Remainers voting Labour - am I missing something ?

[LurkingHusband]

Unless I am wildly misinformed, the official stance of the Labour party is to support Brexit ?

So why would a voter who wants to remain in the EU vote Labour ?

My departing Labour MP was one of the cheerleaders for Brexit (not that you would know now, she has disappeared off the radar for some reason)

I voted to Remain but Brexit is happening. So I'm much more concerned with what will happen to the NHS, education, human rights etc in the next four years. I feel it will be an important time for the opposition to be able to challenge a Tory government so to dilute some of their more barmy ideas.

The next four years is a critical time for us as a country. We, the people, should be able to hold our politicians to account during this time. Last thing I want is for one party to dominate as they'd be able to tweak eg the Repeal act to exclude accountability. Far better to have more seats in opposition at this time (even if you don't like the leaders).

I've no doubt that Theresa May is praying we will all concentrate on Brexit and not notice the broken promises and shambles of the last few years.

I mean, I know politicians distort and prevaricate - it comes with the job - but this lot have taken it to new heights. About the only promise they've kept was the referendum and we all know what a howling success that turned out to be!

This election is an admission of failure.
Just 2 years after the last GE, they admit they can't deliver their 2015 manifesto.

Actually Bunkai, the Lib Dems have pledged a ref on the final Brexit deal. So it may not happen.....vote Lib Dem.

Personally, I don't like Referenda for complex questions, and whatever deal we get, or don't get, it will still be complex.

Referenda should be for issues which have a yes/no answer.

I would vote Labour if I thought they were most likely to get my shit Tory MP out. No way would Tory Remainers around here vote Labour, so I'm voting LibDem.
Unless your MP is Kate Hoey or another extremely proLeave Labour MP, exisiting Labour MPs should be voted FOR. Where Labour is 2nd behind Tory, vote Labour to reduce the Tory majority as much as possible.

What a pity Gisela Stuart is standing down. It would have been a delight to see her being given an ear bashing on doorsteps.

Every vote for Labour strengthens Corbyn and he may well cling on. I can't vote in the random hope that we end up with Cooper or Starmer.
And we'll still end up with MPs committed to Brexit.

If you want Remainers in Parliament you need to vote for Remainers.

I myself think that if you had decent Labour MPs who voted Remain and their constituents did, and was prepared to defy the whip, then they are still worthy of a vote. It shows that they are prepared to stand up and represent their constituents. It's been pointed out elsewhere that Brexit is a Tory project - Labour doesn't own Brexit in the same way, so would have more wiggle room.

I sort of agree but I'm not personally in that situation, and I think a better than expected Labour turn out will simply encourage Corbyn to see that as endorsement of himself and the dysfunction will continue.

I want to vote to get rid of Tory MP. If I vote Labour purely on the basis of the strength of the candidate I feel like I'm condoning or turning a blind eye to what's going on in WM. Even if the Labour candidate was strongly Remain, Labour is explicitly committed to Brexit. Nor is it doing its job of opposition.

Just like in any elections, there is more than one reason that people vote a certain way. My MP is Labour, and voted to leave the EU. I completely disagree with him on that, but the alternative would be for me to vote Lib Den, who came 5th In the last election locally. So there is no way that I will vote for a party which will give the tories a chance to win. I will vote Labour strategically with the hope that the spineless Tory candidate doesn't win. Hoping yes for a softer Brexit, but also for better social support, NhS, less cuts in education.

What a pity Gisela Stuart is standing down. It would have been a delight to see her being given an ear bashing on doorsteps.

When she started whinging about EU citizens needing to be reassured and protected, I emailed her and suggested she should have thought of that before she threw her lot in with the Leave campaign. Mysteriously that never got a reply.

So are some people seeing this election as a rerun of the referendum and voting solely on the basis of which party they think are most likely to overturn the referendum result?

And on LH's enourmous sample of young people, it has not be shown, as far as I am aware, whether the link between referendum voting and age is a cohort effect or a life cycle effect. It might be that once those young people are older and have different priorities and experiences, that a proportion of them will change their minds on the EU. I don't think it is an outlandish suggestion to make that some people's political views change as they get older.

And on LH's enourmous sample of young people

I'm youngish, at heart anyway Wrongtrouser, and I changed my mind on the EU as I grew up:
As a teenager I was very anti-EU, mainly because my mum was and I wasn't that well informed.
Then, as I got older and became better at seeking out information for myself, I remained Eurosceptic but began to see that it was not as black and white as I used to believe. I still have lots of criticism of the EU, but I think that leaving it is a mistake - the advantages of staying in massively outweigh the disadvantages. I have still not seen any compelling argument for leaving based on tangible and economic benefits - the only ones which stand up to scrutiny are the more emotional arguments to do with sovereignty. I sort of have more respect for leavers who admit it was all about that, rather than trying to pretend it was all for rational, economic reasons.
I have seen the argument from both sides though.

I'm a remainer but the brexit vote happened and there's no going back. If the results of democratic referenda are still up for grabs after a majority has spoken then it all gets a bit scary and could ultimately lead to civil war?

I'm in Scotland and roughly half our population want to go independent while roughly half really don't want to go independent. Referendums scare me quite frankly, as a marginal result produces such division and loathing.

If the slight minority don't respect the slight majority then we're fucked.

As far as democracy goes, be careful what you wish for. Letting the public decide is extremely risky.

So are some people seeing this election as a rerun of the referendum and voting solely on the basis of which party they think are most likely to overturn the referendum result?

Nope, not in my case

Trouble is i think the only one i can vote for will be lib dem, so i am hoping they dont run on that 'promise' as i thinks its too late not to leave

I'm in Scotland too, Morris and share some of your concerns.
I don't think Brexit will be stopped (barring massive unforeseen changes), and it probably shouldn't be.
Even if the lib dems won the GE (and I really can't see that), Brexit of some form is happening.
I'm in damage limitation mode - I still think it's a mistake, but it doesn't have to be a disaster. I think that the rhetoric of "soft" vs "hard" Brexit is misleading and creates the impression that only one is a "proper" Brexit. Whereas I still hope there is a way to limit the economic damage of leaving the EU, whilst protecting the rights of those who have built a life here in good faith. A huge majority for May will destroy this hope, and I am a very optimistic person.

Completely agree rufus - its very tricky for them, because a lot of remainers want them to make that promise. But if they do, they will scare a lot of other voters off. And then even if they do get in as part of a coalition (unlikely), they will be forced to abandon that promise, which will completely destroy their credibility: They still haven't been forgiven for the tuition fees, which I don't think they had any control over anyway.

Because labour has become a very left wing party, committed to overpopulating the country.

Agree squishy

Its a right mess

Thing is, even if you think Brexit is an unimportant triviality/inevitable/the Immutable Will Of The People, and to you there are umpteen more pressing issues that we ought to be concerned with - dealing with the economic fallout, the expense, the negotiations, the job losses, etc etc of Brexit is going pretty much completely tie up all the resources of government for the next ^^ years.

Just for example, the Institute for Government recently published a report pointing out that just to replace existing legislation to enable the machinery of Government to stay on track and deliver Brexit will require the same number of Bills as the average Parliamentary session.

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publicat
ions/legislating-brexit

Oops, broke the link.

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/legislating-brexit

LH GS's constituency was solidly Conservative before her election in 1997. Without a UKIP vote in 2015 it would have gone Conservative. I cannot see how a LibDem vote there is not a proxy Conservative vote. I presume for a Remainer Labour is still preferable to Conservative?

I'd imagine that having a liberal, pro free movement, pro immigration, pro human rights and pro employment rights, PM in charge of enacting Brexit would be quite the draw for those who wanted to stay in the EU in order to keep those things?