postal ballots. An answer came on 20th December, 2021, and it gaslighted: the information was available where the author had complained it had been missing from. There is still no information that the author can find regarding the number of postal ballots in the North Shropshire by-election.

Another indication that there was cheating is found in the author’s number work (the same as introduced at the top of this). The fraction of voters who must have switched from Tory to Lib Dem at North Shropshire is all out of proportion with the same fraction at Chesham and Amersham (and what we might expect at Tiverton and Honiton). We should expect this figure to be similar, reflecting the similarities between two sets of like-minded people.  It would appear that the Chesham and Amersham result can be explained by 9% of the Tory vote at the 2019 general election poll switching to the Lib Dems in 2021. In stark contrast, the result of the North Shropshire by-election can be explained by 29% of the 2019 Tory vote going across the aisle. The author proposes that, actually, a good many of these don’t exist, but were produced for an exercise in ballot box stuffing, with the motivation clearly being that the pool from which to draw Labour voters to support the Lib Dems was much smaller in North Shropshire than it was in Chesham and Amersham. The working out is [will be] at the foot of the page.

Ultimately, it looks approximately to be the case that the Lib Dems need a swing of at least 23%, but at least that is realistic with the projected turnout (as the articles cited above argue). And of course, when one comes to such conclusions, one has entered into the world fashioned by UK Government where it is normal for the Lib Dems to come from third in an election with a huge, and uncommon swing. In doing this, one is being diverted from the real issue, which is the crash in support for the Tories and for Labour, and UK Government having to cobble results from the poor remnants of the electorate that still want to vote.

Naturally, people will argue: this collapse in support cannot be evidenced in by-elections, because by-elections always have low turnouts. Well, firstly, the statement is incorrect – by-elections do not always have low turnouts – and secondly, one would expect them to be proportional to general election results. What is happening these days is that people who would have voted Labour or Tory aren’t coming out at by-elections to maintain the status quo. That indicates collapse in support, and it’s why, twice now, the Lib Dems have been selected to challenge the Tories in seats in the southwest from a starting position of third: the malaise that means Labour cannot challenge is not effecting the Lib Dems because that party didn’t betray its voters with regards Brexit, and didn’t shock by showing true colours during the fake pandemic because its support is truly “liberal” in the modern Orwellian sense. On top of that, because of the indoctrination that the British suffer regarding political brand, the Lib Dems can collect voters from the Tories and from Labour.

So, this site has already explained how Labour and the Lib Dems will need an electoral pact, however the relationship between the parties is portrayed in corporate-media – which is not a straight forward matter at all, because in the end, the idea has to be promoted while at the same time the parties can deny it. This will be why, on 11th June the Mail Online reported accusations made by “Tory MPs” – although only one, Richard Holden, is quoted – that Labour and the Lib Dems are cooperating so that the former can win the Wakefield by-election, and the Lib Dems can win the Tiverton and Honiton one. One can imagine Holden’s name being pulled out of the hat so that a press offering for the desired propaganda purpose can be anchored to a real person.

Of course, the arrangement is exactly as discussed at this site, as abovementioned (the articles are Apparently, The Starmer Project Is Failing So Badly It Needs An Electoral Pact With The Lib Dems [link], and Predictably, Crude Perception Management Portrays Labour Triumph At Local Elections, Yet Starmer Project Continues To Falter [link]).

However, none of this constitutes a scoop for FBEL. Again, while the purpose at this site is to cause a reaction whereby there is abandonment of the comprehensively controlled political system (offering only an illusion of representation), the UK Government absolutely wants there to be normalisation, and public understanding of a Labour-Lib Dem electoral pact as a form of nudging,  so that voters inclined to do so act themselves to realise the pact without the blatant top-down organisation becoming overly visible. Again, this is why the Tories started complaining about it in respect of the local councils in May, and why there has been, in the last week, this other complaint. Lately, the campaign has developed, and in the first sentence of an INews piece published 14th June, the fact that each party is standing down to help the other is openly confessed in the first paragraph:

Labour is giving the Lib Dems a “free pass’” in the crunch Tiverton and Honiton by-election according to [Lib Dem] sources – amid claims of an unofficial electoral Lib-Lab pact.

Notably, this came a day before The Guardian (yesterday, the 15th) revealed that the Lib Dems may have been up to their old tricks, and have been polling “voter contacts”, to conclude that they are two percentage points behind the Tories in the race: the party “plan[s] to flood Tiverton and Honiton with activists”. This has stacked functionality; firstly it creates expectation that the Lib Dems will win, and the win can be explained by known activity, and secondly it is telegraphing to a hesitant sort of likely-to-vote anti-Tory that his vote would be missed if it wasn’t cast.

In the same vein, on June 9th The Times published an article on the free side of its pay wall – because it was a public propaganda message – that, in its second half, was canvassing long-time Tory voters in Tiverton and Honiton on their intentions this time around, and getting the answers that the intelligence agent who authored the piece wanted to be transmitted: they won’t be voting Conservative. If these people didn’t say who they would vote for, it didn’t matter, because the first half of the piece set things up for the reader to put 2 and 2 together, in the such like manner:

Driving through the Devon countryside, the neon glare of a Lib Dem sign — “Winning Here!” — regularly interrupts the wild foxgloves that populate the grassy verges at this time of year.

Likewise, there is also a report on the Lib Dem candidate, a “Major” Richard Foord, aged 44, a British Army veteran, with leaflets “festooned with Union Jacks”, who decried the Tories over “partygate” because “the business of abiding by the rules is something a lot of people pride themselves on” and, idiotically pompously, “I did my damnedest to follow the rules to the letter, and I think I’m not putting myself on a pedestal by saying that”, and who served – or, rather – meddled in Iraq and Kosovo, apparently without regret. All and all, Foord, to the hedge-clipping, golf-club-captaining Roger and his tennis-club-events-coordinating lady wife, is just like dinner to Pavlov’s dog: he’s just the sort of candidate to get long-time Conservative voters salivating, especially if they were the 90 year-old, and the 82 year-old, and the 64 year-old, and the 72-year-old, and the 59-year-old, and the 60-year-old who were canvassed and featured in the Times’ article.

And of course, unwittingly, this Times piece has illustrated the very nature of the crisis that UK Government is struggling to adapt to: the diminishing human resource by which to engineer believable election results – i.e. the dutiful voter – and the ever more storing up of trouble for itself as options become increasingly narrower. Ultimately, on the cards is a Labour-Lib Dem coalition executive, and nothing will spell weakness for UK Government more than that.

There’s no doubt that what might be the inevitable outcome is already being mulled over in quarters where the science of manipulation for the progressing of political agenda is bread and butter. This is not to say that UK Government is desirous of a Labour-Lib Dem coalition: the last time it got itself into that pickle it blundered into Brexit, and things have only got worse since then. However, UK Government is compelled to stay ahead of events so as to control them as best it can, and we must suppose that is why Politics.co.uk (an obvious “company store”, where the “hot topics” banner points the reader at the issues of “War in Ukraine”, “Downing Street Parties”, “Scottish Independence”, “Cost of Living”, and “Latest Opinion Polls”) is discussing the prospect openly.

The first striking thing about the content of a 2nd June article dedicated to the matter of a Labour-Lib Dem coalition on said website is that the alliance is treated as a goal hard won, and something of a triumph to be had, just as if Labour was never capable of forming a government on its own. See for yourself, reader, what is meant:

For the first time since the 2019 General Election, the opinion polls are suggesting the numbers are now there for Labour to be able to form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats…

This development is significant because it means that Labour wouldn’t be reliant on support from the Scottish National Party in order to be able to form a government in London.

Although Labour currently maintains a lead of some 6.5% over the Conservatives in national opinion polls, this lead does not translate into an overall majority at Westminster. Under the current constituency voting system, Labour votes are more heavily weighted in existing Labour seats, notably those within England’s major cities.    The Labour party is also significantly hampered because of its lack of representation in Scotland, where the party has just 1 MP.

So, reader, if FBEL coverage of the desperate situation where Labour cannot muster to form the executive branch has been the only place where you’ve heard this news, now you don’t have to take it from yours truly alone. If you can only take the Establishment seriously, well, there it is – quite candidly as necessity is probably starting to dictate – from that source.

The second striking thing shows that the candidness is not complete, because Labour’s problems in England, specifically of the “Red Wall” variety, have been relegated in significance when it comes to overall causes of incapability to become the party in highest office. Indeed, “Red Wall” does not get a mention in the article. Instead, as the above extract hints, the emphasis of a Labour recovery is all invested in a revival in Scotland:

Under the new Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, the party appears to be making tentative advances north of the border… the impact of Mr Sarwar to the wider direction of travel in UK politics as a whole, cannot be underestimated.

Without that Scottish revival, the logical next step for a Labour party falling short of a double digit polling lead, would be some kind of political accommodation with the Liberal Democrats.

An admission that Labour is finished in market-town England, “Red Wall” or not, is all right here: first there is the acknowledgement that electorate that supports the current Labour party is not distributed effectively, and then there is the floating of the notion that if Labour can’t win back seats against the SNP in Scotland – not against the Tories in England – then the answer is to form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. And the really important thing about this – and the reason why the interpretation is dishonest – is because there is no acknowledgement that Labour cannot succeed in England for the fundamental reason that it has alienated its pro-independence (from the EU) traditional support.

But this is a thing absolutely known by Labour, its political magazine promoters, and its real leadership in UK Government, and that is why there is an emphasis on corralling of support along pro-EU lines, from places such as the big cities, and Scotland, and London – the places that, in a minority, voted to Remain, in a united front with the Lib Dems, in order to cobble an executive branch together that will facilitate Keir Starmer’s chosen-one status. And be clear: it’s not that this political brand would take the UK back into the EU, like it might advertise on its packaging, it’s that the packaging is being used to make the product appeal based on brand loyalty. Needless to say, this has already been expressed in these pages before, but again, if the reader needs a more official voice, suck it up from Politics.co.uk, with the author’s emphasis added to illustrate specifically where the same idea is being expressed (so that no further explanation is required):

The fact that.. [a coalition] has now emerged as a more realistic numerical possibility, owes more to a recent uptick in support for the Lib Dems, than it does to anything more fundamental with the Labour party in England and Wales.

Throughout this parliament the Lib Dems have been struggling to surpass 10% in the polls.  However with their poll ratings inching up by 2% in the spring of 2022, the party is now on track to gain 16 seats at Westminster, all at the expense of the Conservative party…

[this latest change in the electoral arithmetic] offers a more meaningful backdrop to the suggestion that an informal electoral alliance might be developing between Labour and the Lib Dems.  One where Labour at a local level remains relatively passive, as the Liberal Democrats battle to gain their target seats off the Conservatives in the English shire counties.

Moreover, when the respective soap operas of ‘partygate’ and ‘beergate’ finally run their course, the increased possibility of a Labour-Lib Dem coalition government, makes it altogether more interesting to observe potential similarities in the two party’s unfolding policy positions.

Before talking about UK Government’s actual requirements versus the ad hoc arrangements it must make by necessity in respect of inevitable adverse ramifications, it must be pointed out that Lib Dem support is actually saturated before it comes about because of tactical voting: indeed, this site has explained before that political capital to be had from appealing to notions about being in the EU is not enough to win an election – under the circumstances that we have seen so far, it has to be stressed (see, Wanting To Remain In The EU Is Extremist Minority Viewpoint – And Other Things Not To Be Learnt From The Election [link]). But this is the entire point. If there wasn’t a collapse in Labour support because of (starting with) Brexit-betrayal from that party, and if there wasn’t a collapse in Tory support for the same reasons, the Lib Dems would not flourish.

So, this is not to say that the Tory party should be backed at elections because it appears to be the only obstacle to the pro-EU united front – firstly, experience should have taught that it is exactly as pro-EU as any Westminster party, and secondly, the (what we might call) street-political landscape under a “Remainer”-coalition executive would be so volatile that UK Government wouldn’t dare be so confrontational as to expressly rejoin the EU: in fact, there’s no need to do it when the Fake Brexit does such a good job at maintaining parallel development between Britain and Europe.

Furthermore, do not be duped into supporting the latest incarnation of the Farage-fronted controlled opposition (which will turn you over to the Tories in any case), because – and here we get into the ramifications of a coalition – it is clear that non-participation in elections has already caused a major problem for UK Government in that it is hasn’t been able to create a unifying leadership under Starmer, and (ironically) is resorting (through nothing but its own bloody-mindedness) to creating  proper sectarianism along the lines established in the referendum on continued EU membership. Continued non-participation – and specifically, at the crunch moment at a general election – is going to result in a coalition of Labour and the Lib Dems. This must be allowed to happen, because it is manifestation of a phase in the overthrowing of UK Government (and we’ll talk about how that must proceed nearer the time).

There is no conceivable way to imagine that UK Government really wanted to construct such a situation, again, where an overtly Remainer united front amalgamation, representing an extremist minority – especially in England and Wales – and voted in by an extremist minority, is in executive power.  Go back to the FBEL articles that first pointed out how Starmer was going to be forced into office, and see things being said about, for instance, “local elections will be about creating a perception of Labour potential to win a national vote” in April 2021, and the propagandising of an “idea that Labour victory is something that everybody wants” in June 2021: Starmer was intended as a one-nation unifier whereby the tarnishing of the reputation of the so called free British country could be attached to a Tory party whose cretinism was exemplified by the manner in which the heroic Sir Kier banished it – but things have gone spectacularly wrong, and Starmer’s tenure as prime minister is going to be plagued with terrible turmoil, because this is what sectarianism must breed.

Calculations to be found here