Why Honest Positions Matter In Elections

With our presidential elections in full swing, it's worth taking a quick look at the British political scene.  Roughly three months ago, the UK voted to leave the European Union in the so called Brexit referendum.  At the time, the polls of the main parties showed that the Conservatives of then prime minister Cameron were roughly 2-3% ahead of Labour in the polls.  Cameron, who was strongly against leaving the EU, resigned after the Brexit vote.  He was quickly replaced by prime minister May.  The new PM was also a supporter of staying in the EU, but she pledged to carry out the will of the people expressed in the referendum.  For Labour, the leader at the time of Brexit was Jeremy Corbyn who also strongly opposed leaving the EU.  Right after the referendum, the Labour members of Parliament took a vote and Corbyn lost their confidence by a huge margin.  Corbyn, however, refused to resign.  The resulting uproar led to a new election by party members for leader.  Corbyn seems to be ahead at the moment, but the general perception of the British public of Corbyn was seriously damaged.  Today, the polls show that if the election were called now, the Tories would be ahead by around 13%.  In British politics, that sort of margin would be an extraordinary landslide.

Nothing in the Labour party positions has changed in the last three months.  In fact, all that has happened is that the party leader had his strong position on a very important issue rejected by the voters, but he stayed despite the loss.  He pretended that the Brexit vote just did not matter.

Put all this together and you find that being honest and forthright in politics is a quality that matters a great deal to voters.