Personality politics is clouding this election, voters deserve clarity

This is the eighth national election I’ve covered as a journalist – five general elections and three referendums – and I’ve never known a campaign like it.

Though personality politics has always played a part in the pre-election mudslinging, this campaign period has been unique for the paucity of its debate on matters of policy. If it’s not Brexit, the NHS or whether a party leader (and thanks to Jo Swinson’s appalling performance, there are only two really left in it) is trustworthy, it’s not getting any airtime. As the parties migrate to online campaigning, their digital advertising has also sunk to the same level. The parties themselves seem happy to have the attention focused solely on the abilities (or otherwise) of their leaders to, variously, “get Brexit done” or “save our NHS”.

That leaves our columnists with an unusually thin amount of material to unravel, and there are only so many ways a writer can muse on whether a statement is deliberately misleading, or well-intentioned naivety. The trading of insults also makes a less than stimulating read.

Voters have a problem: of course they may have a strong view on whether Jeremy Corbyn or Boris Johnson would make a better prime minister, but that’s not all most people are voting on.

That’s why The Independent, as often in our 33-year history, has tried to do something a little different to illuminate the race with a fresh – even antiseptic – light. We’ve asked out columnists to try to look beyond the two parties and answer your wider questions about this complicated political moment – whether that’s John Rentoul on who is lining up to replace Corbyn as Labour leader or Mary Dejevsky on one unexpected future referendum that may be heading our way, on our membership of Nato.

And, of course, we’re closely following how tactical voting over Brexit might eventually prove the pollsters wrong, and we’re explaining how you might want to vote if your primary motivation is to use your tick in the box to deliver a Final Say referendum on our membership of the EU.

Whatever happens on Thursday night, we’ll explain what it means beyond the insults.

Yours,

Hannah Fearn

Co-editor of Voices