I have no more interest in tonight's Leaders' Debate than I have with watching a Royal make a dick of himself being interviewed by Emily Maitliss. For two basic reasons. Firstly, I have always though Leaders' debates are a bad idea. Secondly, the one exception to that might have been that this election is a proxy for a Brexit referendum, but, in that case, a debate between two pro-Brexit candidates is hardly of much use!
I have always opposed Leaders' debates, because they simply encourage the conversion of politics into a beauty contest, in which the role of Prime Minister is thereby converted into a position of President. It encourages demagoguery and personality politics, which, in turn, encourages a dangerous development of personality cults, based upon that demagoguery, and a dynamic towards a dangerous development of populism and Bonapartism.
In Britain we have a parliamentary not a Presidential system. When Jo Swinson claimed to be standing as "Your candidate for Prime Minister", not only was this the kind of fantasy politics that she and the Liberals have become synonymous with, but it showed that she did not understand the nature of the British political system. Unlike in a Presidential election, the general electorate have no vote for who will be the Prime Minister. They only have a vote for who will be their local MP. All Presidential systems have a tendency towards Bonapartism. The same is true with the development of elected Mayors. The same kind of encouragement of demagoguery and populism goes along with it, which is why we now have Trump as President, in the US. As far as bourgeois democracy is concerned, a parliamentary system is always preferable to a Presidential system. A parliamentary system means that power is diffused rather than concentrated in the hands of one leader. It means that each MP, must instead focus on the issues that they, and the party they represent stand for.
When I go to cast my vote, I will no be voting for Boris Johnson, or Jeremy Corbyn, or Jo Swinson, or any of the other party leaders. I will be voting, only, for one of the candidates, from the various parties, who are standing in this seat. What I really want is not a debate between the party leaders, but more debates between these local candidates; what would be a start would be greater information about exactly where the candidates stand on the major issues. So far, the election literature put out, is thoroughly bland, and uninformative. The Labour literature, says next to nothing, and although voters knew clearly where Paul Farrelly stood, in opposing Brexit, there is nothing that tells voters where our new candidate Carl Greatbach stands on the issue, unfortunately, there is nothing in the election literature, or on line. That is a grave error, because, for any Remain voters, this lack of any clear anti-Brexit position means that many of them will vote for the Liberals, who do have a clear, unambiguous, and well known anti-Brexit position.
And, that is the second reason why I have no interest in tonight's debate. This election, like the 2017 General Election, is a Brexit Election. It is Brexit that is the defining issue. Far more people today define themselves as being either Remain or Leave than define themselves as being Labour or Tory. In 2017, that played in Labour's favour, because lot's of, particularly younger, people, who felt screwed as a result of the EU referendum vote, lent their vote to Labour. Many of them were actual previous Liberal or Green voters, many more were voters who were inclined in that direction, including many who were new voters, but who swung behind Labour as the only credible means of stopping a hard Tory Brexit. In the last two and half years, Labour, under Corbyn, has squandered that support. Labour's pro-Brexit position means that, as they did, earlier this year, a large number of those voters will vote tactically, and, in many places, where Labour either has overtly pro-Brexit candidates, or where it fudges its message, those voters will vote for other parties with a clear Remain message. The current opinion polls grossly underestimate the effect this will have on a seat by seat basis.
If this election is about Brexit, then it makes no sense to have Leaders debates in which the two participants are arch-Brexiteers, as Johnson and Corbyn are. In fact, if truth were told, its more likely that "two articles" Johnson is probably less pro-Brexit than is Corbyn. For Johnson, Brexit was just a convenient hook on which to hang his ambitions for becoming Tory Leader. Corbyn's Stalinoid economic nationalism has meant that he has been pro-Brexit all of his political life, and the adoption of his dithering, triangulating pro-Brexit position has been merely a means of reconciling that with the fact that 90% of party members, and around 75% of Labour voters, are viscerally anti-Brexit!
In a Brexit election, if there are going to be TV debates then those TV debates should cover a full range of views. They should include representatives of Another Europe Is Possible, for example, or other such proponents of a socialist case for Europe, in opposition both to Corbyn and Johnson's pro-Brexit position, but also in opposition to the Liberal Blair-right pro-EU position. Tonight's debate offers no such thing. It is pointless. So, I'll be using my time more productively.
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