How Remainers can vote tactically to halt march of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party - Gina Miller

Still, while poll after poll has shown the British public turning against Brexit in ever greater numbers, that nightmare could now all too easily become reality.

With both the Labour and Tory parties haemorrhaging support, Mr Farage and his well-funded Brexit Party is the single obvious receptacle for the hard right vote. He has no manifesto, nothing constructive to say, but his message is simple enough: everything that’s gone wrong with Brexit is everyone else’s fault and he alone can sort it, even though he won’t say how.

The British public may be yearning for this madness to end, but their votes are, by contrast, in danger of being divided in the all-important EU elections on May 23 by up to five – between the pro-Remain parties Change UK, the Greens, Lib Dems, SNP and Plaid Cymru – and that will of course play into Mr Farage’s hands.

That’s why I commissioned independent and respected pollsters and analysts at Electoral Calculus and asked them to get together with ComRes to use ‘machine learning’ – the latest algorithmic method available that is also known as MRP – to identify the single pro-EU party most likely to win in each and every region in the country.

The updated independent recommendations are now available at www.remainunited.org and, trust me, there is no political bias in them.

I was adamant from the start that the data alone would be king.

For readers of The Yorkshire Post, the recommendations are clear: no matter how you have voted in the past, this time around the most viable way of seeing off Mr Farage is to vote Lib Dem or Green.

Yorkshire and the Humber will get to elect six MEPs and as things stand, our independent experts predict that the Brexit Party would win 32 per cent vote share in Yorkshire and Humber which makes clear the very real danger. Add together the vote shares of the pro-Remain parties and you see why tactical voting is so important: the Lib Dems are on 13 per cent; the Greens on eight; Change UK on five.

A lacklustre showing from the divided pro-EU parties on Thursday will be taken as a sign that the country wants to embrace Mr Farage and the grim vision he has for our country: a place where the NHS, so far from receiving £350 million a week in extra funding, will be privatised and sold off in chunks to rich American financiers and where treatment will only be possible with health insurance; a place where Mr Farage’s rich friends and backers will be able to amass ever greater fortunes at the expense of their employees and customers as they relax rules, regulations and protections; a country where it won’t be a good idea to be a member of a minority faith or weak or poor or ill or gay or old or foreign as Mr Farage sets about re-shaping our world with Mr Trump.

I know there are people who are saying that Labour might yet come around to oppose Brexit, but we cannot vote for parties on the basis of hope alone.

Mr Corbyn’s appallingly evasive interview on the Andrew Marr Show over the weekend showed how out of step he is with his backbenchers, members and traditional supporters.

Our research shows that if only Labour would come out and promise a second referendum on whether to stay in or leave the EU, they would increase their total vote share by 14 per cent, increase their lead over the Conservative Party by 27 per cent, and produce a lead over the Brexit Party of eight per cent.

I know some Green supporters, too, have been upset that our analysts are not by and large recommending them, but, again, we can only deal on the basis of the data and the parties in each region with the greatest chances of winning.

Vitally important issues such as climate change can only be dealt with across national borders and that is why Mr Farage and his followers scoff at the idea. Green supporters have to understand that in dividing the pro-remain vote they will assuredly hand victory to Mr Farage.

I had hoped very much that the pro-Remain parties could have come together in these elections, but sadly it has proved not to be possible, which is why tactical voting is so important.

The defeat of Mr Farage and what he represents is all that matters now.

This is why I am not too proud to beg you all to turn out on May 23 and to vote tactically if you are willing, but, above all things, just to vote! 

Gina Miller is a barrister and leading Remain campaigner. Her tactical voting website can be found at www.remainunited.org.