The candidates are the usual suspects. Conservative (half in, half out), Labour (half out, half in). The Brexit party (the name on the tin says it all). UKIP (ditto). The Lib Dems (desperate we stay in) and the Greens (ditto).
The Conservatives who's proposal to leave is crouched is so many 'still to be negotiated' provisions that it makes no sense other than there is sense in that it takes us part way out without telling us what the baby will look like.
Labour have sat on the fence so long playing the political waiting game they have lost any sense of proper leadership as they wait to see the number of casualties when the smoke clears, by which time it will be too late.
The Brexit Party is clear, it's in the name and is run by the charismatic, one trick pony salesman, Nigel Farage who's bluster only reveals an ideological deficit since, like all fanatics, his mind is warped by the splendour of winning but unable to think beyond that.
UKIP are a right wing, busted flush, without the charisma of Farage (their former leader) and seemed to have burdened themselves with a number of questionable people who's Fascism and Islamophobic views puts them outside the pale as far as centre ground political thinking goes.
The Lib Dems have, under their leader Vince Cable been resolute in saying that the idea of Brexit is economically crazy and we should do all in our power to stay in the EU. They simply refuse to contemplate that 17 million people should have their say and from the moment the result was announced have campaigned against it. Of course unlike Labour or the conservatives the number of strongholds who voted to leave are not part of their calculation and so they can afford to be bullish.
The Greens who see Europe as a beacon of green ideals are also, with only one seat in Parliament, free to shout their view from the rooftop pretty much with impunity.
Today's election if it means anything is an opportunity to kick out at the two main parties by electing a Brexit candidate, or a Lib Dem candidate, as it were a rerun of the Referendum. In effect there are three elements. An opportunity to confirm if you want to stay or to leave and the third, to indicate the voting publics disgust and rank dissatisfaction by ignoring both Labour and the Conservatives.
I hate protest votes and would prefer to vote positively for something I believe in not by some sort of proxy. The implications of voting for a Farage with his shallow agenda of getting us out at all costs seems to fly against the reason of voting to leave in the first place. It was never an act of self harm since it seemed reasonable to believe that through negotiation a deal, in the interests of Europe and the UK could be achieved. Poor negotiating tactics have hardened attitudes and limited the room for manoeuvre. That doesn't mean one capitulates. The reasons to wish to leave are still there. Lack of democratic accountability. The power of the Bundesbank to say what goes and what doesn't was always a hard pill to swallow. The temperament of the French and the underlying instability of the Euro as it effects the weaker nations within the group plus a economic hegemony which favoured certain nations over the others. My feeling is that whilst there is talk of providing an equal social environment across Europe, the powers that be in the 'Commission' and in the power house which Germany has become (in part through its favoured nation status vis a vis the USA since the end of the Second World War) when the opportunity to show some sort of economic mercy to Greece it singularly failed to do and instead allowed its banks to screw the last euro related pfennig out of a country already bankrupt by the Machiavellian dealings of Goldman Sachs when the Greek state first tendered to join the EU.
So who will I vote for. I have always availed myself of the vote since being back here but perhaps this is one I will give a miss until the real political questions are on the table
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