Angry At ‘Stand Down’ Order, Oddfellow Stands Down In Protest?

I wish I could match the resources that Guido Fawkes’ blog can command but although we are often on the same side, my style is quite different from his, so I don’t think my registered readers will desert me for a much less abrasive approach.

However, though I admire Guido’s work, I do sometimes think he could explain more.

My observation arises from this –

https://order-order.com/2019/11/15/full-list-non-tory-held-seats-brexit-party-arent-standing/

– in which he lists the ADDITIONAL seats in which Farage’s party has let down Brexit supporters.

• I append the list at the bottom of the page.

Knowing the West of Scotland quite well, I can imagine the chagrin felt there, in the Glasgow seats and those in Ayrshire especially, among the large loyalist population who are viscerally hostile to the Brussels Empire.

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But what are we to make of this very strange man, Louis Stedman-Bryce, who ‘launched a furious attack on Nigel Farage’s decision to stand down candidates fighting seats held by the Tories’ 

https://www.thenational.scot/news/18031467.brexit-party-chaos-scottish-mep-steps-farage/.

……..

Listening to Bryce, or rather reading his Twittering, few of us would disagree with his bold statement.

 “I joined the Brexit Party to change politics for good and uphold democracy and I do not trust @BorisJohnson to deliver the type of Brexit I voted for. I believe that the deal he has proposed would be devastating to our country and our future prosperity.

That certainly squares with his condemnation of  Farage’s surrender, the folly of denying millions in more than 300 seats the chance to vote for a Real Brexit.

BUT?

“So it is with a heavy heart that I have taken the decision not to run in the upcoming general election.

Whilst I supported a localised agreement with the Tories in Scotland to help prevent the onslaught of the SNP, I cannot support standing down PPC’s across all Tory seats.”

WTF?

Or, to be civil, what the flip, does Mr. Bryce think he’s doing?

He took strong exception to Farage pulling out of the electoral battle here, there, and all over the land, so in protest he pulls out himself?

Is he nuts?

If you’re a candidate and object to your leadership’s abject u-turn, you don’t fight a ‘stand-down’ diktat by standing down yourself!

All credit to the brave Brexiteers who have defied Farage’s sell-out and have insisted on going it alone…

https://www.sleafordstandard.co.uk/news/politics/ex-brexit-party-candidate-refuses-to-betray-voters-and-will-stand-as-independent-

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/politics/2019/11/14/ditched-brexit-party-candidates-to-stand-as-independents/    

https://www.radioexe.co.uk/news-and-features/local-news/former-brexit-candidate-stands-as-independent/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-party-nigel-farage-boris-johnson-general-election-latest-conservatives-candidates-a9199396.html

…valiantly taking on the big parties with only the most limited resources…

..

….what’s Farage doing with all that money they had to put up to register with the Brexit Party, we ask again?

But Bryce?

One thinks of a line from the famed Scottish battle-hymn, about how Edward of England’s armies were defeated and the Scots “sent them homeward, tae think again!”

The very odd man needs not only to head back southwards to think, but to examine his conscience, for leaving the voters of Glasgow North in the lurch when it was far too late to get another pro-Brexit candidate nominated.

And if he influenced all those other BP people up north to follow his example of desertion, his bizarre ‘withdrawal to protest against withdrawal,’ he deserves to be told off good and proper.

Try this email address.  louis.stedman-bryce@europarl.europa.eu

 

Here are the constituencies abandoned by Farage –

……………….

• Airdrie and Shotts
• Argyll and Bute
• Brent Central
• Bristol North West
• Canterbury
• Central Ayrshire
• Chorley (candidates rarely stand against the speaker)
• Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill
• Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East
• Dudley North
• Dundee East
• Dunfermline and West Fife
• Ealing North
• East Dunbartonshire
• East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow
• East Lothian
• Edinburgh East
• Edinburgh South
• Edinburgh West
• Ellesmere Port and Neston
• Falkirk
• Gateshead
• Glasgow Central
• Glasgow East
• Glasgow North East
• Glasgow North West
• Inverclyde
• Kilmarnock and Loudoun
• Lanark and Hamilton East
• Liverpool, Walton
• Livingston
• Midlothian
• Motherwell and Wishaw
• Na h-Eileanan an Iar
• Newcastle upon Tyne East
• North Ayrshire and Arran
• North East Fife
• North West Durham
• Paisley and Renfrewshire North
• Paisley and Renfrewshire South
• Rutherglen and Hamilton West
• West Dunbartonshire