Campaigners for a second referendum are planning to join forces to target 100 Tory Brexiteer seats at the next general election in a bid to stop Boris Johnson securing a majority, even as his most senior adviser warns it is already too late to stop the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal.
Tim Shipman in The Sunday Times says the leaked document shows the People’s Vote (PV) campaign is “mobilising for the biggest campaign of tactical voting ever planned” in an attempt to prevent a no-deal Brexit and secure a second referendum.
It follows the success of an electoral pact during last week’s Brecon and Radnorshire by-election in which the Greens and Plaid Cymru agreed to stand aside and give the Lib Dems a free run at the Tories.
Of the ‘PV100’ seats targeted, half will be “attack” constituencies where hardline Brexiteers hold vulnerable majorities, while the other 50 are “defensive” seats where second referendum supporters are at risk from Brexiteers.
With Labour, which remains split internally over the merits of a referendum, refusing to join in a nationwide Remain alliance, the document says: “In marginal seats where the Labour candidate does not support a PV on any Brexit outcome, we will not give them our backing”.
Acknowledging “we will be asking some of our supporters to ‘hold their noses’ and vote for a party they dislike”, the memo indicates it could mean the Remain alliance “backing a small number of Tories where they support a people’s vote”, says Shipman.
Tory party Chairman James Cleverly did little to dispel speculation the country could be heading to the polls before the year is out. Speaking to Sky’s Ridge on Sunday he said the government would not “initiate” an election despite only having a working majority of one, “leaving open the possibility of ministers being forced into a poll”, says The Daily Telegraph.
With Remainers hoping to bring down the government before the UK crashes out of the EU, Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s most senior aide and the brains behind the successful Vote Leave campaign, said the prime minister will honour his pledge to leave the EU by 31 October even if Jeremy Corbyn and pro-Remain Conservatives succeed in forcing a general election.
In briefings to ministers and officials reported by The Sunday Telegraph, he suggested that the Labour leader had missed his opportunity to secure an election before the UK’s intended departure date from the EU.
“They don’t realise that if there is a no-confidence vote in September or October, we’ll call an election for after the 31st and leave anyway,” he said.
With an ORB poll revealing 46% of people agreeing with the statement that “if the EU is unwilling to re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement, the UK should leave without a deal” and buoyed by a “Boris bounce” which has the Tories seven points clear of Labour, party chiefs are convinced a clear pledge to take the UK out of the EU, deal or no-deal, combined with Johnson’s skills as a campaigner and a hugely unpopular Labour leader, will be enough to secure a majority.
However, “this Tory strategy for winning an election makes some very big and risky assumptions”, says Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer.
“One is that the gains harvested by the Conservatives at the expense of Labour among Leave-supporting voters will outweigh Tory losses in Remain-supporting constituencies. Nearly every top Lib Dem target is a Conservative seat, while Scottish Nationalists are hoping to scalp Tory MPs north of the border” he said. “The other perilous assumption is that Nigel Farage’s party will fade away or fold up. The leader of the Brexit party is enjoying being the object of renewed attention and displays no signs of wanting to retire again”.
