@LibDems @christopherfew5 Why I left the Conservative Party and joined the Liberal democrats - a thread.
I was born in the 1970s to a military family. As a result we travelled as we were told to for my dad's postings, and by the time I was 6 I'd travelled aroud the world, in both directions. We settled near Aldershot, my Dad got comissioned, and life was good....
Until my paternal grandfatehr died, in 1978, in Liverpool. We were aware of the death in November 78, but because of strikes and problems in Liverpool, he wasn;t buried until April 1979. My da swore he'd never vote Labour again.
My Grandfather, on my mothers side, stood for election as a local councillor, and he was voted in, as a Tory, in Maggies 1979 landslide win. My local Tory MP worked hard in the constituency, and retained his seat in 1983 and 1987.
As I grew up under the Tories, I saw the good things that resulted from their reforms. My school got better, crime went down, prosperity went up, and life was good. In 1991, we joined the Single Market, and in my teens and 20s I enjoyed Freedom of Movement in the EU.
Once I became politically active, I became a card carrying tory member, and supported my local MP, no matter where I lived. You could pin a blue rosette on an ice sculpture and I would have voted for it.
But then came Cameron... The Coalition was, frankly, necessary, and some of the best things that happened (and some of the worst, to be fair) came not from the Conservatives, but from the @LibDems and I got to know about people like @vincecable and @joswinson .
No matter what people claim about thge Coalition years, they were not bad years. Were mistakes made? yes they were. But the team, of Tory and LibDem, tried to work together for the good of the country.
Cameron's re-election in 2015 was a shock. I didn't expect it based on what was going on at the local level. But a majority meant no more coalition, and the party started to swing right... And then the Referendum. I voted Remain, but I accepted that Leave had won.
But I assumed the Referendum was fair, and run according to the rules of law. I found out that not only was it a fraud, but the Tories KNEW it was, yet did nothing about it.
Next came May, and her Withdrawal Agreement. Which is, for thr record, a better transition than Johnson's WA. It wasn't pretty, but it gave us breathing space. And it got voted down, by Tories.
By the time @lucianaberger and her friends formed Change, I was ready to leave the Tories, and I cancelled my subscription - the one I'd been faithfully paying since age 18, 29 years of contributions to the Conservavtive Party.
I would still vote tory, but I wasn't prepared to fund them. And then cam the assasination of May, and the election of Boris. And suddenly, I am supporting a party with a leader who lies, blatantly, to the people. Who lied to the Queen, and lied to us ABOUT lying to the Queen.
The last straw for me was the promise to get us out, deal or no deal, on 31 October. No-one voted for No-Deal, we were going to get "the easiest deal in history" and the deal would be as good as we had in the EU, Boris had promised in 2016... I'm not going to mention the bus!
And finally, the Tory Manifesto has a statement that They will review the interaction between the courts, partliament and the government. My history lessons at school showed us what happens when a right wing government and executive does that - Germany 1923-1945...
IN the last 3 years, we have gone from a country that almost wants to leave the EU, to one that fdefinitely wants to remain. And wants to get brexit done, by saying to the EU "we got it wroing, can we come back"
We've also gone from a country of tolerance and freedom to a country to hatred and police state. Where you can be threatened with arrest for saying the word "Bollocks" and where MPs are called "traitors" and the death of an MP is "Humbug"
I don't want to be associatd with that, or a party that suppots any of it. And so I made a choice. I left the tories and joined the @LibDems, and I'm proud to be supporting @joswinson adn her party, no matter what the result of the election.
Because I know that while there are @LibDems in parliament, they will try to hold this british Tory NSBAP to account, far more that Corbyn and his cronies - the solcialists who stopped my grandfather getting a decent funeral.
If youj want to beat the Tories, on 12 December, then my story should tell you why you should only consider voting @LibDems - the two old parties have failed us, it's time to #stopbrexit and the damage it's doing, and #buildabrighterbritain
If you got this far, then thanks for reading my experiences :)
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