It’s time for Remainers to get real about the European elections.

I thought about starting this post with a milquetoast introduction to the fact that elections were coming, but it’s time to get straight to the point. Remainers need to get real about the European elections. And, as a full disclaimer, I am a paid up member of the Liberal Democrats, so you might think that “I would say this”, but this post is aimed in particular at the Green Party, and secondarily at “tactical voting” websites which are using terrible, outdated evidence.

In plain English, even though the elections use proportional representation, the counting method is such that it is still very possible to split the vote. And naturally, Remain voters are anxious not to do that. So anxious, in fact, that they tried to lobby the parties with anti-Brexit positions to form a joint list or stand down for each other. And it didn’t work – not that the Lib Dems didn’t try.

So we’re now left with a conundrum. Who to support? This is where I think we need to get real.

I have a lot of respect for the Green Party. I have advocated alliances with them in Oxford when I was involved in the Lib Dems there. I worked with them to help get Layla Moran elected in 2017. I think they share a vast amount of policy with us, and broadly represent the same worldview. It is welcome that the Greens are supplanting Labour and beating Tories in limited places across the country.

But we need to be cold and ruthless and logical in swinging our support behind one Remain party at these elections, and I think the Greens are being disingenuous by claiming that it should be them. And before I explain why, I want to say: we have no time to beat around the bush anymore. So I am going to be blunt, and put the statistics exactly as they are. I mean no disrespect to the Greens, to whom I would probably give my second preference in any preferential election in England and Wales, in so doing.

Their main claim is that they have 3 MEPs compared to only 1 Lib Dem MEP, and this means that they are the strongest pro-EU party now. But this is ludicrous. It is absolute nonsense. We have to be honest with ourselves. This state of affairs arose from the 2014 European elections. To hammer home the point, this was five years ago, during the Coalition, when the Greens had more members than the Lib Dems, and we were at our lowest point in our history, ever, full stop. Two general elections later, and with the Lib Dems now having over 100,000 members compared to the Greens’ mere 40,000, and with the Lib Dems having significantly improved their electoral fortunes – for instance gaining over 700 seats just this week, absolutely dwarfing the Greens’ efforts both in terms of gains and raw councillor numbers – the situation is just not the same anymore. We cannot rely on evidence from before Brexit happened – before the seismic shock which changed politics – as justification for how we should act now, against Brexit.

What makes this contention even more outdated is precisely where they are saying they are stronger. In the South West – a Lib Dem heartland, where the party just hit it out of the park in local elections (see chart below). In the South East, where the Lib Dems just picked up a cluster of brand new councils – Mole Valley, Winchester, the Vale of White Horse. In London, where post-Brexit opinion polls clearly show the Lib Dems are doing best and outperforming the Greens.

Again, I want to underscore with as much clarity as I possibly can that I have enormous respect for the Greens. If we used a sensible system of proportional representation like STV, they would get my second preference. If it were an election at any time other than this, I would not be making this post. But this is not the time to be messing around. We need to make a statement.

People can vote for who they like. It’s their right as electors. And I’m sure this post will get a reaction from Green members who are understandably passionate about their own candidates. But I just want to present the evidence once again. Evidence from the post-Brexit era.

• The Lib Dems beat the Greens in every region in the 2015 and 2017 general elections.
• The Lib Dems beat the Greens in terms of vote share and councillors elected in 2017, 2018 and 2019
• The Lib Dems beat the Greens in the London local elections in 2018, including gaining majority control of an extra two whole councils.
• The Lib Dems beat the Greens in the Scottish local elections in 2017, which are the only post-Brexit election conducted by proportional representation in mainland Britain so far. They got almost double the number of first preferences, and over treble the number of councillors.
• The Lib Dems are ahead of the Greens in by-election victories
• The Lib Dems have proven they are back stronger than pre-Coalition by gaining +704 council seats this week, concentrated in the South East and South West.
• The average of polls conducted for the 2019 European elections has the Lib Dems on around 9%, with the Greens on around 7%. These were before the local elections, which showed a major Lib Dem set of gains.

Every single one of these things are facts. The only countervailing evidence is that most of these elections were done by First Past the Post. But there is not a single time that the Greens have beaten the Lib Dems post-Brexit, and nor is there a single region where the Greens are outperforming the Lib Dems. Remainers: we have to wake up. We have to accept reality. I know there are Greens who will vote Green no matter what, and all power to them. But at this election – this one time, where so much is at stake and so much can change if we send the right signal – we have to get behind the party which all the evidence shows is the strongest pro-European party out there. Please let’s get real, and force the main two parties to understand that we want them to stop Brexit.