"Imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

[sebastienne]

I really really hope that every single one of you who went around saying "all of the parties are corrupt so I'm not voting" or any other such cynical bollocks are pleased with yourselves now. Next time, please, if you're so pomo and sophisticated, just go in there and demonstrate the inherent absurdity of the system by picking a party at random - you've got a 14/15 chance of not hitting a fascist, after all.

And as for those of you who are sitting around on the internet saying "how could they?!" about the BNP voters: the answer is, "all too easily". Voting right (by which I mean left), and assuming that the Guardian-and-Radio-4 worldview is self-evident and will win out in the end, is not enough when people feel that their way of life is being threatened. Dismissing these people as stupid will not make their votes go away.

So what will help? What can you do to stop the same thing happening in the general election?

Canvas for another party. (Oxford people - try Tatchell.) Hell, even just deliver leaflets for another party - you don't have to supoprt every one of their policies to think that an informed electorate is a good thing! Support your local anti-fascist organisation. Challenge racism everywhere you see it, however 'soft' it seems - when Radio 4 makes yet another crack about people from Poland being good plumbers, don't just tut, write to them and complain.

I'm not any better than you. This post is a note to myself as much as it is to anyone else. But I know that I did not do enough, that I've been putting everything off this year with a "once the degree is over..", and that I have to do better to keep this country that I love out of the hands of people who represent no Britain that I've ever known.

Comments

[crouchinglynx.livejournal.com]

you've got a 14/15 chance of not hitting a fascist

Then I need to work on my swing ;-)

Trying to find a bright side, http://www.eurovotescount.org.uk/eight.shtml reassures me that

Getting represented is often a step to the political defeat of extreme
parties, as the inadequacy of their politicians and policies is exposed

[ayaron.livejournal.com]

Well said. They were highlighting on Radio 4 today that BNP and UKIP actually got less votes than they did 5 years ago. What got them in was all the Labour, Con and LibDem voters who didn't vote at all, thus increasing the fringe percentage share of the votes.

:O(

[liminereid.livejournal.com]

It wasn't sophistication that made me say I wasn't going to vote. It was a sense of total and utter disaffection and lack of respect for anyone standiong. The sense that I really didn't want to give any of themthe benefit of my support when none of the choice around me came even close to being what I wanted.

I did vote in the end. From guilt. But I still feel disaffected from the system. Maybe it is alzy selfindulgent wank but I don't want to affiliate myself with a party just to oppose another. My grandmother with 60 years of party activism sobbed down the phone about her constituency going BNP and the crap MP she has and how powerless she feels even within her party.
I'll vote again because I think it's important and I'll portest but I don't want to be involved with any of them at the moment.
Is this a horrbile unhelpful point missing perspective? It might be.

[h0m54r.livejournal.com]

Statistics note: Picking a party purely at random (where there is a 14/15 chance of not voting for a fascist) has no effect on the result. It's vastly unlikely that the race will be so close that your one individual vote will make a difference (if it is that close, statistical error gives more than a one-vote margin). In non-close cases, where only large groups of people, the apathetic voters picking at random instead of not voting smooths out (law of large numbers, I think) to having no net effect - all parties get the same boost in votes. I also get the feeling that it would adversely affect the statistics - since the absolute differences remain the same but the total amount of counting goes up. Also the higher turnout makes it look like people care, whereas low turnout at least gets people worrying "Why was turnout so low?", even if nothing ever gets done.

Not that I advocate sitting at home apathetically not voting. Perhaps picking a random non-BNP party.

[liminereid.livejournal.com]

Th is is npott o say I'm not furious and upset by the results. But...i still feel no connection to anyo the parties at all. Except some weird vestigial twitchings for the Labour I grew up believing in. The idea of that Labour losing Wales and alienating the people who told me they were great is incomprehensible. But that labour pretty much survives in isolated MPs and sadly my MP is not one of them.

[chiasmata]

I don't want to affiliate myself with a party just to oppose another.

Even to oppose the BNP?

[liminereid.livejournal.com]

Does it make me a terible person that, right now, that's not enough? I'll vote for another party and I'd certainly get involved with cross party campaigns against the BNP, but I don;t respect any of the mains stream parties, there isn't one I want to endorse in terms of memebership, campaigning for them.
I do feel bad about that.

[liminereid.livejournal.com]

I hope I'm nto coming off as flippant. I genuinely have thought deeply about it and I'm not happy with the situation in which I find myself.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

And I think that's fine - because at the end of the day you did vote. You don't like picking a non-BNP party without having any real sense of affiliation; but you did do it.

(If you don't like what a party is doing, then isn't the best way to change that is to become a member and get voting rights? Also, you don't need to be entirely pro-Labour to, eg, distribute flyers for them so that we end up with a more informed electorate.)

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of the John W Campbell dicta that, if you cannot find a party or a policy to vote for, you sure as hell ought to be able to find one to vote against.

The profile of the typical BNP voter (male, over 55, working class, ex-Labour) suggests that a lot of the problem is lack of education, and nostalgia for times that were never as good as remembered.

[osymandias.livejournal.com]

I agree in general (I actually volunteered to help the Lib Dems, albeit in terms of coding rather than delivering leaflets), but have to take issue with "Voting right (by which I mean left)". The BNP *are* left. They're strongly protectionist, anti-globalisation and free trade. They support wider and stronger controls on the market. Of all the parties that won seats, I'd say they're the furthest left you can get.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

You appear to be basing this entirely on their economic policy, and somewhat ignoring their social policy...

[necaris.livejournal.com]

Labour, Con and LibDem voters who didn't vote at all
Which just highlights the point that 'protesting' by not participating is a really, really stupid thing to do.

[necaris.livejournal.com]

Well said. One thing that was raised by a friend earlier today is that those who aren't politically involved and aware simply don't know, for instance, that the Lib Dems' European colleagues are a bit scary or that voting Labour makes sense from some points of view.

I think even if one wants to be politically neutral with regard to the mainstream parties there's an enormous amount of room for voter education and raising awareness about the political landscape. The more people who go into polling stations knowing a little bit more than "I don't like Labour they've ruined the country", the better!

[osymandias.livejournal.com]

Because left/right is an economic measure. In a post which is trying to encourage people to engage more in politics, I think that equating left=good, right=bad only serves to encourage a blunt view of things that doesn't actually engage with the issues. The BNP aren't bad because they're right wing, they're bad because they're *ist bigots.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

Also, I realised on my walk to work, I was using your definition of left/right (I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who thinks it's got social-policy connotations as well.. I'll have to look into this further) when I called the ALDE "right-wing", so I should at least be consistent with myself! Thank you.

[necaris.livejournal.com]

Left / right isn't a pure economic measure, surely? In economics, at least, it's more complicated than that; and certainly in common use left/right imply different things about social policies, human rights, etc.

[arachnekallisti.livejournal.com]

Well said. Mainly, I've been spending the last couple of days going "oh bloody hell, now what are we going to do?!" and this is what I've managed to come up with:

http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/ - home of the "Not In My Name" photo petition, to be sent to the European Parliament before Griffin and his cohort take their seat

http://www.uaf.org.uk/ - has downloadable leaflets and other "Why The BNP Really Are Bastards, No Really" materials. Only £3 a year to join if you're a student, £10 if you're not.

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/who+voted+bnp+and+why/3200557 - some stats on who voted BNP and why. Know your enemy.

Not much, but it's a start.

[foreverdirt.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[threadbarewolf.livejournal.com]

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