Boris Johnson wants you to believe his victory is inevitable. It’s not – as long as you vote tactically

No Remainer, Labour voter or even moderate Conservative can look at the Brexit plan, the policy programme or the man himself and think that what Johnson offers is the right way ahead for the future of the country

Back in 2015, David Cameron tweeted that the choice before the country was five years of chaos under Ed Miliband, or stability and a strong government under the Tories. Four years on, Boris Johnson is trying the same line – “getting out of neutral” with the Tories, or a coalition and two referendums under Labour and the SNP.

With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that Miliband’s refusal to offer a referendum on EU membership was right. We know too, that instead of a stable Cameron government, we have suffered four years of increasing chaos under the Conservatives.

Under Johnson, if he wins, it looks set to only get worse. His withdrawal agreement is worse than Theresa May’s. It is worse for the economy. It puts a trade border down the Irish Sea – splitting the UK and endangering the Union. It endangers workers’ rights and environmental protections. It endangers the Good Friday Agreement since Northern Ireland’s continued participation in the EU Single Market will be subject to the Assembly’s approval – should they decide against then a hard border would be back.

For Remainers, a Johnson win and the passage of his deal would represent the end of a four year fight to keep the UK in the EU, to win the right to a second referendum, and to win the fight for our country to stay closely linked in economics, security, medicine, policing and European identity with our closest friends and allies. Brexit would be a certainty for the first time since the referendum result. It would also be a huge blow to our desire to see the UK brought back together, to see the divisions of the last four years brought to an end, and to reaffirm the UK’s identity as a modern, outward looking, tolerant and confident country.

But Johnson doesn’t have to win. He doesn’t deserve to win. His withdrawal agreement is appallingly bad for the UK and would lead to economic hardship, damage to our industrial base and our international standing. He is a compulsive liar. Some who have worked with him say that he is unfit to be prime minister. His campaign promises on hospitals, nurses and the police have mostly been found to be untrue. Even if he intended to keep his word, he does not take into account the £70bn hole that his Brexit would punch in the UK economy, making it far harder for any government to invest.

No Remainer, Labour voter or even moderate Conservative can look at the Brexit plan, the policy programme or the man himself and think that what Johnson offers is the right way ahead for the future of the country.

The last few days have seen the unprecedented spectacle of former Labour and Conservative prime ministers appealing to voters not to give Johnson a majority. His is not the Conservatism of Major or even Thatcher, it is a harder form of right wing politics which actively wishes to take away people’s security, sees UK workers as “idle” and wants to shift the UK to a low regulation, low security, small state future.

Dominic Raab, Priti Patel and Liz Truss, three of Johnson’s key cabinet members, wrote down that hard right vision in a book in 2012. They see Brexit as their chance to make it happen – meaning more children in poverty, more homeless, a less successful economy and a less secure UK.

There is a better future. There is a future in which Johnson and his Faragist Conservatives do not win a majority this week. There is a future where the prime minister’s withdrawal agreement does not pass, and where the people are respected enough to be given a new vote on their future. There is a future where our economy grows and thrives instead of diminishing and shedding industry and manufacturing for good. There is a future where child poverty and homelessness fall instead of rising inexorably every month, every year under a government that does not care.

Thursday is our chance to take control of our future. Johnson and his allies think that all he has to do is repeat the lie that passing the withdrawal agreement will “get Brexit done”, when all it will do it take us from phase one to the far longer and more complicated phase two. But he forgets that Remain is in the majority. We are a Remain country and we have it within our power to return a Remain parliament.

The numbers are there. The seats are there for the taking. In the vast majority of seats, this means a vote for Labour. In the small number of seats where Labour is not best placed to beat the Conservatives, there are a host of websites which can tell you how best to place your vote. It doesn’t even take that many people making the right decision – as few as 40,000 people voting the right way can deprive Johnson of a majority and make a second referendum happen.

Johnson wants us to believe that his victory is inevitable. He wants us to believe that we have no option but to accept his hard Brexit, his pared down state and the continued hollowing out of our public services. He wants us to believe that the alternative is worse – when the alternative is our only way out of the mess he and his hard right friends have created.

Use your vote this week. You may have marched for Remain, have hoped for a referendum, have spoken to neighbours or donated to a campaign. This is the week to resurrect those efforts, and to take the chance to get our country back on track.

Mike Buckley is director of Remain and Reform