Unaccountable cult politics

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A certain air of inevitability hangs over politics this morning.

It was certain that if Labour fence-sat forever people would notice.

It was certain that if the Tories presented No Deal Brexit as a good thing but in their hearts most knew it was not then they would tear their party apart.

It was certain the protest parties would gain as a result. 

The LibDems are doing so. I hope support for nationalists and the Greens hardens up too.

And then there is Farage. He may have killed UKIP, but the consequence is little better. A party so in the lead with no manifesto is unambiguously bad news for democracy. 

As is apparent, clarity of messaging is key to voter appeal. Labour has lost it. The Tories have seemingly given up trying. The LibDems ‘Bollocks to Brexit' looks like a master-stroke in the circumstances. 

But Farage is just about Farage. He remains a loser, a coward, and the man who has always walked away when responsibility beckoned. I suspect he will again. 

I worry greatly.

I hope the Remain vote comes out in force this week.

I hope it votes for unambiguously Remain parties for wholly rational reasons: on any known logic only Remaining makes any sense for this country. 

I hope people vote tactically.

I hope that the message to Labour and Tories alike is unambiguous.

But, and this is the big but, there is nothing inevitable about what happens next. And holding Farage to account, keeping democracy alive and maintaining choice, is going to be hard. The coming week is but a skirmish. I hope no more will be necessary to hold the threat to democracy at bay. But unaccountable cult politics is now present in the UK, and that is profoundly worrying. 


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