Thread by @StejSmith

I'm struggling to put into words why, but the more I think about this idea of a #progressivealliance, the more uncomfortable I am about it. It feels like "managing" voters in a way that doesn't feel quite right to me. 1/n

Don't get me wrong: I want the Tories gone; I think they're a terrible government and doing real harm to this country. But this doesn't strike me as the way to get them out. 2/n

It seems disrespectful to voters for party leaders to meet together and then say, "we have decided between us who you should have a chance to vote for," to limit their choice in advance of the poll.

It feels like saying to them, "we don't trust you to make the 'right' choice, so we're going to help make it for you. Your job isn't to choose the person you think would best serve as your MP, but to play your part in us reaching our goals."

To me, it goes against the whole point of an election, which is that voters are presented with a choice of candidates and they choose the one they think will best represent them. That's being denied them without their say-so.

It's also really negative: it's not about presenting the electorate with a positive case for choosing your candidate, but ultimately just choosing them because they're not the Tories.

It changes the basis on which the electorate's being asked to vote, again without their say-so. But people don't just vote on "Tory/non-Tory" lines: there's probably a whole raft of reasons why people vote as they do.

So what if the people refuse to vote along the lines that are being presented to them? What if all this actually drives people to the Tories because they don't like being disrespected and patronised in this way? What if it all backfires?

And what if the candidate who's stood down would actually have been a better MP than the one who's chosen? Such considerations are put aside in the obsessive focus on arithmetic and getting the Tories to lose their seat.

It just doesn't sit right at all with me. I can see the case for more cooperation between parties - but this is not the way to do it.
Rant over.

@threadreaderapp unroll please.