A spectacular inconsistency of principle

All 11 of the MPs to have joined the Independent Group have outright declared their intentions to squat in their parliamentary seats without calling by-elections to put their defections to the electoral test.

This behaviour is technically within the rules, although 2 MPs who defected from David Cameron's Tories to UKIP back in 2014 (Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless) tried to set the electoral precedent that political defectors should respect democracy and call by-elections.

The problem of course is that this refusal to call by-elections to give their constituents another say under the dramatically changed circumstances is that it betrays a searing hypocrisy because they all also advocate another Brexit referendum.

These people believe in putting things to the vote again when it suits their interests, but vehemently oppose the idea of voting again when they'd be in danger of losing their privileged positions in parliament.

This hypocrisy is so obvious, and so clearly motivated by self-interest and entitlement that it's obviously going to be a massive problem for everyone in the another referendum campaign.

Not only are People's Vote advocates going to have to deal with the (unfair and manipulative) characterisation that they're a "sore loser" campaign, they're now also going to have to deal with (entirely legitimate and justified) criticism of this extraordinary anti-democratic hypocrisy from 11 of their most high profile advocates.

If I was involved in the People's Vote campaign I'd be absolutely furious with these self-serving narcissistic cowards for giving opponents an absolutely devastating attack point, but somehow no.

Not only are the anti-Brexit pockets of the Internet so busy having raptures about the formation of this new opaquely funded pro-austerity "centrist" party that they can't even see that it's actually a massive distraction from the fact that a Tory Brexit meltdown is less than 1,000 hours away, they also refuse to see that this self-serving refusal to call by-elections is such glaring hypocrisy that it's created a devastating attack point against the People's Vote campaign.

What's even more concerning from a Brexit-sceptic perspective is that several of these people are the same strategically inept idiots who tied the nation up in a pointless and self-serving Anyone But Corbyn coup plot in the immediate aftermath of Brexit.

When the nation desperately needed to focus on coherent objectives (like fixing blame for the Brexit chaos squarely on the Tories who delivered it, demanding a wide ranging Brexit commission instead of allowing Theresa May to run it as a closed Tory shop exclusively for Tory party advantage, and unifying the Brexit resistance rather than creating even more divisions) Chuka Umunna, Chris Leslie, Mike Gapes and their ilk instead delivered a massive political distraction by seeking to undermine the will of the Labour Party membership with a naval-gazing coup plot they'd been planning to launch for weeks beforehand, no matter what the outcome of the Brexit referendum.

Instead of any coherent form of action to deal with the Tory Brexit mess these idiots completely wasted the vital first few months on a brazenly self-serving, ridiculously divisive, and spectacularly failed anti-Corbyn coup that actually ended up actually increasing Corbyn's legitimacy as Labour leader with a resounding double-mandate from party members!

The anti-democratic and profoundly hypocritical way this political squatter group has been formed is proof that they've learned absolutely nothing about the elitist self-serving attitudes that resulted in their previous humiliating failure.

By refusing to call by-elections they're demonstrating exactly the same elitist entitlement as before, and by handing Brexiteers a devastating attack point to undermine calls for another referendum, they're in danger of delivering another spectacular political whopping by their political opponents too.

Just when the nation needs strong leadership in the face of an impending Tory Brexit meltdown, the same useless bunch of strategically inept, ridiculously self-serving, democracy-defying political narcissists have pushed themselves to centre stage in such a tone-deaf and hypocritical manner that they're actually freely handing out ammunition to their political opponents.

If this ludicrously unprincipled vanity project is really the best our political system can come up with in the face of an unprecedented self-inflicted socio-economic disaster looming on the horizon, we're absolutely fucked aren't we?

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