As an election looms, we will have to be deadly serious about tactical voting to defeat Boris Johnson's Brexit

A divided opposition means the chances of an electoral pact are almost certainly nil, and so it falls to the electorate to vote with our heads as well as our hearts

A general election is coming, almost certainly before the end of the year. At the time of writing, bookies are putting the odds at evens for a polling day falling in December.

I happen to believe that a Final Say referendum should come before any election. It will provide clarity (in the form of a specific mandate) and closure (as a specific mandate entails a route to fulfil it, unlike the mandate from 2016) to the Brexit debate.

It’s what I’ll be marching for at the People’s Vote march on the 19 October, with people from all over the country.

But, unfortunately, the odds seem to be that we’re headed for an election first. We need to be ready for it.

Let’s recap: during his brief time in No10, Boris Johnson has taken an axe to our democratic institutions, spent £100m on a propaganda campaign, and used rhetoric designed to breed division and hate in our country – all while plotting a direct course for the most catastrophic form of Brexit imaginable.

His lies should probably be mentioned, too, but it would take less time to count the number of things he has said which are unequivocally true.

Sadly, these things don’t seem to be apparent or relevant to a large proportion to the electorate, who will vote Conservative regardless. But at this point it should be clear to those not wholly invested in “Brexit at any cost” that preventing another Johnson-led government should be a top priority.

Johnson cannot be allowed to gain a majority in the Commons, where he has so far been defeated at every opportunity by MPs voting with their consciences. But the danger is great. The Tories are still winning in the polls, and though the same was true in 2017 when May’s majority evaporated, a large proportion of the Labour vote has since been driven towards the Liberal Democrats.

With a divided opposition and the chances of an electoral pact almost certainly nil, it falls to the electorate to vote with our heads as well as our hearts.

Now, I am not a Labour member. Despite my natural inclination towards the party, I’ve never voted for Labour in my life. While I was a student in the 2015 and 2017 general elections, I voted for the Liberal Democrats – unlike many of my friends, who were appalled that I could vote for a party which had enabled some of the most damaging Conservative policies this country has ever seen.

I couldn’t argue the last point. But the fact remains that Oxford West and Abingdon was won by the Liberal Democrats from the Conservatives with a margin of 1.4 points, and a majority of 816. Every vote for the Labour candidate, who came third with 12.6 per cent of the vote, was effectively shrinking that margin.

Now, four years later, I’m in the enviable position my friends were in: of voting with my heart. Battersea is another marginal seat – but this time it’s split between Conservative and Labour. Marsha De Cordova has a majority of just 4.4 points, and the Liberal Democrats are in third place with 8 per cent of the vote. The chances of a Lib Dem victory are slim to none, but every vote they gain is a vote which Labour has lost, and the Conservatives have effectively won.

It’s unfortunate that our first-past-the-post electoral system requires tactical voting. But it would be even more unfortunate to usher Johnson back into No10, this time for five years; potentially with a far larger majority. Preventing this will require sacrifice, a sacrifice that opposition parties are unwilling to make for the benefit of the country. So we have to make it for them.