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.

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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’.