This is my latest YouTube short on the election - answering the question that I am asked ost often of all right now, which is should I vote at all given how bad the available choices are?
These short videos do not embed here. You can watch it here.
The transcript is:
Should you vote in this election?
People keep asking me, should I vote in the general election on 4th July? And my answer is, yes, please do vote.
We live in something that calls itself a democracy.
We know it's a rubbish democracy.
We know that we need proportional representation.
We know that we are being offered appalling choices by the Conservatives and Labour - basically offering us the same deal.
But, and this is the key point, you can vote for somebody else, or you can spoil your ballot paper, and by doing so, you will be saying, “I don't accept the power of a structure that both the Tories and Labour want to perpetuate, which is denying us real choice.”
Please, therefore, take part. Have your voice for whichever party you want, or to spoil your paper. But, whatever it is, turn up, vote and make a shout-out for democracy
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I agree, people should use their vote and if they cannot find a candidate who they feel qualifies to receive their vote a spoilt ballot is the only answer. Some people will of course argue that you should give a vote to a party because they are less worse than the alternative. The problem with that of course is that apart from supporting the current useless system you simply add to the votes of a party you do not like or really support. And when the results are in that party will not say “well we got x million votes, but we know that y million only voted for us as the least worse option so we are not really that popular and don’t really have a mandate.”
Ideally voting would be mandatory, there’d be a None Of The Above box and some space for feedback 🙂
No it should not be mandatory. If people do not vote we need to find out why.
Interestingly, the Green party in it’s internal voting always has RON on the ballot, RON being Reopen Nominations.
I always vote for the reasons Richard states. Normally for the Green party, but this time as my MP Mel Stride I’m voting tactically. Sadly it’s a really safe seat and I think the non Tory vote will be too split, with neither Labour or the LDs treating it as a target seat.
My hope is there will be a growth in vote for the minor parties, with the message that we are sick of the current adversarial 2 party system.
I have just listened to Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservatives blaming Labour and the SNP for the mess he and the Conservative Government are in with the Aberdeen oil sector. 14 years in government and government policy is the fault of Labour in opposition, and the SNP; which has no power because critical oil policy is reserved. As usual BBC Scotland offers ill-equipped and ill-informed, weak interviewers to give Ross an easy time and the room to lecture the public that the mess of his government’s making is the fault of others he is entitled to blame. Why would anyone want to vote in an election in which the seedy charlatans telling you to vote for them is an insult to your intelligence.
Easy for me and those of us that were on the CLP executive before quitting. The HQ chosen candidate is a local councillor who projects a nice image but out of public view is a nasty bully, who revealed his colours in an exec meeting by verbally attacking a gay man and another socialist rep for having the temerity to book a venue (for the No Pasaran film) without asking his permission. Wasn’t even his council area, just his view of his own importance. In memory of the gay rep, I’ll be voting Green.
Mr Griffin, which constituency? don’t worry if you prefer not to name it. Trying to complie a list of LINO HQ candidates.
Fortunately, in Scotland I have a choice, and I will be voting S.N.P, who, despite unrelenting propaganda from a hostile media to try to persuade our people otherwise, have done a remarkable job with the best interests of the Scottish people at heart, over the last number of years. I pity my English relatives who have voted Conservative all their lives, but now tell me they cannot vote for what now passes for a once great political party. They will never vote Labour/LibDem, so what for them?
You’re right, Alex: Scotland’s politics are significantly different from those of England, Wales and N Ireland, although you wouldn’t think so if you were listening to any English politicians or any of the UK’s MSM, or indeed the politicians of any Scottish-based Unionist parties. Meanwhile the UK is gradually coming apart at the seams and there is nothing to suggest that will change significantly no matter who is in government after the election. There simply has never been a better time to vote for an Independence-supporting party in a UK General Election.
Alex is also right about the unrelenting poisonous propaganda vilifying the SNP and, by extension, a good 50+% of the Scottish electorate. I’m not a member of the SNP (or any other political party), but there is simply no other independence-supporting party in a position to manage the processes of gaining independence and the subsequent negotiations to leave the UK. These processes won’t be made any easier by the fact that the Civil Service in Scotland effectively answers to Whitehall, so we can expect leaks and dirty tricks. To me the SNP’s much-exaggerated “travails” as peddled by the MSM are much more likely to be due to an inevitable generational change in leadership, which all parties, sports teams, corporate management etc go through from time to time.
If the people of Scotland want a better future and the rewards of our natural resources, it’s essential that we all vote in the GE and deliver a clear majority for the SNP. The prize is too big and too important for our nation’s future, its people, its culture, its traditions, its economy, indeed its very identity, for our electorate to ignore, so it’s essential that everyone is encouraged to vote. Once Independence is obtained we can then choose our government from any of the competing parties in open elections, subject to a written Scottish Constitution which clearly defines the limits of Government powers. As the old slogan put it “Stop the World, Scotland wants to get on!”
I like that slogan
‘Stop the world, Scotland wants to get on’ was said by the late, great “Madame Ecosse”, Winne Ewing in 1967, I believe it was.
🙂
There is now an excellent site with the details of all the independent candidates standing in the election:
https://we-are-collective.org/candidates
The aim is to gradually consolidate into a new party that aims to provide for the people of the UK, not the elites who have ruled for so long.
Hi Richard,
I live in a safe Tory seat. We only ever get Lab, lib, tory candidates. Unless an independant was standing, I had planned not to vote, but you have convinced me to spoil my paper, instead.
Regards
I wish I could vote in any general election, I’ve been disenfranchised for 30 years.
As an Irish citizen resident some 30 years in the Netherlands, I don’t need a Dutch passport to live & work here. The only thing I can’t do is vote in a Dutch general election. I do get to vote in EU and council elections here.
As an Irish citizen resident outside of Ireland, I can’t vote in an Irish general election either. We simply have too many citizens living outside of our country to make that feasible.
Ho hum, the price of staying in the EU and not marrying a local !!
John:
see my post below – should have been a reply to you
Hi!!
I’m not and never have been a British citizen, I’m Irish!
So why do you say you are disenfranchised because you can’t vote in the UK?
If living in the Netherlands means you can’t vote in Ireland, then the problem lies with Ireland and has nothing to do with the UK elections – the topic of this thread.
Despite the distressingly dismal range of choices in many ‘safe seat’ constituencies we should all vote, and not just for ‘the lesser of two evil’ candidates. Increasingly there are alternatives, Socialist Independents and Greens. If you are considering spoiling your vote consider the greater impact of voting for the Monster Raving Loony Party. Can you imagine how the big beasts might respond if the vote was significant for this group; they are the ‘Spoil Your Vote Party’ as none of them seriously expect to get elected. In many places in the UK we have this choice in place in order to embarrass a range of worthless chancers running for public office. Can you imagine if they didn’t just keep their deposit in a few constituencies this General Election, but actually overtook a Tory candidate? That would be a protest vote with headline grabbing impact!
Under FPTP only Conservative or Labour can be elected, they are both neoliberal cheerleaders just like Fianna Fael and Fianna Gael in Ireland, and if push comes to shove, they too will join together as a coalition openly to maintain the neoliberal status quo. FPTP is the cornerstone of these dinosaur parties. We have to drive a wedge between neoliberal parties and social democratic parties, that is the real issue.
Of the mainstream parties in England only the Green Party can truly call itself social democratic. It believes in PR, rejoin the EU, a clean environment, a green new deal, and is firmly against inequality and austerity. It needs to sort out its MMT stance, but for now it is still the best social democratic party. I sincerely hope that it will be possible to find out which “independents” are social democratic ( hat tip to Mike Parr) rather than the right wing nut jobs you tend to get at local elections. Hopefully then a Green – SD Independents force can be assembled in parliament. I will not vote neoliberal red or blue or yellow – for the few not the many.
We have to start somewhere to oust neoliberalism, now is the time to drive a noticeable rejection of Red tory-Blue Tory-Yellow Tory. I will vote Green or SD Independent, ballot paper failing that, then “none of the above” will register my sentiment.
Great blog and brilliant Youtube videos. Regards.
Thanks
John & any other long-term non-resident UK citizen :
Re “I wish I could vote in any general election, I’ve been disenfranchised for 30 years.”
A new law passed by the Tories allows any UK citizen living abroad to vote (in their last UK constituency). Information and how to apply online are here: https://www.gov.uk/voting-when-abroad Once registered you can apply to vote by post or proxy. I’ve done this * and it was relatively quick & easy. But I guess you now need to apply fast to be apply to vote on 4 July.
* I have lived in France for the last 45 years (now with dual UK/French nationalty) and personally do not siupport allowing long-term residents like me who pay no tax in the UK to vote for the MP to represent a UK constituency (Labour voted against this law – rightly IMO – tho’ maybe they also thought it would attract more Tory than Labour voters). France has a far better solution for French citizens resident living abroad who can vote in a constituency for a deputy (MP) to represent their specific interests in one of several areas across the world (I would support a similar system for the Uk) .
Notwithstanding the above, enraged by this blatant attempt by the Tories to attract UK pensioners retired abroad they believe more likely to vote for them, I put my principles to one side and applied in order to vote anything but Tory. I know others over here who have done likewise, as well as more recent expats, including former Conservative voters, like me enraged by Brexit (when we could have been allowed to vote in the referendum, but were not). I very much doubt we can change the outcome, but the Tories despicable tactics may yet backfire. In any case it feels better to at least do what little we can.
Unhappy with LINO, I now have to decide how to vote in a constituency where, in the last election, Labour took the seat by a narrow margin from the Libdems in 2nd place and the Tories (who held the seat for many many years until to was lost to the Libdems) not far behind. I’ll probably vote Green, but they have no chance, so for now I rest undecided.
Anrigaut
John is not, and never has been, a UK citizen. He states that he is an Irish citizen living in the Netherlands. He cannot vote in UK elections.
Cyndy & John:
That was not entirely clear from his post – he may have had dual Irish/British nationality or be “an eligible Irish citizen registering to vote in Northern Ireland”. If neither, why does feel entitled to vote in UK – can’t he vote in Ireland (if not his problem lies with Ireland, not UK) ? I admit I don’t fully understand the Irish situation – no doubt Richard does!
I also thought my post might help any non-resident British nationals unaware of this.
Dear Richard
I can’t believe that you are even suggesting that people should spoil their ballot papers.
I am the same age as you, and women of our grandmothers’ generation were imprisoned, tortured by force feeding, and some gave their lives, to give women the vote.
In terms of a human lifespan that is recent history.
Women didn’t fight like that to give people the right to spoil their ballot papers and then pretend to themselves that they are making a valid political point.
Your suggestions are usually so sensible, but in that view you are very wrong.
Surely it’s better to vote with optimism for a party you believe in, but are unlikely to be elected, than to know that your negative actions may be an interesting snippet of conversation with your friends, but will have achieved absolutely nothing.
Of course I would rather people vote for a party
But you may not believe in any party
In that case I would rathyer p[eople turn up and spoil their paper tham abstain – as a vote of p[totest at a rottem system
It’s not much of a protest given the only information out of the count is the number of spoiled ballots. These may include
1. A genuine misunderstanding or mistake (your mark “leaked” into another box or is in someway unclear)
2. An out and out fascist spoils the ballot with a large swastika across all boxes (so the system isn’t rotten enough and the speed of travel in that direction too slow)
3. A “non of the above” – what does that mean?
a) not neoliberal enough (and yes it could be even worse)
b) no fascist/communist/social democratic party
c) Don’t support FPTP so go away
d) Something else
4. A full explanation behind the spoiled ballot – I’m spoiling my ballot because…
So a silent protest mixed in with a whole range of different silent protests. Best to stay at home and at least add to the loud and extremely worrying voice of “I’m not interested enough to make the effort to vote”. At least it suggests we need to find out why people aren’t coming out). It’s a far stronger message than a mixture of silent protests.
Oh – and if the Green Party is on the ballot and isn’t good enough (made of real people by the way – including me and on that measure rather less than perfect), then what does a good enough party look like. May be a single issue party that is close to your heart. Brexit party anyone? But if there isn’t one then yes someone independent of the not good enough partys may suffice to earn your vote.
Either way please don’t spoil your paper. Support a party or independent who at the very least would like to improve the rotten system by removing FTTP (don’t assume that is the default position of an independent). Try and change the direction of travel. A spoiled paper will do nothing to that end.
I think each person has a right to their own decision, and I respected that
Yes, but if everyone voted, perhaps unimaginable things would be possible.
In Suffolk now a couple of Local Councils have a Green majority. That would have seemed impossible a few years ago.
Translate that into votes at a General Election, not just Local ones and if 100% of people voted, instead of 50-60% it could be a different outcome there too.
Encourage everyone to vote, Richard, don’t waste your opportunity by scrawling drivel on your precious ballot paper that nobody’s going to read.
I will be voting, I assure you
But I still think you are missing my point
You assume that there is an option to vote for a party you belive in. That, often, is not the case. So spoling the paper prioves you were interested enough to turn up but could not accept any of the offerings.
Ballot spoiling is a perfectly valid way of expressing an opinion on what is on offer. Its just not a positive opinion.
I am very conflicted about voting SNP as they are basically neoliberal, especially the current leadership cadre, and I want a genuine alternative. Scottish Greens are a mess just now, too wrapped up in culture politics, also daft macroeconomically, and a unionist vote is a compromise too far.
So the option of ballot spoiling ranks very close to both indy supporting parties. I do not believe that a “none of the above” is an improper choice.
Pray tell me what to do if all the candidates (in some cases only two or three that could win); you are confident are liars, incompetent, prejudiced, ill informed, ill-equipped, or self-seeking; or even all combined. Vote for stupidity, ignorance and more of the same profound failure of government? I don’t think so.
I’ve argued this with my son. He suggests the following.
Ideally one would like to vote positively for a candidate or party who represents you.
In the current circumstances this can be difficult unless are neoliberal.
But if you can’t vote positively please vote negatively. If you don’t like the current incumbent then please vote for whoever will get them out.
At least this way you can send a message that you dislike the incumbent. And, even if there is a duopoly of awful parties, then at least you can seek to alternate them so that they can do less damage.
I’ve thought about this a lot.
Even though I originally disagreed with him, and thought that spoiling the ballot paper was a good protest, I came to realise he is right
Please vote.
I am using your son’s criteria
British subject, resident in Ireland for nine years. I, too, are using Tim Kent’s son’s criteria but am not expecting much to change once the smoke clears. Best I can hope for is some sort of coalition (who + who). This is what we will have if proportional representation every happens. (Bearing in mind that ALL parties are effectively a coalition of members.)
I agree with Christina M in two respects. First, many of Richard’s suggestions are very sensible. Second, this particular suggestion is not sensible.
Most discussions about politics are about left versus right. However, an equally valid distinction is between idealism and pragmatism.
I like many of Richard’s suggestions on subjects such as taxing wealth because they are practical as well as purposeful. Richard proposes simple ideas such as equalising taxation for earned and unearned income, and restricting tax incentives for pensions contributions. However, he rejects a wealth tax because its implementation would be impractical. I agree with Richard. It is better to take easily achieved gains rather than to attempt idealistic impracticalities that would gain nothing.
The same is true in voting. There will never be any party with whom any thinking individual agrees on everything or even most things. Voting involves finding a compromise between personal beliefs and the beliefs of a political party. Idealists see the act of spoiling a ballot as an alternative to a more positive compromise with reality. They are essentially saying “stop the world – I want to get off – the real world is not living up to my personal ideals”. The danger is that, by holding out for a government that meets your personal ideals, you may get a government that is the opposite of your ideals, whereas a positive vote would fit with at least one ideal whether that is about the environment or the economy or Europe or devolution or the voting system.
The left is full of idealists who would rather see left-leaning pragmatists as traitors to the cause than compromise with reality. That is why the right wins most of the time.
I would, I suspect, never spoil my vote. But I will not tell someone else who to vote for. So, IAS led people to vote – allowing for the possibility they might not want any candidate. I am bemused about the suggestion I did anything wrong. What was it?
I don’t expect you to tell anyone else who to vote for. That’s not my point.
Yes, I very much doubt you would spoil your own vote. You are much too sensible. However, the second last paragraph of your post (starting “and this is the key point”) is mostly about spoiling votes and you repeat the point in your final paragraph. You then disagreed with Christina M who said only that “I can’t believe that you are even suggesting that people should spoil their ballot papers”.
I could easily have written part of your post:
“We live in something that calls itself a democracy. We know it’s a rubbish democracy. We know that we need proportional representation”
However, the conclusion from that is surely that anyone who agrees with you should vote for a party that supports proportional representation – not that they should spoil their vote.
My point is that voting is a pragmatic choice between imperfect options. Spoiling a vote is self-indulgent and says only that “I don’t agree with any political party about anything”.
All I said was spoiling your paper is better than not turning up
Every other conclusion drawn is wrong
And I will not try to tell people what to vote. I will ask that they vote. I am still struggling to work out what is wrong with that.
I really don’t see what all this fuss us about.
“Support a party or independent who at the very least would like to improve the rotten system by removing FTTP”:
And what if there is no such party on offer to you?
“Spoiling a vote is self-indulgent and says only that “I don’t agree with any political party about anything”. “:
NO – it says “I don’t agree about anything with any of the candidates standing in my constituency”, which is not the same thing.
In such cases, hopefully rare, I agree with Richard that spoiling your paper would be preferable than not turning up.
One problem studiously being ignored here, is that in our FPTP system voting itself is taken by the two party cartel (the Single Transferable Party STP), to be a ringing endorsement of the system. Thus, the act of voting is effectively a vote against yourself. It is a circular self reinforcing system designed to defeat you. What would really frighten the cartel is voluntary removal of each voter’s name from the register. Thatcher made that difficult to do.
That could be the case if you vote for one of the two main parties in the Westminster duopoly who want to keep FPTP John; but what if you vote for one that strongly advocate PR as an integral part of their policy platform? e.g. the greens.
I’m a Compass member, and their approach to the election is to maximise the number of pro PR MP’s elected, of whatever party. Your thoughts?
I’ll be voting SNP as usual, because I want Independence and there is no other party with any realistic chance of bringing that about. And I won’t be holding my nose while doing so because I believe they have tried to make things better for some of the most disadvantaged through policies such as the child payment, the baby box, mitigations of the bedroom tax and 2 child cap and for their stance on some of the big international issues such as Gaza and recognition of Palestine. And they support PR.
Once we have our first post-Indy government I am confident that social democracy will prevail and neoliberalism will diminish because Independence vs Unionism will no longer be an issue and Scottish Labour (and Libdems) will have to start thinking about distinctively Scottish policies and may rediscover their socialist roots free from the baleful influence of LINO.
If I had to vote in England I’m not sure what I’d do. Spoiling the ballot will have no effect on TorLINO, while voting for LINO who may be able to win will only encourage them into thinking they have the country behind them and will likely produce an unhealthily large majority. Voting Green or Independent, particularly as their policies are probably ones I would support is telling TorLINO a plague on both your parties. But will only be effective if millions do likewise, aiming to produce a hung parliament. The HoC Library tells us, matter of factly, that it takes almost 900k votes to elect a Green MP. I fear disgruntled TorLINO voters will consider that too high a hurdle.
Under our current system a lot depends on the constituency you are in. If you are in one that is marginal, or ‘could be’ for this election only, you probably have a responsibility to hold your nose and vote for the least worst candidate who has a chance of being elected. If, like many of us, you are in a very safe seat you might think that since your vote will count for nothing there is no point. In fact in some ways you are luckier, you can vote for a minor candidate you support or spoil your ballot if there are none. You have no worries your vote has badly affected who got elected in your constituency but you know that following the election you will have contributed to the analysis the total votes for each party/spoiled ballots which will help the cause of PR.
The average voter turnout in 2019 in the UK was 67.3%. The best voter turnout, East Dunbartonshire 80.3%, the worst, Kingston upon Hull East with 49.3%. source: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8060/CBP-8060.pdf
So roughly a third of UK citizens don’t vote at all. It seems that if you could convince a decent chunk of this group to go out and vote, you could change the outcome in many constituencies.
What excuses have you heard from non-voters (we all know them) for why they don’t vote, and how exactly do we convince people who do not normally vote, to vote?