The 2024 election is around the corner and there’s relief all round. It couldn’t come soon enough – which is probably what Rishi Sunak is saying. The consensus, expressed in the newspapers, online and among my social media contacts, is that getting rid of this bunch of incompetent, greedy, entitled ne’er-do-wells who have been running the country is a high priority and that what will come next can’t be worse. “Things can only get better”, they say.
What are the Tories offering? Tax cuts for the highly paid. National service for the young – that’ll stop them glueing themselves to railings and holding up traffic. Every person over the age of 66 and in receipt of a state pension will immediately rush to vote Conservative, won’t they?
The danger of apathy
I’d better declare myself before I go on. Aged somewhat over 66, I took part in a sit-in at my university as a student. It was a formative experience and I learned easily as much – in particular about how politics are in just about everything we do – as I did from my academic courses. I still take part in demos – in recent years they’ve been against benefit cuts, for the environment, against Brexit and, this year, against genocide. I probably would have learnt a fair amount from national service. Probably about the various forms of passive resistance that exist, including dumb insolence.
So what about our choices as citizens in this election? Of course, it’s a choice of sorts, not to vote. “They’re all the same so why bother?” “It won’t make any difference to me anyway.” My answer: then you get what you deserve. Because it’s not true. However bad I think a Labour government will be, it will be better, for the people who live in my street and my town, than the Tories. That’s a big concession for me to make, as I actually hate the idea of a Starmer-led government.
Inscrutable choices
Here in Dover, what are the choices for someone like me? Someone who will vote come what may, wants the Tories out, but doesn’t want to support Labour? What else can we do? Dover is an interesting case in lots of ways, because over the last 50 years or so, it has changed with each change of government. So that puts the Labour candidate, Mike Tapp, at the head of the list. The Starmerites obviously think so. They made sure two years ago to have one of their own in place. Sure to the extent of a carefully managed selection process among local members that caused some local members, including myself to make a complaint. Sure to the extent that several independent-minded officers and members left the party.
Does it help him that Natalie Elphicke has defected to Labour? This right-wing Tory MP for Dover is rarely seen in the constituency and used to answer constituents’ letters with chunks of text lifted straight from Conservative headquarters literature. She blames Sunak personally for not stopping the refugees from arriving in small boats. I’ve no idea what Tapp thinks but the reaction of most Labour people was “WHAT?”
I find it hard to believe it matters. Voters supported Elphicke despite her manner and lack of grasp of policies in 2019 because the mood was generally to “Get Brexit done”. Now, five years later, the received wisdom is that the Tories handled Covid badly, can’t keep on top of inflation and are generally a bit useless. Sunak’s damp announcement of an election adds to the sense that he’s hopeless.
Two party hegemony
So what choices do voters like me have? We’ve ruled out the ruling Party. Labour is hard at work trying to convince us that it would be foolish, even childish, not to vote Labour but to go for a smaller party or an independent candidate. Me, I’ve bought this argument for 50 years, but not this time. With Labour under Starmer chasing the right-wing vote, it seems to me simply too big a stretch. Here are a few problems for me in the current Labour approach:
Build up our nuclear arsenal: tick. Commit to poverty-reducing measures: cross. Stop the small boats: tick. Provide safe and legal routes: cross. Green investment pledge: probably cross (not sure because it’s had so many different disguises). Understanding of how the economy works: cross
Oh, I could go on, but do I really need to talk about Wes Streeting’s connections with private health companies? So what do we do? My only suggestion is for a widespread movement to look closely at what the different candidates offer, not through the lens of the mainstream media but through our own set of priorities. In constituencies where there’s a chance to give a bloody nose to the Tory-Labour hegemony, then take that very seriously. In Dover, the case is, if you don’t want the Tory, vote Labour. If you don’t want Labour either, then take your pick. Talk to the other candidates. Read what they say.
High time for electoral reform
Nationally, there has to be a way out of the Tory-Labour seesaw. I think there’s a chance in 2024 for minor parties and independents, those who have a great deal in common even if they don’t share all the priorities, to break us out of the straitjacket which leaves the main parties so contemptuous of their expected voters.
We know many people in this country are deeply disaffected. If Labour doesn’t get a landslide but only a bare majority or even less; if a substantial number of seats are captured by smaller parties, the Greens, the LibDems and independents, it could be the signal for electoral reform. A fairer system which will leave all votes having an equal weight, and none wasted.
So I’m not going to believe the forecasts which suggest there are only two parties that count. There’s a cumulative cost to the credibility of those parties if, even in Dover and Deal, we vote with our hearts.
