I am genuinely puzzled as to how anyone of reasonably good character can consider voting Tory now. Can anyone clarify?

I am genuinely puzzled as to how anyone of reasonably good character can consider voting Tory now. Can anyone clarify?
A. QUICK CHECKS – are you ok with points 1-6; read on if you are

Let’s get a few things out of the way quickly.
1. This is a political (and moral)  post. See note 1.

2. The post may be considered controversial/ challenging. See note 2 . Lies are lies and I refer to them as such.

3. The post  is specifically and solely about Tories. See note 3.

4. Feedback (recognising points 1 to 3) is definitely hoped for and welcomed if it’s reasonable,  reliable, respectful and relevant.  Can be face to face, phone skype etc, or written comment. "Relevant" is very important See previous point and  Note 4.

5. Comments out of scope will therefore be deleted after flagging the issue. See Note 5.

6. If you think "Mike would say that, wouldn’t he?",  I encourage you to focus instead on the issues, but if in doubt please see point 6

Read on if you’re fine with 1 to 6; or look at the notes below if you're not sure. Scroll to another post please if points 1-6 don’t work for you/

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To restate:  I am genuinely puzzled as to how anyone of reasonably good character can consider voting Tory now. Can anyone clarify?

If the question is clear you can respond just to that summary statement, if you already know about the widespread and officially sanctioned Tory lying,  and the obvious implications.

 More detail below as to the reasons why I ask the question.

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B. EXAMPLE RECENT TORY LIES
Can we accept that if you’re of good character then you don’t believe in deceit?
Yet the Tories have

- misrepresented themselves on Twitter, pretending to be a fact-check site, and defended this; they were warned  by Twitter

- paid Google to take people who were looking for the Labour manifesto to a faked Labour manifesto site; they were warned by Google

- doctored BBC journalists’ footage; the BBC complained, the Tories ignored this, until Facebook agreed with the complaint and took the adverts down.; thousands of people saw the adverts

- doctored Keir Starmer footage (and lied about this calling it “editing” to produce a summary – the “edited” footage showed a silent Keir Starmer which was a lie)

- lied about the reasons for suppressing the report on Russian interference in the 2016 referendum

- and that’s all just in the last few weeks.

These are not rogue actions by over-enthusiastic individuals; that can sometimes  happen, and appropriate measures can then be applied to maintain a party’s commitment to fair dealing. This is Party policy, and has been defended by Gove, Raab and Cleverley, while Boris Johnson has dodged the question on the Twitter hoax  (and everything else) and tried to bamboozle by talking about Fermat’s Last theorem, the Riddle of the Sphinx, and the Bermuda Triangle. If he was in Court facing questioning by the judge about this then he would not get away with such attempted nonsensical  distraction. They lied. It’s simple. Nothing to do with Fermat, Sphinxes or Bermuda.  He has  lied again about the Russian report as Dominic Grieve has made very clear.

Boris Johnson said during the leadership election, that he was  not attracted to the idea of proroguing Parliament, so he clearly understood the difference between right and wrong. Before Parliament had done anything to affect his decision, he then casually ignored what he had said, involving himself in further deceit and getting the queen's signature on the instrument of that deceit.

The Government  maintained that there was a Cunning Plan to leave the EU legally on 31 Oct 2019 despite the “Benn Act”. But that was a bluff ( a lie, in other words, repeated by many  senior members of the Government)  - there was no such plan except for a pointless and ineffective childish stunt of omitting the signature from the extension letter and sending another letter.  The EU responded to the communication which was constitutionally agreed by a majority in parliament, i.e. the unsigned letter. But millions of public money was spent in No Deal planning , which Parliament has repeatedly shown it will not support.  This is use of public money for a political purpose (i.e. the bluff) rather than for the benefit of the UK public.

C.  WHAT DOES LYING TO THIS EXTENT TELL US ABOUT THE WEAKNESS OF THE TORY CASE?

This post is about the 2019 Tories, and the persistent, institutional, defended dishonesty we are now seeing.

We surely must recognise that if your case is so bad that you’re ashamed of the truth, and instead you lie repeatedly, then your own case has little merit.
If you feel you need to misrepresent your opponent's case in order to challenge a "straw man" opponent, then you must be fearful that your opponent's real case is powerful, and one to which you have no answer.

Lies are still lies even if the whole Party robotically repeats them, like “Everyone wants to get Brexit done” which is blatant nonsense. A Christian Government Minister seemingly couldn’t bring herself to state this lie when talking to me and softened to "We just need to get Brexit done " (implying " and this will unite the country" as if many people would be thrilled to be out-manoeuvred in the way the Government clearly wants to).

The need to "ensure there is trust in our politicians" is advocated by those who have done an enormous amount to reduce trust in politicians  since 2016, so it is difficult to see this as their motivation.

D. WHAT DOES SUCH LYING MEAN FOR THE FUTURE OF THE UK?

As voters we must recognise that promises by those who lie all the time are worthless even if they are written on a bus. So a vote for the Tories is a complete "unlucky dip". If you hand the deceivers a mandate to do what they want for 5 years, then what happens will not be what you want or what they said they will do, unless there was a sudden 180 degree turn towards a path of honesty such as we have never seen in politics before. By the way they also propose to substantially disable judicial review , which presumably indicates that they want to  undertake unspecified actions currently considered unlawful. (How about postponing the 2024 General Election for 5 years?)

E. THE REAL UNANSWERED PUZZLE

I wrote a similar blog, particularly from the Christian viewpoint, about Remain vs Brexit. https://viewdelta.blogspot.com/2019/08/9-reasons-why-i-as-christian-am-in.html
Interestingly no Christian chose to engage with these arguments either online or face to face. In the absence of response I made an attempt at putting the opposing case, for balance. https://viewdelta.blogspot.com/2019/09/what-reasons-might-there-be-for.html
 I  won’t attempt to put the opposing case this time - I can’t see anything positive to say on this issue for the Tories.. If you think there's a case, I'd like to hear it.

I asked this question about people of good character supporting deceit  on the "Brexit's a Trick not a Treat" Facebook page under the heading "Everyone wants to get Brexit Done"
https://www.facebook.com/brexitsatrick/posts/136148224454116?__tn__=K-R
Among 300+ varied comments that people made,almost none answered the question - other than one comment supporting the Tories  that "the difference is that we have an objective in sight", i.e. the end justifies the means. Sorry, I can’t sign up to that principle; if what you want to achieve is right, then there will be a morally right way to achieve it

I have come to the conclusion that it is really important that the Tories are decisively defeated in the 2019 General Election. Any other result will be seen nationally and internationally as rewarding deceit. The conclusion will be that persistent institutional lying works. This would be a dreadful outcome for democracy. It is a more fundamental issue than Brexit.  But a decisive defeat would signal that such large-scale lying does not fool  the majority of the U.K. electorate. That would be a step forward for democracy, or a step back from a world of manipulated alternative facts in which truth is despised by those in power.

In summary: I cannot conceive of how anyone of good character can consider voting Tory - but I know that some such people are considering this, and I don’t question your good character, but I ask you to shed some light on the paradox by which you can support such deceit?

Corollary – I cannot see how any Christian can vote Tory – but again I recognise that some Christians I know are planning or considering this and I invite dialogue on this because I can not see the rationale.
 (If my understanding of your motives is inadequate, I would love you to enlighten me – recent previous questions I have posed  have resulted in no clear response).

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F. NOTES (See above)
 - You only need to look here if you have any questions about the "quick checks" 1 to 6 points at the start.

1. Some people say they don’t read political posts on Facebook. I absolutely support that personal choice. I used to  avoid posting about politics on Facebook, but for me 2016 brought in fundamental issues of truth and justice which meant that for me a politics-free Mike was not an authentic Mike. But if you disagree with my choice the answer is easy - scroll to another post. I respect your choice and invite you to respect mine.

2. This may be controversial but I trust that if you read it you'll find it authentic. In my view we don't solve problems by avoiding them. If you disagree but want to communicate in another medium (chat, have a coffee, phone call, skype, etc) then I welcome that - likely to be more productive. Comments here are fine too.

3. To consider this point properly we absolutely must avoid getting distracted. If you want to write about other Parties, start a post on that subject. But let me just deal with a common and faulty defence.  When I hear from some people "well, the other side lied too", then

- you have not justified you own deceit; two wrongs do not make a right; any democratic deficit created by other untruths is not solved by you adding to it

- with that one word "too" you have admitted your own culpability.

It is also perverting the truth if you (or TV journalists) too readily conclude (perhaps "for balance" ) that "they're all as bad as each other". That's not a defence for criminals in the dock, and should not be considered a defence for politicians irrespective of the validity (or otherwise) of the statement.

4. I am puzzled and  genuinely cannot understand how people of good character can consider voting for Boris Johnson. Yet I know that I have friends who I do consider to be of very good character that are considering or have even decided to do so.  How you can consider this is a mystery to me, but a mystery I would genuinely like some insight on. The offer of a chat / coffee / call stands, as well as the opportunity to respond with comments here.
With reference to my similar blog on Brexit, I could repeat this point changing "of good character" to "who are Christian", and this would still be an accurate statement about my puzzlement. (So I cannot understand how any Christian can consider voting for Boris Johnson, but fully recognise that there are some who may or will, and I invite them to respond in some way)/ . But I wanted this post to be inclusive and to refer to more people than those who identify as Christian, and for that reason I have not included the many Biblical references about the importance of truth which seem to be inescapable.

Regarding the House Rules I have proposed above ("reasonable,  reliable, respectful and relevant"), they are defined more fully in the Pinned Post on the "Brexit's Musical Trick" page. You don't have to read the rest of the page
https://www.facebook.com/BrexitsAMusicalTrick/posts/131444908296992?__tn__=K-R

5. Please may I emphasise again that out-of-scope comments don’t belong here. I'm not curbing free speech, you can say your stuff elsewhere. But I have gone to the trouble of posting on a specific subject and on-topic comments get lost if there is a forest of off-topic comments as can easily happen. Reminder: "the other lot lie too", whatever you think of the statement, is out of scope., i.e. off-topic - so if you've thought about your wording carefully, keep a copy elsewhere so that you can post it somewhere more appropriate.

6. You can come up with all sorts of reasons why I might take the views that I do; I will just point out that I have devoted plenty of effort to this general issue from early in 2016, with posts raising concerns about campaigns ignoring the impact on Ireland, the ignored difficulties of implementation, the ignored challenges of new trade deals,  the dismissal of expertise e.g.  the  impact on sterling, so my concerns are not new.