The answer is: I became part of a statistic. Namely this
one:
Yes, I voted for the Green Party. A few of my friends who
sit firmly on the left wing side of politics might be pleased to hear this. For
most of the other people who I know, I’ll pre-emptively guess that their response
will be somewhere in between “You work in education; why didn’t you vote for
Labour?” and “You may as well not have bothered; the Green party never had a
chance.” But the fact is that I voted for the party that I wanted. If Labour
had lost Dudley North by one vote I might have kicked myself, but Labour won
that constituency 11% ahead of the Conservatives; it wasn’t even close.
The Green Party finished 11th, and I therefore ended
up as a part of the statistic that says after more than a million votes, the
Green party ended up with one seat in the House of Commons. This is commonly
punctuated with how the Scottish National Party – who finished third – gained 52
seats off roughly the same number of votes.
My principle motivation for voting for the Green Party was: They
are pushing a left-wing agenda. They were not going to win this election, nor
did I seriously think that they would. But what I wanted was for them to get
enough seats – maybe three or four – so that they could at least start building
some momentum, and have a strong enough voice in politics to develop a
left-wing agenda. My idea was that in the next election, they could build on
what they’d started in this one and have maybe six or eight seats, and continue
to build on that as the years go by. I’m playing a very long game indeed, and I
may never see the Green Party get in to power, but I would like to be a part of
the process that gives them that chance.
Well, that didn’t happen. The Green party got one seat in
Brighton. But maybe the idea that they could have an impact on politics is not
so ridiculous. Here’s why:
Over the last two days I have seen many pictures up on
social media of the graphic shown above or one of its variations. The suggestion
is that the ‘First past the post’ voting system is out-dated and not
representative of the actual vote, and that we need a referendum to change our
voting system. If the Green Party and those who voted for it are instrumental
in this process, then those votes might not have been wasted after all.
My challenge to each of you saying we need a new voting
system is this: What would a new voting system look like? How would it work?
We went through this in 2011 when we had a referendum to
vote for The Alternative Voting system. The votes were cast, and it appeared
that the majority of the country were against it. I actually voted for it, although
I didn’t have it properly explained to me until about a week after the fact. I’d
have been grateful for it in this election. I’d actually have been quite happy
for Labour to have won it, and with the Alternative Vote I could have cast my
vote on the Green Party, and in the alternative voted for Labour as my second
choice.
I also had a conversation with my Dad around a month ago, where
we speculated that as we were probably going to get a Hung Parliament again and
therefore another Coalition government, it would be good to have a voting
system to reflect the parties our with whom our preferred parties should ally.
Currently, the UK public do not have a say on this at all.
So what do you guys think? How should we vote for our
Government?
