Tactical voting is not the answer, it deprives the electorate of the best candidates - Andy Brown
‘If voting changed anything they would make it illegal’. Or so only a few anarchists used to want to tell us. These days a trite conviction that all politicians are the same and a dismissive lack of confidence that it is worth the bother of voting has become widespread.
Despite all the best efforts of politicians to persuade us to place trust in them, millions of potential voters are going to decide not to engage with this election. Cynicism has become the dominant belief amongst wide sections of the public who would rather vote to decide on which person to remove from a celebrity game show than which person should rule the country.
On one level it is hard to blame people for that. We’ve experienced a series of utterly shameful betrayals from the leaders of our country.
Tony Blair told us that we had to invade another country because he had seen evidence that they had weapons of mass destruction that could threaten our nation. It turned out that he had seen no such thing.
Gordon Brown told us that he had put an end to boom and bust. He was half right. He cheered on a boom and then presided over the biggest bust of all time.
Nick Clegg, from the Liberal Democrats, promised us faithfully that he would cut student tuition fees. In return for the job of Deputy Prime Minister he agreed to treble those fees and preside over a huge programme of austerity.
Theresa May promised us a strong and stable government. Then proceeded to deliver one of the most chaotic periods of British government in history. Only for that level of chaos to be exceeded by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Boris told us that we were all in it together as we sought to weather the storm of Covid. Whilst his chief adviser drove miles to check his eyesight, his Health Minister was not keeping any social distance from a close friend’s wife, and he and his then Chancellor were breaking their own regulations so casually that they both got fined.
Yet, despite so much evidence of appalling behaviour, the truth is that there are real differences between politicians, and it matters hugely who we elect to represent us. Even one single honest MP can make a huge difference.
Take Caroline Lucas from the Green Party as an example. Whether you agree with her or not it is hard to contend that she hasn’t been hard working, utterly sincere and able to articulate her cause and strongly champion the interests of the people who elected her as she saw them.
Her one clear voice in Parliament has sought to explain just how very dangerous the climate emergency is beginning to become, the extent of the destruction that is being done to British wildlife and the folly of casually enabling the entire world to be covered by a thin layer of micro plastics.
She played a key role in preventing reckless fracking for oil and gas, has spoken hard truths about the collective punishment of the whole population of Gaza for the crimes of Hamas, and put in hour after hour of hard work to make sure important issues like the Grenfell Tower deaths weren’t allowed to be quietly forgotten.
If just one honest individual can make that much good use of the job then surely we should be thinking long and hard about where we place our cross and trying to give our support to someone we really want to represent us. For some this is taken to mean that they need to calculate the best way to vote tactically to get rid of the current government or, more rarely, to try and preserve it. The problem with doing that is that ultimately it is almost certain to lead to disappointment and increased cynicism. Who you vote against is not as important as who you vote for.
If people like you don’t vote for the best candidate, then they can’t possibly win. Your vote will be taken as an endorsement for a party and a political leader that you don’t fully trust.
Before you put your cross against a candidate's name it is important to think long and hard about whether the party you are supporting genuinely deserves your support. The early Labour Party would never have grown from being a small fringe group into a mass movement if everyone had tactically voted for the biggest opposition party. Caroline Lucas would never have become an MP if local people hadn’t decided to vote for her against all the odds.
Our first past the post electoral system tends to produce large majorities for one party that over reward the victors. What exactly will Keir Starmer do if he finds himself in charge of a large majority in the House of Commons with his MPs having been carefully vetted to make sure they are colourless loyalists?
If you want real change you have to vote for it. If you want honest politicians, you have to back them at the polls. If you make a cynical electoral calculation don’t be surprised if the person you back cynically uses your support in ways that you don’t like.
Andy Brown is the Green Party councillor for Aire Valley in North Yorkshire.