FAQs

Think of the primary as taking the guesswork out of tactical voting.
The aim is to create an alliance of voters - the candidates will stand for their own party as normal.

Absolutely! We expect all candidates to remain on the ballot paper, but with clarity on who everyone is getting behind. It’s actually more democratic - because for the first time in generations, there’ll be a real chance of change!

Our First-Past-The-Post voting system discourages co-operation, and breeds tribalism, short-termism and complacency. The only other country in Europe that fully uses our system is Belarus, Russia's ally against Ukraine.

We are totally independent from all the political parties. Our costs are almost entirely time, and we all work as unpaid volunteers. This is a community-led, grassroots effort.

No. Our aim is to stop Michelle Donelan, the Conservative candidate, with whichever of the progressive candidates the majority of tactically voting sietes and election polls think is best-placed to win the seat.

An important feature of the Primary is that information supplied by the three progressive party candidates will be made public so that voters can assess their suitability to represent us - our News page has answers candidates have given to a selection of questions asked by local voters in out recent survey.

Definitely not. It takes a lot to overturn a large Conservative majority, and the parties starting work early, especially the Conservatives.  Once the obvious tactical vote is obvious, you can pivot towards helping them. All three progressive parties are working with the very similar goal of shining a light on this Government's appalling track record.

Democracy is a continual process and to work it needs your help. Sign up using the link at the top of the page.

We are not asking any candidate to stand down.

By uniting behind a single candidate, the Conservative majority was overturned in Tiverton & Honiton and Wakefield without anyone being removed from the ballot papers.

We hear this from all sides every election time. Yet the Tory MP is still polling to win (only just at the moment, though).

Einstein defined insanity as ‘doing the same thing over & over and expecting a different result’.

We sincerely hope that this is the last election under the current First Past the Post system, but for now, the only way to avoid an unfair result is to choose a single opposition candidate in order to avoid the vote being split and handing victory to the Michelle Donelan.

We are in touch with these organisations via https://themovementforward.com - Melksham & Devizes Primary is, in a way, like a highly informed tactical voting exercise. As at 24th June 2024 the main tactical voting sites all recommend Lib Dems as the tactical vote here.

We are in close communication with each of the three 'progressive' opposition candidates and locally, on the ground, they are aware of our aims - we have made it easy by not asking for any commitment from them. The Primary as a ground-up, voter-led initiative rather than something driven by the parties. There has been a huge level of interest so far, and the more people that get involved and share our news the better. There are noises off from party HQs that they do not want candidates to engage but we are still commited to put out the answer to the most commonly asked questions from general voters.

So we will still meet, carry out surveys and compare each party's statements, manifesto, promo materials and printed matter against the Q&As you - the voters - ask!

These will not now go ahead as time is tight. However, by providing accurate information provided by the candidates alongside reliable tactical voting predictions we are hopeful that we will be able to stop Michelle Donelan from winning here.

The Primary process is designed to platform candidates from the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems. In the rare case that an opposition independent candidate were to be a serious contender in the constituency, with a proven electoral track record, then we would consider platforming them if circumstances were right. We would have to be confident that any inclusion of an independent would not lead to further fragmentation of the progressive vote.

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