11 May 2001
Two days into the general election campaign, and it is already clear that one theme of the contest will be the indifference of most voters. The young are hostile to the entire political class, and Labour's core support threatens to stay home en masse. For some people on the Left, including notably the libertarians and direct-actionists whose politics have been so prominent in the movement since the demonstrations at Seattle in November 1999, the silence of the voters is in fact a clear signal of an active political challenge. Blair announces that there is no alternative. Reversing the dalek mantra, non-voters declare "Futility is resistance".
In the company of the Turtle, to criticise indifferentism may appear like pushing at an open door. Yet I still think it is useful to remind people of some reasons why non-voting will change nothing. For a start, there is a danger of exaggerating the consensus. Over the past fifty years, the number of voters has fallen from just under eighty per cent of the registered population, but remains over sixty per cent. In terms of absolute numbers, the largest number of people voting in any election was 33 million, and last time the figure was still over 31 million. Non-voting is not yet a majority experience, and won't be for some time to come.
Having lived in situations where non-voting was a mass movement, I have been amazed to see how quickly an informal 'boycott' can crumble. I was in South Africa in 1999, for the country's second democratic elections. The mood of anger was far sharper than anything I have witnessed in Britain. People had more hopes, and greater despair when the ANC failed to deliver. Two months before the election, two-thirds of voters had refused to register. Even many registered voters said they would not vote. But somehow, the authorities turned it round, and the final number voting was around two-thirds of the adult population.
The reason why non-voting lost its appeal in that election was political. The unspoken boycott crumbled under the pressure of an ANC argument -- that the other parties were worse -- which has already reappeared in our election. Indeed it would be foolish for people to the left of Labour to ignore the continuing appeal of that Labour strategy. I recently attended a regional meeting of the lecturers' union NATFHE which voted (nem. con) to withhold funding from Labour and to support instead the Socialist Alliance. The vote pleased me, but can I really expect that none of those Labour Party members represented in the room will turn out, to canvass or even to vote Labour? Of course not. Particularly in the northern industrial towns, people remain tied to Labour by family links, the tradition of their own past actions, and the feelings that their party is the least bad option.
I do, incidentally, think that the Tories would be worse, if they could. Just to take one policy, William Hague has declared that he would like to see all future asylum seekers placed in concentration camps for their indefinite future. Under New Labour, the same process takes place -- the number of detentions is rocketing -- but out of the public gaze and more slowly. The differences may seem slight, but it is in those differences that many people live.
The most important argument against non-voting is that, like all campaigns based on inaction, it is a fundamentally weak gesture. It says to our rulers, "Look, you don't have our support", and they say, "Look, we're not bothered". The example of America is instructive. In the most recent Presidential elections, barely a half of registered voters turned out. In crude mathematical terms, the non-voting tendency had twice as much success as either Republicans or Democrats. But did anyone notice? You can only ever win reforms from this or any other system, through a strong grass-roots democracy. In our sort of society, this democracy is most likely to be based outside the formal institutions of the state, in trade unions and local campaigns. It is fair enough to counterpose real democracy to limited democracy. But it is not useful to offer inactivism as a solution.
Why are people turning their back on organised politics? Because it is boring, because the parties look the same, because people who think for themselves are forced out, because the politicians so clearly belong to a class apart from the majority of people. Most of us don't wear suits to work. Most of us don't think that businessmen are the new popstars. Most of us don't have a voice in parliament or the press. Our views aren't heard.
In one of his last speeches as leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown complained of the effects of globalisation. He said that since capital had become mobile, it was no longer possible for any government to act in contradiction to the market. Therefore the direction was for all political parties to offer little, and appear the same. There is at least a partial truth in this idea. Every country under the sun appears to have witnessed the same convergence of political elites, driven in most cases by a rightward lurch on the part of the former social democratic parties. They call it Die Neue Mitte in Germany, here the Third Way. Watch parliament, and it appears that Blair is right, and that there is nothing better on offer.
Personally, I have doubts about the usefulness of the word globalisation. The term seems to be used so freely that it is emptied of all content. It becomes a boo word, the Bogeyman of political ideas. If there is an idea behind globalisation, it is that the problem with the world is the internationalisation of capital. In other words "foreigners" are to blame, as they always are! But two things are certainly true. First, the world produces ever more resources. In economic terms, the potential for equality grows year on year. Second, the political will to redistribute is declining. Since 1979, 1989, any date you like, the rich just got that bit greedier. And the conventional parties are playing ball.
The origins of non-voting seem to lie in the anger of working-class people. Indifferentism is over-represented in Labour constituencies, and in the minds of long-standing Labour voters who don't want to see that sanctimonious yuppie ever again on their TV sets. I am not critical of the people, but of the tactic. It just seems to me that there is a more useful, practical way to throw a spanner in Blair's works. In the current election, there will be some three hundred self-declared Socialist candidates, from the Scottish Socialist Party, the Socialist Labour Party, and the Socialist Alliances of England and Wales.
Many of the people involved in building the alliances are socialist activists, who've been taking part in various local campaigns for many years. So why then has there been a move towards unity, and why has that unity been expressed on the terrain of elections? A future history of the Alliance might point to the long-term influence of people like Hilary Wainwright of Red Pepper, who has been arguing these politics for years; the success of the Scottish Socialist Party which has encouraged imitators; unity around the 2000 London mayoral elections. Personally, I think the most important feeling is that the Left is just too small. People should spend less time worrying about their own ideological traditions, and a bit more time creating a larger space in which ideas can be debated. For those of us engaged in that project, there are many questions we still haven't worked out. I work at a college which is situated in West Lancashire, a Labour-Tory marginal. One thousand votes for the Alliance would tip Labour out. It wouldn't be our fault if New Labour lost- - they are the party in power, and they can't blame us for their unpopularity. But can we risk an action that would practically result in more Tory seats?
I have been critical of the non-voters, but it seems to me that the Labour Left has the worst of all the arguments. Their best reason to back New Labour is a form of moral blackmail -- vote for me or the bald kid gets in. At least if Socialists do well, we have the chance to raise people's expectations. This time, in most cities, there is a choice.
