News and entertainment worth sharing – York and North Yorkshire

Campaigners launch ‘vote swap’ to back Labour in York Outer (but prominent Lib Dem condemns ‘fake news’)

The coalition outside York Minster. Photographs: Richard McDougall

On a day when ‘tactical voting’ has been trending on Twitter, pro-EU campaigners have organised a vote swap.

Labour and Liberal Democratic supporters in two of Yorkshire’s key election battlegrounds came together to form a voters’ alliance against Boris Johnson’s Conservatives.

In a pact put forward by York For Europe and North Yorkshire For Europe, Liberal Democrats in Outer York have promised to vote Labour to help unseat Tory MP Julian Sturdy.

They are ‘combining their voting power’
Meanwhile Labour voters in Harrogate & Knaresborough have promised to vote Liberal Democrat to defeat Tory MP Andrew Jones.

Martin Brooks, chair of York for Europe, said:

  • Our Labour and Lib Dem supporters are becoming increasingly frustrated over the sniping that’s been going on at a leadership level between the two parties.

    They all agree that a Boris Johnson majority would be an unmitigated disaster but by fighting each other, they are greatly increasing the chances of the Tories getting in.

    This is a very simple solution to the muddle we find ourselves in: Rather than wasting energy fighting each other it makes much more sense to combine our voting power to unseat the sitting Tory MP.

But LibDemnewsview on Twitter – an account that links back to the blog of former Lib Dem council leader Steve Galloway – hit back saying it was ‘desperate fake news’.