Might as well put this up.
I consider it a moral obligation to vote against the current
coalition, and to maximise any impact such a vote might have… which is
why, despite the fact that I loathe and despise the Labour Party, I
would vote Labour were I in a constituency where such a vote might
conceivably contribute towards a Labour victory.
As it
happens, I live in a constituency that has been a solid Tory seat for
generations. Really, where I live they’d elect a dog turd if it had a
blue rosette stuck on it. In fact, when I look at the
robotic, empty-headed drone and waste of clothes who currently
‘represents’ me in Parliament, I think they did.
The nearest
possible challengers to the Tories in my constituency are the Yellow
Tories, whom I am proud to say I have never voted for in my life, not
even tactically, not even in 2010 when lots of ostensibly left-leaning
useful idiots tried to bully me into voting LibDem, saying (ludicrously
as I pointed out at the time - something which I have since very much
enjoyed being proved right about) that doing so would block the Tories.
So
I shall be free to vote some non-Labour, non-coalition option. Green
probably, since they’re usually the only thing on my ballot paper that
looks even vaguely left-wing (despite my issues with their lack of
connection to the working class or unions, and their record of selling
out workers the moment they acquire even the sniff of power).
I
would be perfectly within my moral rights to abstain from voting given
this depressing scenario. Even what I feel is my moral duty to vote
anti-Coalition doesn’t fool me into thinking that my vote will mean
anything. Like millions of people who have been effectively
disenfranchised by our rigged system and its varigated monopoly of
neoliberal parties, I would be accused of ‘apathy’ by assorted
finger-wagging smuggos if I abstained. But abstention is a morally
defencible option. It just isn’t one I feel I can take at the moment.
So I shall hold my nose, vote Green (probably) and then go home and
vigorously wash my hands in scalding hot water and bleach, feeling simultaneously dirty and relieved that
I managed to do what I consider to be the least possible amount of
evil.
Ain’t democracy inspiring?
Deducing that a Liberal vote won't block the Tories from a single election whose electoral mathematics yielded a majority for a Conservative-Liberal coalition and a minority for a Labour-Liberal coalition doesn't really seem like a fair test. The effects of a vote (if you don't live in a safe seat) are surely probabilistic, depending on how the greater election goes. Tipping seats from Conservative to Liberal could have blocked the Tories, if we were lucky. (Or at least, this isn't disproven.) But too many seats went blue, so we weren't.
ReplyDeleteAll of this.
ReplyDeleteYou could start a movement for getting rid of the single-man constituency system and adopting the objectively better party list system that the rest of the democratic world seems to prefer.
ReplyDeleteThe probability of such a movement doing an actual difference? Quite low, I'm sure, but hardly lower than the chance of Jack's home constituency voting for a candidat who isn't "a dog turd if it had a blue rosette stuck on it." So it might still be worth a chance.
Oh, and please don't blame the democracy, Mr-blogger-sir. The fault lies with the Labour party, whom have not even considered changing the obviously rigged "anti-change" voting system because it just so happens to be rigged in their favor.
"The fault lies with the Labour party, whom have not even considered changing the obviously rigged "anti-change" voting system because it just so happens to be rigged in their favor." - Apart from in 2010, where a shift to AV was in their manifesto, and AV+ referendum was also offered.
ReplyDeleteOf course since then we've had the disastrous AV referendum, which will ensure this broken system is perpetuated for at least another 15 - 20 years. And that is squarely at Nick Clegg's door, not Labour.
AV+ was invented at Labour's behest, and they promptly ignored it's existence for the rest of their time in power. There's no reason to think that one more term would have changed that.
DeleteExcept they offered AV to Clegg as part of their negotiations, and had in in their 2010 manifesto. Clegg turned it down, sure he could win a referendum vote, because of course two in the bush is always more attractive.
DeleteEven if a rainbow coalition had collapsed in 18 months, they could have gotten AV on the books first, which would have been a huge achievement. Instead, we got all the stability we could handle, and are about to get more. And it really is all Nick Clegg's fault.