Today, for those of who have been living under a rock (or, I guess, outside of Britain), MPs voted on whether or not to renew the Trident programme. Just so we’re clear, a government that renews Trident would be:
- completely disregarding the views of the people
- violating our treaty obligations,
- undermining the very concept of non-proliteration,
- prolonging our subjugation to America,
- wasting over half of our already bloated defence budget,
- underlining the hypocrisy of our foreign policy,
- and basically bringing humanity even closer to the brink of destruction.
(most of these links come from Heathlander)
Does that sound like someone? Does it, in fact, sound like virtually every politician in recent history? Of course, the Blair government and its Tory allies got the renewal through Parliament. The Liberal Democrats predictably tried to make some political capital out of being the party of dissent while not really dissenting at all, which is about all you need to know about the Liberal Democrats.
But what were we supposed to do?
We protested, in our tens of thousands. I guess this shows that strolling down Piccadilly with anti-war banners chanting “You can stick your fucking trident up your arse” doesn’t really acheive anything. We need to organise. Groups like Greenpeace are already doing a respectable job, but if we really expect them to get results for our peace, our security – indeed, our survival – then we might need to support them for a bit more than an afternoon every few months.
It would be nice if we could actually vote for the policies we wanted to see, but when the two main parties agree to go ahead regardless of public opinion, and the token third party takes a cowardly “wait a few years and then go ahead regardless of public opinion” stance, it’s a pretty safe bet that the decision was taken outside of the democratic sphere. Parliament dutifully provided a rubber stamp, and that’s all that was expected of it.
You could vote for a smaller party – and indeed, anyone who doesn’t vote either Green or Respect in the next election will be complicit in all our government’s crimes – but it never ceases to amaze me how many people just won’t do that. One of the best summaries of what’s wrong with Trident (and the source of this post’s title) comes from the late Robin Cook. Cook was that rare beast, a New Labour man with principles, yet the party for whom he tirelessly campaigned consistently violated those principles and sometimes brought him to violate them himself.
Cook’s defence? “I was born in the Labour party, and I will die with it“. Brilliant. The man who reached the dizzy heights of being Foreign Secretary can perhaps be posthumously forgiven with the excuse that power corrupts, but what power has corrupted the other sixty million of us?
Where are all the rioters and the all strikers? Where, for that matter, are the Green and Respect party voters? Where, to put it bluntly, is there even a sliver of hope for us when we can’t even be bothered trying?
If you disagree with me, and you for some reason approve of the destructive madness going on in our names, feel free to leave a comment. If you are already involved in an effort to put things right, and would like to get more people onboard, feel free to leave a comment. Otherwise, I suggest that you (like me) start thinking hard about what you can do. Because if you read right through this post, you agree, and you do nothing about it, then I don’t want to hear your sorry excuses.
I share your concern and with each day of this New Labour stuff I get a little more upset yet a little more aware of this democratic facade we indulge.
I’ve been wondering how many policies and decisions Blair will take down in his personal sinking ship and wondered if an attack on Iran will be another. The guy’s more of a liability in his dying days.
Regarding voting in the UK, it’s a rather depressing event and more so with the years. The main problem for me among the many is that I know that most of those I spoke to last time around voted tactically. What I mean is that people voted against the party they didn’t want, meaning that the people I spoke to didn’t vote for anyone they did want. In fact most of the people I spoke to wanted to indulge the democratic process but were at a loss to choose and the choice they made was seemingly recognised as damaging, but they did it anyway.
I nearly voted tactically myself at the horror of having the same pink-faced blue getting in again but decided to be as principled as possible and went green all the way, as always. By the time all the horrors of our style of democracy came to me it was rather late to get out and really exercise some democratic rights and organise. I planned a campaign of “spoil your ballot” with an aim to address some of the voting oddities… which was basically adding a “none of the above” box to the slip along with other plans for new technology methods that on reflection were rather dreamy.
Dave, you keep saying it and I keep agreeing, we must be active, organised and responsible.
Fancy mulling over when I’m back on the Island?
Don’t blame me; I voted for Kodos.
I confess, last election I did manage to talk myself out of voting with my convictions. Dismissive of the Greens, suspicious of RESPECT, I just tactically made do with Lib Dems. Looking back, I wonder how many others were similarly unable to see past the “best of a bad bunch” mentality we were raised with. I wonder how many did see through it, and thus decided to just stay at home on election day.
Most of us, I think, are aware that on some level the political process is little more than a benign mask behind which lurks a monster. Most of us, I can only conclude, are just more comfortable with that mask.
A large, but shrinking, proportion of us choose to rubber-stamp it, convincing ourselves that the traditional Red-vs-Blue “choice” is in some way more meaningful than heads-vs-tails. A large, and growing, proportion of us choose not to, but can think of little alternative.
In other words, our biggest enemy is our own apathy, be it born of fear, confusion or despair. That things need to change has been proven; the challenge lies in proving that things can be changed. We need to find, expose and exploit the weaknesses of the “mainstream”, be it within the system (by attacking the taboo on the small parties, or organising a mass ballot-spoiling boycott) or without it (maybe by providing an alternative political forum, a powerless but legitimate people’s parliament – or is that what you meant by “dreamy”?).
Where do we go from here? For the moment, all I know is that I don’t really know, but I’ll be doing a lot of thinking.
If you are back in the land of the Daily Mail some time, by all means get in touch: http://www.complexsystemofpipes.com/contact.php
The thing is, I would accept the argument that the Lib Dems are the “best of a bad bunch” if I could be sure that, were they in power, they would reform the voting system. Except recently they’ve been looking less and less insistent on that issue.
Actually, regardless of that, the Lib Dems probably are marginally less awful than either of the two big parties.
I think that, considering the way the system is currently organised, me voting for Respect would be pretty useless, other than making me feel better. It just wouldn’t make an impact. It’s like in America – Noam Chomsky, who is under no delusions about the undemocratic nature of the formal political system there, argues that, unless there is a realistic chance of an Independent winning a race, one should vote for the Democrats, because they are (at least today) slightly less terrible than the Republicans.
But voting for the least-bad option should only be viewed as a temporary measure, and should certainly not stop people from much-needed efforts to democratise the British political system.
Thanks for commenting Jamie.
No arguments about the Liberal Democrats being marginally the least awful. I can’t think of a single issue on which I’m not significantly closer to them than to either of the main two. The thing is, while I’m convinced that they’re the best, I’m far from convinced that they’re good enough.
One has to be pragmatic with one’s vote, but not to the extent of nullifying it. Hopelessness can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Chomsky’s point is valid, but there sometimes is a chance of an Independent winning. Voting RESPECT did acheive something in Bethnal Green, and voting Green seems more socially acceptable with every year.
Least-worst-likely-candidate voting always serves some purpose. There are issues on which I agree with New Labour more than with the Tories, so by voting Labour I am taking a chance at getting the least-worst-likely versions of those policies. But there is also a cost. By voting, I am participating in the system and thus tacitly legitimising it.
Whether the gamble is worth the cost of course varies on a case-by-case basis, depending on the probabilities and the difference between the candidates. But where there is little choice of making a difference, or where the difference one could make is minimal – as is the case in most of our elections – it’s surely more worthwhile to not legitimise the system, to make a “protest vote”.
The closest to a none-of-the-above option on our ballots is not-turning-up, and I agree that voting Lib Dem or otherwise tactically is probably more constructive than that. But is the difference between the major parties really worth sacrificing the protest that a Green/RESPECT vote represents? I’m sure it could be argued either way, and that it depends on circumstances, but I suspect in that the next election my answer will be “no”.
I was ploughing through his blog for sources on a post about why we should all go to the protest in Brighton tomorrow, and I found George Monbiot’s take on the prisoner-voters’ dilemma (emphasis mine):
That’s pretty much what I was trying to say.
Well, isn’t it lovely how politicians across the globe are learning that they can go ahead and turn thei rback on their constituency without fear of getting their bottoms kicked?
Viva neo-dictatorship!!!!
Although I think Chomsky voted for the Democratic Party last time around (I find it hard to believe he’d vote but I recall reading it somewhere). I don’t think his opinions on how one should voted reflects his true attitude toward the democratic system. From my understanding he abhors the democratic system and sees it as perpetuating something nearing to fascism. I think he often puts it as, “if you want to have a democratic system then this is how you should be”, but he always describes himself as an anarchist. Anyways, I’m out of my depth.
Monbiot’s sentiment I agree with and seemingly acted out. But I think that you didn’t have this opinion at the time of voting Dave?
But the problem of tactical voting for me is just one of many issues I have. If I remember rightly, due to city demographics my vote was a percentage more valuable than that of a person in Manchester, this is another point. Gerrymandering another. The occasional inability to be represented in the local area…
But there is another level, the fact that the minds of the people are rested in the knowledge that their duty for democracy is a half hour every 4-years or so. The lack of education also – I find it hard to believe that such an apparently important function was in no way mentioned at my school. A lot of people don’t know how it really works and it seemed that only last year the BBC did some, “So whas it all about”.
And what about Blair, didn’t he/Labour win with 36% of the under 60% who voted? When you do the maths, a lot of the country seemingly didn’t want him/them.
I don’t except this, “it’s the best system we can think of – it’s better than X and has been proved”. Those comments lack research, historical incite and imagination.
The dreamy ideas I had were related to a side system, some reliable and impartial, “People’s Government” (just to get the framing right). Not necessarily active but certainly used as a measure for opinion and resource for education. Maybe this will be a form of website, NGO, watchdog, forum, text-in. Embracing new technology but not in a Diebold way.
“How many people want the Trident refreshed?”, the government says {…} and our survey says {…}. I’m not suggesting that we throw such decision to those without full knowledge but at least it would serve to make people educated and active. We’ll call it WikiGov for now.
An ascending network of individuals taking small responsibilities to build the foundations of a place of our making. It’s work in progress.
Indeed, as I already confessed, last election I was so concerned I would “waste my [first ever] vote” that I ended up doing just that.
An online people’s parliament, I think, is absolutely what’s needed. You couldn’t really call it a government unless it had the power to govern, but even if the only thing it did was accurately reflect the will of the people that would be a huge leap forward.
It would prevent pseudodemocratic governments from lying to us about what we want, and perhaps engage people to take some of the power back.
Yes, Chomsky’s an anarchist, but he recognises that the conversion of the United States to anarcho-syndicalism is not likely to happen anytime soon. There are, he says, much more pressing problems that need to be attended to in the meantime – wars, imperialism, poverty, etc.
Therefore, he advocates voting, even though he recognises the undemocratic nature of the system. He argues that one should vote Democratic, unless there is a realistic chance of an Independent winning, in which case you should vote for the Independent.
I think George Monbiot’s article is a good one – I remain undecided on how I will vote. I was talking to a Green party MP the other day, and I asked what the hell we were all supposed to do when, despite the 2 million people who turned up to protest Iraq and despite the widespread opposition to Trident, none of the three main parties represented a true alternative and a vote for the Green pary would in effect be wasted (the Green party hasn’t got a single MP at the moment).
He said that it’s not just about winning or getting your own way, it’s about doing what you feel is right and being able to live with yourself.
I think that’s a good argument, and it’s why I’ll probably be voting Green/Respect at the next elections, regardless of their chances of winning.
Ah, we’re all so Machiavellian; I hadn’t even thought of it like that. Nevertheless, an election is one of the rare chances we get to have some input into the process of government, and I think it is worth working out how to best use it.
The Chomsky strategy and the Monbiot strategy are both valid in certain circumstances. Where there is a significant difference between the main parties (e.g. one wants to go to war, the other does not) and one is in a “swing” constituency, then it certainly makes sense to vote Democrat/LibDem. For millions of Americans – including, I assume, Chomsky – this was probably the case in 2004.
Where the result is near enough a foregone conclusion, either because one party dominates the constituency (as is the case for me) or because all likely parties are essentially identical (as, in Monbiot’s view, is the case for all of us) then principled voting will be more effective than tactical voting.
Incidentally, we’ve all been talking about “Green/RESPECT” as if there were some kind of alliance between the two. If only! In fact, (according to that same Monbiot article), the two ran against each other in 15 constituencies despite neither running in anywhere near all the constituencies. Perhaps we could go some way towards convincing them to pull together.
Well, in any event, I doubt I’ll be getting much of a choice, since I don’t think the Greens are running in Feltham (my constituency). They can’t afford to field candidates everywhere, and so they focus on where they have the best chance. Not sure about Respect, but I would guess it’s the same for them.
Monbiot is probably right about the Lib Dems in general, but I think a fair bit depends on what they choose to emphasise in their election campaign. So if they talk a lot about opposition to the occupation of Iraq, and put that up as one of their main campaign policies, then a vote for them would likely be considered an anti-war vote. If, however, they simply mumble a bit about loads of things and don’t present a coherent platform, then Monbiot is certainly right in saying that the message of voting for them would likely be lost.
I guess it’ll have to wait ’till closer to the elections. Certainly, regardless of anything else, I could never think of voting for Labour or the Tories. Both are complicit in the close to two million Iraqi deaths we have helped cause since the Gulf war. A vote for either of the two parties would, in effect, be a vote for genocide.
Hmmm. But of course, our system makes it more complicated still. I moved house last month and I’ve been reading up on my MP. He’s a Tory. I hate the Conservative Party and all it stands for. But he also votes, and his voting record actually represents what I think pretty well (except for gay rights and fox hunting, but without wanting to offend any homosexual or small furry mammals out there, I don’t consider those to be the key issues of our time).
So, voting for the candidate or voting against the party? Sigh. They don’t make it easy for us, do they?
Des Browne tries to sell his Trident renewal on Dragon’s Den, by Rory Bremner: