Forget party ties, it’s time to unite to stay in EU | Heidi Allen
For the first time in many months, voters terrified at the prospect of a no-deal Brexit and who are desperate to stop the impending car crash have a renewed sense of hope. It’s not just that Jane Dodds, the newly elected Liberal Democrat MP for Brecon and Radnorshire, will be a great representative, of which I’m sure – it’s more significant than that. If I had a pound for every exasperated person who asked me why the Remain parties couldn’t get their act together during the recent European elections, I’d be typing this from a tropical island with a cocktail on the go.
Millions of people in Britain are looking to their MPs to step up, put traditional party allegiances aside and work together in the national interest. By not fielding candidates in the Brecon byelection, the other Remain parties – principally the Greens, Plaid Cymru, the Independent Group for Change, and Renew – have demonstrated it is indeed possible. Halle-bloody-lujah.
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Coming to politics from business and being elected as MP for South Cambridgeshire in 2015, party tribalism is anathema to me. In this job, shouldn’t we all be working in the country’s best interests? And on the big issues, shouldn’t we be searching for the right and best answers, blind to the colour of a rosette?
Wildly optimistic – even naive, you may think – but I make no apologies for feeling that passionately. And on the biggest issue facing the UK’s economic future and security for generations, I’ll keep pushing for cross-party working for as long as I’m privileged to be in a position of influence.
So hats off to the leaders of those Remain parties and independent MPs who believe we have to try, too. The threat of a Boris Johnson premiership is no longer a threat – it’s a living, breathing, capital punishment-supporting home secretary, billion-pound no-deal spending chancellor reality. And it terrifies me.
But there is an antidote in the form of an alliance. Unite to Remain, a project I launched a few weeks ago in anticipation of a general election, seeks similar agreements to that secured in the Brecon byelection in as many seats across England and Wales as would make a difference.
And we must do this, because if we continue to work along traditional party lines, we will split our vote, allowing the ideological fringes of our politics to win. Think Johnson, think Nigel Farage, think Jeremy Corbyn. I think not.
I’ve been inspired by the reaction and enthusiasm of the Remain parties and independent MPs. Their determination, progressive and country-first thinking have surpassed my expectations. This is the maturity I’ve been desperate to see in my fellow MPs – what a shame it was in such short supply in the party I once represented.
Acting as the facilitator – providing resources, latest polling, data insights and donations in the biggest drive yet to equalise the ability of Remain parties and free-thinking independent MPs – Unite to Remain will help to break through the first-past-the-post electoral system.
And the prize for breaking every party allegiance rule? Returning a significant number of multiparty, pro-Remain, outward-looking, global, progressive MPs to Westminster – and then we shift the Brexit dial and change the path our country is heading down.
Beyond remaining in the EU, pushing for proportional representation and faster action on climate change, I don’t expect this coalition of hope to agree on everything and last for ever. But for one general election only, I know we can do this.
Heidi Allen, once a Tory MP, is now an independent MP and is chair of the cross-party initiative Unite to Remain