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February 8, 2005
Democracy
Voter apathy appears to be at an all time high, and that should be a major concern to anyone concerned about the health of our democracy, especially in the run-up to a general election. One of the major reasons is that the first-past-the-post system means that unless you're living in a marginal constituency, then your voting preferences will have very little effect. Another is the feeling that regardless of how you vote, very little really changes, a feeling exacerbated by the lack of clear water between the policies of New Labour and the Conservatives. Or, as Ken Livingstone put it in the title of his 1987 book, If Voting Changed Anything, They'd Abolish It.Now there is very little that can be done about the lack of choice with regards to policies. Note the use of very little because, as hopefully will be shown soon, it is possible for all of us to exert an influence, albeit in a slow and possibly unwieldy manner. And there is an argument that policies would follow public desire, but that relies on senior politicians feeling accountable to the electorate (stop laughing at the back) rather than businesses and other power groups with vested interests.
Efforts have been made with the other issue, that of opposition votes in non-marginals having no effect. One such group is behind http://www.tacticalvoter.net/ which successfully managed tactical vote swapping in the 2001 General Election, resulting in a Labour victory in Dorset South and a LibDem win in Cheadle. Now while such achievements are laudable, tactical vote swapping should, if it is to be organised by a third party, be run on a non-partisan basis. Which is where www.tacticalvoter.net fails, as their sole objective appears to be the ousting of as many Conservatives candidates as possible.
Now swapping the LibDems for the Conservatives as the major opposition party isn't in itself going to bring about significant change. The real objective must be to bring the distribution of MPs closer in line with the desires of the electorate as a whole, and that requires proportional representation. As yet, only the LibDems actively support PR in Westminster, and that is a situation that is unlikely to change until the other major parties are made to realise that their only chance of Government is through a change in the election process.
So we need to tie all these threads together, showing politicians the price of not being accountable to the electorate and that a first-past-the-post system can well and truly stuff their chances of government. Which is where, hopefully, Backing Blair will come in. More details will be announced this week, but Backing Blair is a subversive attempt to undermine Tony Blair by removing as much of his Blairite support as possible, whilst demonstrating to the Conservatives the power of PR through judicious use of tactical voting (but don't worry, this isn't a pro-Tory campaign any more than it is a pro-Blair campaign).
At the moment Backing Blair exists purely as a result of spit, sweat, late nights, and the understanding and forgiving nature of the participant's better halves. For now. So what we need is your assistance. If you can, get yourself to one of the two kickoff meetings being held this week in London and Barnsley. If you don't live near either of these places, then contact team AT backingblair DOT co DOT uk and we'll give you all the support and resources we can to help you organise a campaign in your area.
We have an opportunity to reclaim our franchise, let's not waste it.
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Posted by Clive on February 8, 2005 1:33 PM in the category Old Stuff