Tactical voting is no strategy for change

In a recent thread on Rye News, my friend Frank intimated Lib Dems might stand aside for Labour, in order to ensure the opposition vote was not split, and to keep the Conservatives out of office. I noted that Labour won’t countenance political pacts, but there’s a much more important point. The problems we face locally and nationally are exacerbated by the very problem Frank highlights, the inequities of first past the post (FPTP).

We live in a marginal constituency, meaning that a handful of swing voters effectively determine who represents Rye and Hastings at Westminster. So, if the opposition to the Conservatives is split between Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens, despite their shambolic failures, the Conservatives can still win in Rye and Westminster. Nationally, more people can oppose the Conservatives than support them, but we’ll still get another Conservative government. At its worst, the distortion of first past the post delivered a Labour government in 2005 on 35% of the electorate – so two thirds of voters didn’t want Labour, but they still won the election. Is that democracy?

The 2005 election was reckoned to have been won for Labour due to the swing of only 800,000 voters – those votes were decisive. So, out of 45 million registered voters, it could be argued that 44.2 million votes essentially didn’t really matter. And that’s why governments chase marginal seats and swing voters. That’s why Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party seems to have forgotten what it says on the tin. Because Sir Keir is chasing swing voters – as well he might under FPTP. At conference, his own party passed a motion in favour of proportional representation, but he knows what side his bread’s buttered, and won’t support it.

The Conservatives, of course, wouldn’t dream of killing the goose that lays their golden egg. FPTP favours the Conservatives, whose votes are fairly concentrated, geographically. The Electoral Reform Society says of the 2019 election, which brought Boris Johnson to power, “Over two thirds (71%) of votes – or 22.6 million – were ignored – ie. they weren’t decisive to the local result at the last election.” Again, is that really the best that British democracy can deliver? Wasn’t 2016 about repatriating sovereignty? Yet, the mass of the British electorate have no real sovereignty under first past the post.

Psephology, the science of elections, is pretty bamboozling, but to put it simply, if you feel like politics doesn’t represent you – that’s because in all likelihood it probably doesn’t. If your vote doesn’t count, your interests don’t count either. And that goes to explain, to some degree, how we have arrived at this rather dismal and perplexing moment in British history. So, to address Frank’s proposition about tactical voting, I have to concede, I’m keen to end the Johnson gang’s reign too, but I’ll be voting for what I believe in, whether that splits the anti-Conservative vote or not. And if we get another Conservative MP, that won’t be the fault of third party voters, that’ll be the fault of our electoral system.

So if you really want long term change in British politics, the first thing you have to do is vote for electoral reform. And you only get electoral reform if you vote Liberal Democrat in 2024. After that, dear friends, we’ll have our democracy back, and you are most welcome to vote for whomever you like!

Image Credits: Guy Harris .