Let's Organise and Co-ordinate Progressive Action

I’ve left it for a couple of weeks or so to comment on the result of the general election as it is always helpful to wait for the dust to settle before trying to acquire a clear view.

For starters let us say I got it wrong – but with YouGov, MORI, ComRes, the whole of the world’s media and most inside political opinion I was in pretty good company. I still maintain that a Lab-LD coalition would have been the outcome had the numbers stacked up differently, but with the Tory overall majority that is just so much history and speculation. Probably we will never know.

As seems to be the norm these days when serious parties lose elections their leaders fall instantly upon their swords. There was the Clegg resignation and the Miliband resignation, the Farage resignation and then the Farage unresignation. The expected SNP landslide in Scotland did indeed materialise, UKIP and the Greens are left ruing the inequities of First Past the Post as the millions of votes they attracted between them earned them one solitary seat apiece. The Lib Dems now are not only unable to claim third party status but can only with a certain stretch of the imagination profess to be Britain’s fourth party, having been soundly beaten by UKIP in terms of votes and boasting fewer members than the Greens and only the same number of parliamentary seats as the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile David Cameron will by now have unpacked the furniture at No.10 once again, while the new member for Uxbridge takes a look around and makes notes.

THIRD PARTY

That the Lib Dems will come back some in the fullness of time from their 8-seat nadir is in little doubt. British politics needs a viable, UK-wide third party. But the big issue of the day is wherein lies the future for the Labour Party, which was second to the Conservatives by a massive 99 seats, not only leaving the Tories as the largest party but even handing them a completely unanticipated overall majority, albeit one of only twelve seats, making redundant all the pre-election speculation about the dreaded SNP holding the balance of power.

Already Labour has set out its stall for a leadership contest in September, accompanied by a very public bout of naval-gazing. The party consensus would appear to be that Ed Miliband led a party into the election that was “too left-wing” and which paid scant regard to the electorate’s “aspirations”. A headlong rush back into the arms of Blairism, or at least of some horrible mutation thereof, now appears inevitable.

Certainly the Labour narrative employed during the campaign, that electing a Labour government was a matter of life and death to which all considerations of working for a better system and a fairer and more sustainable society in the long-term had to be subordinated, was distasteful. It was also appallingly hypocritical when one considers that incessant criticisms of “Tory austerity” were quite deliberately constructed to mask the fact that the intended remedy was its replacement with a programme of Labour austerity.

However the argument that Labour’s rejection arose from the fact that its agenda was not sufficiently identical to that of its Conservative opponents would appear to have been given the lie by the fact that the Scottish National Party, which contested the election on a manifesto far more progressive than that of Labour, swept all before it, capturing half the Scottish vote and in the process taking 56 of Scotland’s 59 parliamentary seats.

SOUTH-EAST ENGLAND

One could argue of course that Scotland is different. What works north of the wall may not, indeed probably will not, work in the leafy shires of South East England. But against that argument one could equally point out that swathes of northern England and even the Midlands have far more in common with Scotland than they have with Kent or Berkshire.

The other inherent danger faced by Labour when embracing a strategy of trying to out-Tory the Tories in what has come to be described as “Middle England” is that any chance of it succeeding depends very much on the more traditional Labour vote acquiescing faithfully without a murmur. What Tony Blair and New Labour got away with in 1997, before the social media revolution and in the wake of an orgy of self-destruction from within a crumbling and decrepit Tory Party that had been in office for almost two decades, there is no certainty it will get away with again. With the Green Party slowly acquiring some political nous and the example of the SNP to show us the way, there will be viable options for progressive opinion which simply did not exist in 1997. Labour abandons these people at its absolute peril.

I make no secret of the fact that I detest the Labour Party as an institution. The completely undeserved and unwarranted sense of superiority that it imbues in its followers is a nauseating spectacle for me and others like me on the outside to behold. If there is anything worse than elitism itself it is elitism coming from a group of people who profess to be about equality for all and to eschew discrimination and bigotry. The vicious anti-community agenda that we here in my locality have been compelled to witness stems entirely from a belief that people existing outside of the Labour organisational bubble are inherently incapable of working for the betterment of their own society, and that any evidence which appears to suggest the contrary must be ruthlessly expunged before it has the opportunity to manifest itself as a viable counter to the party orthodoxy.

Nevertheless it is an undeniable truism that in order for progressive politics to break through from the fringes of English politics it will be necessary to bring with us many of those people who currently still regard themselves as loyal followers of Labour. At times the inane tribalism of some folk makes this appear an almost impossible ask, but then there can be little doubt that very many of those who rallied to the SNP banner earlier this month were former Labour voters and in many cases former members. When the conditions are right and the argument is made, nothing is impossible.

SOCIAL MEDIA OFFENSIVE

What progressives need to do right now is to prepare the ground for a social media-inspired offensive which will lift them from the fringes and elevate them into a viable political force, taking full advantage of Labour’s problems which should be viewed as an opportunity rather than cause for regret. We need to remember that as an organisation Labour is there to manage our expectations rather than as a vehicle for real change. Ultimately its demise is essential before progressive politics can have any hope of making meaningful progress.

This in turn requires some semblance of unity, or at least a vehicle for interaction between those on the progressive wing of politics who may themselves have their own fields of vision obscured by organisational loyalties. To this end I have set up a humble forum through the medium of Facebook, for friendly and constructive discussion between those of a radical bent, whether they happen to be members or supporters of the SNP, Plaid, the Green Party, community organisations, “traditional” left groups or indeed of none in particular.

Called the Forum for Progressive Action, the objective of it is simple – to engender debate and to explore possible options for practical co-operation to the benefit of all.

I don’t profess to operate with any authority, with any special knowledge or in possession of any particular talent which might be of significant benefit to the struggle. I only believe that an opportunity exists in the aftermath of Labour’s electoral drubbing which must be seized mercilessly, and soon, and that as a starting point for such an initiative a Facebook forum must be as good as any. Please use it, and encourage others to do likewise.

Why the System Has To Go

What do we mean when we refer to “the system”?

It can of course mean a host of things, and many use the term simply to describe the political forces which prevail in the corridors of government in any given place. But to properly understand “the system” within any political construct we surely need to understand the internal dynamic which propels the society in which we live, or the society that we are examining.

The United Kingdom has a “system” which is based on more or less unfettered capitalism. It is true that governments make laws which even the rich and powerful have to abide by, and that on occasions even senior politicians or seminal figures from the world of business fall foul of them and end up in durance vile. All the same, within the limitations defined by the law of the land big business effectively runs rampant, sweeping aside not only organised (and even more so disorganised) labour but also honest small business in its wake. Witness the death of the family grocer or the independent high street trader as the likes of Tesco exploit farmers and their own workers alike to bring you their produce at the most competitive prices whilst still reserving for themselves the seemingly divine right to make a vast profit.

Under a totalitarian system such as fascism or communism the state will dictate just how far enterprise is allowed to go. Under the former it may be controlled or it may be permitted to run riot, but the fact remains that that permission is needed. The state, in theory at least, calls the tune. Under communism ownership is transferred to the government, which in practice operates a controlled economy of its own, the state replicating the role of the capitalist owner and the wider public playing the same part of the unquestioning consumer.

WEALTH AND POWER

In a “democratic” society such as ours however it is the forces driving the economy that are in control. This is because the conflation of wealth with power makes it inevitably so. The richer an individual or a corporation is, the more power he, she or it will inevitably wield. Power over the media, the power of patronage, the power to sell (or to distort) a message which can make or break a politician or decide the destiny of a political party. Within such a system it is inevitable that the political parties which take it in turns to man the offices of government will strive to serve the master. I wanna sell you a Tory, as the late Max Bygraves might have put it.

It is because of this unfailing logic that I, as those who know me will attest, instinctively wince whenever I hear some self-styled critic of the system bleating about how it is all going to change when the party they dislike the most is removed from office at the next general election and replaced by the party they have opted to endorse. At times I just want to wake up screaming. The two main parties are not the same, they protest, and of course they are right. Why, after all, would the system offer us two parties from which to make our selection and not imbue each of them with at least some kind of superficial defining characteristic? It is essential, in a “democracy”, to keep alive the illusion of choice.

What we are not given, of course, is the means through which to challenge the master. And in the master’s unrelenting drive towards ever greater profits there needs to be somebody else providing the labour, at as low a cost as possible, to drive the master’s success. Understand that and combine it with a recognition that neither of the major parties aspires to change that reality at source, and their essential sameness becomes a given. Any “difference” between them can only define the range of flexibility that the master is prepared to grant in order to preserve the illusion.

SYSTEM PARTIES

But to talk of there being just two “system parties” is of course overly simplistic. Whilst radical on matters of constitutional reform their support for the economic status quo demonstrates that the Liberal Democrats clearly are and have been since their inception a party of the establishment. I voted for them in 2010 in spite of this, not because of it, mostly because of the qualities of the local candidate but also because I felt the injection of the Lib Dems into the government of the country would in some way upset the apple cart. A crisis for capitalism perhaps not, but an unscripted fly in the ointment for the two-party system it indeed was.

Neither am I so blindly optimistic as to consider all if indeed any of the smaller parties that are currently enjoying some relative good fortune as being anti-system in the broadest sense. Certainly UKIP aspire to be and in some senses are already a party of the establishment. Rather like Trotsky’s theoretical fascists, they are a proto-establishment party waiting in the wings, currently something of a nuisance and an embarrassment but there if ever they are needed.

Which brings us to the left of centre, anti-austerity parties – the Greens, the SNP and Plaid. Are they the stuff of which revolutions are made? Probably not, but that is to miss the point somewhat. In our fast-changing political environment the establishment does on occasions find itself playing catch-up with events. The two-party system has, for the time being at least, already given way to the three-party system. If the three-party system in turn heralds the emergence of the four-, five-, six- or seven-party system then a fissure is created in the edifice of the all-powerful financial establishment which has effectively been the puppetmaster of our body politic for as long as any of us can remember.

ANSWERABLE

What emerges from the haze just may be better – more answerable, more democratic, more radical – than the façade which went before. If it isn’t then nothing has been lost. The financial elites will, I have no doubt, attempt to buy into the new politics but the more widely they need to cast their nets the less control they can hope to exercise. The plethora of significant parties which challenge both major system parties from the left, and the further-left grouplets which are emerging by dint of social media from amid the growing dissatisfaction with Labour’s presumably permanent shift to the right, coupled with the threat to the Tories from their own right flank in the form of UKIP, is making political engagement in the run-up to May 2015 uniquely interesting.

On top of it all are the “Don’t Vote” voices and the “None of the Aboves”, both positions with which I have some sympathy although I do intend to cast my cross, on this occasion at least. For those who are serious about real, lasting, meaningful change the outcome of the traditional contest between the toxic twins of the old establishment is a sideshow of scarcely any relevance. The real determining events for the future of our politics are to be found about the periphery of this elaborate charade.

Why I'm Excited by the Rise of the Greens

For the first time in quite a few years I am coming to the view that, far from gaining an overall majority, Labour may actually not even be the largest party following this year’s general election.

No matter how great our loathing of the austerity project forced upon us in the name of “reducing the deficit” by the ConDem government, and how unscrupulous Labour has been in positioning itself as the natural opposition to this government’s policies even though in the small print it is pledged to continue them, the various factors which come into play are beginning to conspire against Her Majesty’s opposition in a very serious way.

Of course it is difficult, even for expert psephologists (which I am certainly not) to get a handle on this year’s contest because it will be a contest unlike any other, in which the date of the election will have been known for years beforehand and the campaigning period will have been uniquely long. It could be that come May the country will be so fed up with politics that the election itself will be more poorly supported than usual. Or conversely, the intensity of the debate might just drag a few more souls along to sign up to the ritual in a way that keeps the system limping on with its credibility retained, at least for another five years.

THE GREEN SURGE

I am excited, if it is possible to be excited by anything that occurs at the circus that is British politics, by what has become known as the “Green Surge”. That is the emergence of a party which would appear to have been in relative slumber for as long as Rip Van Winkle as a serious player at the contest to come. This week the Green Party announced that its membership had surpassed those of both UKIP and the Liberal Democrats, and was growing at a rate of 500 per day. For the benefit of any Martians or recently released solitary confinees who may be reading this, this is the party which the powers that be have decided should be excluded from the forthcoming televised election debates in which Nigel Farage and his party are to participate.

I am not a member, nor a doctrinaire supporter of the Green Party. For many years I have prided myself on my independence from the whole shebang and have stood in elections as an independent in which the Greens have been listed amongst my rival candidates. I served for twelve years as a local councillor, three of them as a member of the borough executive, without once feeling the need to be involved with any political party and I remain of the view that the adversarial party system lies at the root of most of the problems which afflict our politics. I have long foreseen with a sense of impatient expectation the demise of the establishment parties and look forward to seeing their woes compounded on May 7th, or whenever the results of that contest become known to us. It would appear that, for the short term at least, my erstwhile belief that voters would turn their backs on party politics entirely has proved to have been overly optimistic in that they would seem to be looking to smaller parties instead. I’ll settle for that, for now at least.

The Green Party has positioned itself firmly to the left of the Labour Party, a development which I believe has come about organically rather than having been a mere tactical ploy. Speaking personally I dislike labels, which serve to slot free-thinking human beings into neat pigeon holes when surely the need to retain freedom of thought and of action should be of paramount importance. Nonetheless, with the Liberal Democrats having their fingerprints over far too much of the malign and inequitable legislation that has issued forth from David Cameron’s government under cover of tackling debt which has conveniently been blamed entirely upon its predecessor, I feel the Greens to be very much the most likely recipients of my vote, and my support, at the coming election.

It isn’t that I blame the Lib Dems for having gone into coalition. I do believe that, at the time, it was the correct thing to do. But the inescapable conclusion for me is that over the four and a half years in which they have ostensibly shared power with the Tories they have allowed their partners far too much freedom in which to shape the government of this country in their own image. I know from personal experience that in coalition the big parties are pre-programmed to take much and to give little, possessed as they are with an overwhelming sense of entitlement and being so very quick to forget the reasons for them having been compelled to enter into coalition in the first place, viz. that they failed to win enough votes or enough seats to be able to form an administration in their own right.

SINCERITY

There is an added attraction in voting for a minor party and that is that, on aggregate, there is likely to be more sincerity to be found within its ranks. People who enter politics in the hope of self-advancement above all else will naturally be drawn to the big establishment parties where there are jobs aplenty and hundreds of “safe” seats up for grabs. That is not to say that nobody joins such parties with honest intentions, but simply that those who have will quickly find themselves in competition for office with those whose speciality it is to tread on the heads and stab the backs of others in the uncompromising cause of the advancement of self.

As well as being a socially progressive party the Greens have the added appeal, to me, of being committed to devolving democratic participation to the people. Many of its adherents describe themselves as being of the “libertarian left”, which contrasts favourably to many like me with the authoritarianism, left or otherwise, of the Labour Party.

Of course the Greens are not the only minor party whose involvement is likely to impact significantly upon the outcome of the election to come. Much publicity and speculation has been heaped upon the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which in recent years has both topped the national poll at the European elections and won (or in some senses retained) two parliamentary seats at by-elections. As a consequence of its high profile and its clear impact upon our current body politic UKIP has been invited to the televisual ball from which the Greens have thus far been excluded.

Whilst I welcome the role that UKIP is destined to play in further helping to undermine the two-party hegemony, my problem with them is that I don’t actually support their policies. It is true that UKIP has called both for local referenda and for the recall of under-performing MPs, both of which I have no problem at all in endorsing, but it is undeniable that the party’s main policy planks are centred around a lazy xenophobia which would threaten the gains made by working people in the UK in terms of employment protection through its policy of withdrawing from the EU, and take us backwards as a society which respects cultural diversity within the confines of a cohesive whole.

SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY

The other smaller party which is likely to play a major role in shaping the character of the next Westminster government is of course the Scottish National Party (SNP). I use the term “smaller” here in an entirely UK context, as in Scotland the SNP is by far the largest party in terms of membership, has a majority at the Scottish Parliament and is expected to win the largest number of Scottish seats in May, mostly at Labour’s expense. Its membership in Scotland alone far exceeds those of the Lib Dems, Greens or UKIP throughout the UK and, if projected proportionately, it would by some distance be the biggest party in British politics.

It is for me a richly amusing irony that in spite of having been edged to defeat in the Scottish independence referendum by an unholy alliance of the three UK establishment parties invoking all the international and media power at their disposal, the SNP emerged when the dust had settled as the clear political beneficiary of that campaign in its aftermath. Scotland’s left-leaning electorate has found it particularly hard to forgive a Labour Party which joined with the Tories to deny them their right to self-determination for no other reason than that the union serves the party interest at a UK level. The humiliating and shameful spectacle of Gordon Brown, the son of Alba who grew into a British establishment politician, making promises to his fellow Scots which immediately after the event he admitted he was in no position to deliver, in exchange for their acquiescence, will live in Scotland’s collective national memory for a very long time to come.

Most opinion polls suggest that Labour will now lose a significant number of its Scottish seats to the SNP. It is going to be exceptionally hard for Labour to reverse this process over the coming few months. Having been stitched up once the Scottish people won’t, as the song goes, be fooled again. By ruling out the possibility of any deal with Tories post-May the SNP has very cleverly trumped Labour’s likely strategy of trying to convince Scottish voters that a vote for the Scots Nats is a vote for the Tories. In the wake of the referendum and of Labour’s betrayal it will be a brave Labour politician who attempts ever again to append the label “Tartan Tories” to the SNP. The Conservative vote in Scotland, modest though it is, is unlikely to be too much affected by the events surrounding the referendum as it is by definition a unionist party anyway. In opposing Scottish independence the Tories were at least acting according to principle.

To win even a larger number of Westminster seats than the Tories, let alone an overall majority, Labour needs therefore not only to overtake the Conservatives south of the wall, but also to gain enough seats to offset those which are likely to be lost to the SNP. Failing this, the party may still have the option of entering into an agreement with the SNP, allowing it to form a government. This could happen even if Labour is not the largest party in parliament. But the SNP will demand a king’s ransom. Any success for the Greens, who are pro-independence, elsewhere in the UK could strengthen the SNP’s hand still further if called upon to join a rainbow coalition.

SCAREMONGERING

One of the many things which unite the two major parties is their dependence upon scaremongering as a means of hooking in what they perceive to be their straying sheep. A vote for anybody other than Labour is a vote for four more years of Tory austerity, Labour tells us, with the curious inference that Labour austerity will in some undefined way be an altogether more enjoyable experience for us. It’s a two horse race, the Tories insist. A vote for anyone except the Tories will plunge us back into debt and consign us all to eternal damnation. Yawn.

The desperation of the establishment and its need, above all else, to preserve the old duopoly has led to some amusing sideshows. Presently the Prime Minister David Cameron is refusing to take part in the forthcoming televised debate unless the Green Party is involved too. Correct though his position is on this, does anybody seriously believe that it is one inspired by altruism towards the Greens? Rather than one taken by a politician who sees the Greens as being a potential thorn in Labour’s side, unlike UKIP, which will be a bigger thorn in his own?

And what should we make of “progressive” Labour’s implicit endorsement of the decision to include the hard-right UKIP but not the Green Party in the TV debates? Possibly the same as I made of the same party’s much-publicised alliance with UKIP in my own little part of the world during the local elections of 2014, in opposition to a moderate independent residents’ group. Namely that here is a party devoid of any semblance of scruple, a party which will say or do anything in naked pursuit of organisational power at all costs. The same party which, like the Tories, is currently trying to out-UKIP UKIP on matters of immigration.

UNITY COALITION

For all the permutations and possibilities there is of course one potential coalition which certainly would achieve an overall majority and which, politically, would make perfect sense. In case anybody thinks my argument is far-fetched, the Guardian covered it recently in an article by Ian Birrell entitled A Tory-Labour unity coalition may be the only way forward after 7 May. The subject matter speaks for itself. It is an unavoidable truth to any who care to scratch and look beneath the surface that of all the parties which are likely to have any meaningful impact at the election, the two with by far the most in common are the Conservative and Labour parties. For this reason, Birrell argues, it would be a logical step for the two major parties to come together in a unity coalition in order to avoid a “constitutional crisis” (which evidently would be the outcome of voters having the audacity to support parties outside of the big two in significant numbers).

Of course if could never happen. The reason is that the voters, supporters and members of neither party would stand for it. Whatever the similarities between the two major parties in practice, preserving the façade of “British democracy” depends entirely upon maintaining the illusion of choice, and it is simply astounding how many otherwise intelligent people still buy into the notion that these two organisations represent two distinct social constituencies and bodies of opinion in the face of increasing evidence that the real power is wielded behind the scenes and that British governments of whatever hue are merely the public faces behind which lurks an amorphous and entirely self-serving financial elite.

Although they will get my vote I am not convinced that under First Past the Post, and with all the forces that are ranged against them as well as against the other small parties, the Greens will increase their representation in Parliament by much if at all. Ditto UKIP. The SNP will certainly inflict some damage on Labour. But the system parties will still occupy the overwhelming majority of the seats on the green benches.

The challenge to their near-monopoly will be in terms of credibility, with a heftier share of the vote going to smaller parties than ever before as well as individual outcomes within the constituencies being thereby affected. It is beginning to happen, at long last. Aslan is on the move.

Leaders’ TV Debates: Middle-Aged, Rich, White Men Telling Us What’s What, Again

Excluding the Greens and other parties in favour of Ukip will leave the election debates devoid of even a modicum of diversity

by Alex Andreou

Broadcasters yesterday announced their proposed format for televised election debates. Sky and Channel 4 are opting for a presidential style, David Cameron v Ed Miliband head to head; the BBC will repeat its 2010 format which included the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders; and ITV will have the same three, plus the surprise inclusion of Nigel Farage, probably holding a pint of bitter.

This structure has caused much reaction from the four parties involved about the inclusion of Ukip. Farage – displaying the same sort of one potato two potato mathematical complexity that yielded “29 million Romanians and Bulgarians” – reckons if one MP means inclusion in one debate and Ukip wins the Rochester byelection, then surely two MPs means inclusion in two debates. The other leaders have expressed anger at Ukip’s elevation.

What is less clear is what any of them believe should be the position regarding parties that hold the remaining 28 seats in the House of Commons and their exclusion from the debates. The Green party has threatened legal action over its leader Natalie Bennett’s omission. Good on them.

COMPLETE NONSENSE

The inclusion of Ukip to the exclusion of others is complete nonsense whichever way one cuts it. If one goes by number of MPs, questions regarding the exclusion of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parties loom large. The answer is, I suspect, that these are not national parties, followed by the non-sequitur that they must therefore have nothing to offer to a national debate. For a triumvirate that only a month ago was pleading with Scotland not to break up this “family of nations”, relegating all non-English parties to the children’s table is unfortunate in the extreme.

If one goes by how parties did at the last general election, then the exclusion of the Greens – who had an MP elected – in favour of Ukip is irrational. Perhaps convincing a constituency that electing the same MP wearing a different rosette represents real change is a magic trick worthy of TV. And how about the Social Democratic and Labour party that has twice the number? The broadcasters have cited the recent European election as a measure of Ukip’s popularity and irrefutable evidence of its worthiness for inclusion. But if that is the criterion, one must question the inclusion of the Lib Dems, who polled lower than the Greens on all measures and came a joint sixth with a host of other parties in terms of MEPs.

The only way to justify the inclusion of Ukip in these debates is by somehow extrapolating its future popularity in the next election by looking at meaningless opinion polls. Essentially the broadcasters are saying, “We think they will do well, so we are pre-emptively including them”. It is not up to a TV executive to be making any such subjective assessment. If you want to open the debate, then do so properly. Make it a panel discussion that includes genuinely diverse views.

I am certain that the expectation the inclusion of Ukip might make for salacious TV has also not been far from TV executives’ thoughts. It is the natural extension of the bizarrely dominant idea that if you include a person saying something sensible in any debate, you must also include the polar opposite, even if inflammatory and illogical, “for balance”. Which is precisely what has secured Ukip its popularity in the first place.

MONOCHROME PALETTE

However, the exclusion of parties such as the Greens, the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru has another deeper effect. It excludes anyone who could lend a modicum of diversity to these debates; who might challenge the status quo on the environment, on devolution, on constitutional change, on free-market economics, on gender politics. What we have ended up with – again – is a platform of two, three or four rich, privileged, white, straight, middle-aged, male, career politicians from a tiny part of south-east England telling the rest of the country what is what.

This monochrome palette, this disturbing example of what Grayson Perry recently described as “the default man”, is bad for political engagement and grossly unrepresentative of the country. It ensures that large swaths of the voting population will flick on to the debates, see a pictorial representation of the same dull grey suits talking in soundbites and switch back to Britain’s Got Talent, secure in the knowledge that, if Britain does indeed have talent, politics is carefully sealed from any hint of it.

Reproduced with acknowledgements to The Guardian

Clacton, Rochester and the Challenge of First Past The Post

I had always been certain the United Kingdom Independence Party would win the by-election in Clacton. Every factor that could point in the party’s favour did so:

1. First of all Clacton was, as it happened, UKIP’s most winnable seat in the United Kingdom to begin with, at least according to the people who have ways and means of calculating these things.

2. It was a by-election, which meant voters did not need to have any fears (or hopes) about who would be running the country the next morning. The “Vote UKIP – Get Labour” mantra much beloved of the Prime Minister David Cameron did not apply here.

3. Being a by-election all media attention was focused on Clacton rather than upon a country-wide contest as would have been the case in May next year.

4. The contest was all about UKIP. It was about a sitting Member of Parliament, Douglas Carswell, who had resigned his membership of the Conservative Party and joined the Eurosceptic group amid a blaze of publicity. Try as the establishment parties might to focus the discussion on the NHS or the economy, this by-election was never going to be about anything other than the United Kingdom Independence Party and its political programme.

5. Carswell was always going to gain kudos from the fact that he had resigned his seat and reverted to the electorate, to give voters a chance to approve or disapprove his decision to change party mid-term. Let us be in no doubt that as a decision it was tactical rather than courageous. Carswell was smart enough to understand that sitting as an anonymous backbencher for the remainder of his elected term was a sure-fired way of courting defeat at next year’s general election, where conditions would favour the big parties. By raising his profile and winning back his seat by a huge majority he has given himself a good fighting chance of retaining Clacton next May. Nevertheless he and his party were able to make much of the fact that he had been willing to incur a certain amount of risk in going back to the electorate to allow them to have the final say on his decision.

For these reasons a UKIP victory was always on the cards. But the magnitude of the win (with some 60% of the votes cast), considered alongside the fact that an unfancied UKIP candidate in the former Labour stronghold of Heywood & Middleton in the North came within a whisker of also being elected on the same night, has persuaded me to reassess my previously held view that the forthcoming contest in Rochester would prove a by-election too far for UKIP. I now believe, as indeed do the bookies, that Mark Reckless will be back in the House to keep his new colleague company when the votes are counted in Kent.

So will Carswell’s victory be the death knell of two-party system as we know it? I suspect not.

Whilst I would expect UKIP to hold Clacton next year and also possibly to gain South Thanet, where Farage himself will be standing, in the total seats stakes the party will still be languishing some considerable way behind the unfashionable Liberal Democrats, in spite of the fact that it is likely to win more votes. The reason for this is because the Lib Dems cottoned on to the fact many years before UKIP did the same, that disproportionate power can be gained by concentrating all available campaigning resources in a small handful of areas.

UKIP, of course, are talking up their chances of scoring well in May 2015 because, frankly, they have to. The ball is rolling. If they are going to have any chance at all they must at the very least create an air of confidence. The task before them though – the discontinuation of the endless dreary ritual engaged in by millions of voters of voting against the party they dislike the most every bit as much as for their party of preference – is a massive one. Cameron knows what he is doing when he tries to frighten Tory-leaning UKIP voters with the prospect of a Labour government. Expect a significant chunk of the UKIP-friendly vote to revert to the big parties when the real election comes around.

Unsupportive though I am of UKIP’s main policy planks I nonetheless rejoice at the implications for the old system of the results in Clacton and Heywood & Middleton, because there are few evils in modern politics to match the ongoing fraud perpetuated against the voters by the Con-Lab duopoly. But I do fear we have a long way to go yet before we will see, as one day we certainly will, the replacement of the rotten old system by something more open and inclusive.

Setting the Record Straight on the Isleworth Labour/UKIP Tie-Up

As I've said elsewhere I am keen to move on from the confrontational politics which have occupied me up until now. Nonetheless after careful consideration I do feel it is necessary to provide the update on the Isleworth Labour/UKIP saga that I had hoped to include during the last days of the campaign, had time permitted me to do so.

I do this not to provoke further conflict, but to consign these events to record in case either they continue to be disputed, or the quarrel should be continued by those involved in them in spite of my desire for them to be laid to rest.  It was, after all, part of both UKIP's and Labour's strategy during the last few weeks of the campaign to simply deny the existence of this shoddy arrangement in the hope that by saying it isn't happening enough times it could somehow just be magically wished away.

Shortly after my original article on the subject appeared on this blog one of the three Isleworth UKIP candidates, Kelly Adams (formerly Males), posted an item on the BrentfordTW8.com community forum in which she claimed to have been provoked into standing as a candidate for UKIP after having acquired documentary proof of two Freedom of Information requests that I had made involving the property in which she resides.  I reproduce a copy of the post in question below:

 

The sequence of events as claimed by Kelly is clearly nonsense.  The UKIP "colleague" of hers whom I rang was the then Hanworth Park councillor Rebecca Stewart, and this conversation took place on the very evening that I had encountered Kelly and local UKIP leader Colin Botterill out collecting nomination signatures for her endorsement as a candidate - in other words after the event.  Why else would I have 'phoned a member of UKIP to discuss Kelly who, prior to this encounter, I had never associated with UKIP and whom I would never in a million years have expected Ms. Stewart to have even heard of?

That Kelly was given the information about my FoI requests at all, information which was supposed to have been confidential, would appear to provide evidence of dodgy practice by somebody at the London Borough of Hounslow which in itself vindicated my decision to investigate the local authority's conduct over this whole matter.  But LBH misconduct aside, it takes a number of weeks to acquire information via FoI.  Had Kelly made her request, as claimed, as a consequence of my conversation with Ms. Stewart she would barely have received the information she had asked for by polling day.

So, self-evidently, any information Kelly had received in respect of my FoI requests did not come into her possession as a consequence of my call to Ms. Stewart, but rather would have reached her some considerable time beforehand.  How?  Your guess is as good as mine, unless that is she had a close contact who was an officer at the council - or a councillor!

Then we have Mr. Botterill's account of events.  In an interview conducted with the Hounslow Chronicle (online version) he related how Kelly was originally to have been the only UKIP candidate in Isleworth ward, but that her two colleagues were recruited by her after I had apparently behaved badly towards her on the night when I had met her and Mr. Botterill out collecting nominations.  Here is the appropriate excerpt from the article in question:

 

I have already noted, in my previous article, how when I encountered Mr. Botterill in Worple Avenue he was in the company of three girls - Kelly and two others.  I also gave an account of how on that occasion he had glad-handed me and told me, even there and then, how his party would only be fielding one candidate in Isleworth.

Below is the list of nominations which was later published in respect of Kelly Adams:

It is necessary to note at this point that nominations are published in the sequence in which they are collected.  At the time of our encounter, Kelly's nomination paper (which I saw) was already almost full.

Now here are the nominations published in respect of her two fellow candidates (who, we are told, were recruited by Kelly on a later occasion):

We are being asked to believe that, on the later occasion when the other candidates collected their nominations (Kelly already having gathered hers), not only did they find all the same residents at home but that they all signed in exactly the same sequence!

That Colin Botterill is a bare-faced liar is thus a demonstrable fact that I would be prepared to stand by before any judge in the land.  But the question is why did he lie?  What had he done that he felt he had to hide and, more importantly, why did he do it?  And how precisely did he envisage that his bizarre actions would benefit UKIP?

A further mystery developed with the arrival of Isleworth UKIP's long-awaited leaflet, two days before May 22nd.  I'll not comment on its content as to do so would be superfluous, but I reproduce it below:

What really was interesting about this leaflet was the name of the election agent.  All published material produced in support of an election campaign is required by law to carry the name and contact address of the validly nominated election agent.  All other UKIP candidates throughout the borough were represented in this capacity by Mr. Botterill but the three Isleworth candidates - uniquely - were represented by Kelly:

Why should this be?  One can only hazard a guess, but it would be a good one.  In all likelihood Mr. Botterill knew that the Isleworth leaflet would be not only an exclusively anti-ICG tract but a defamatory one at that and, demonstrating some rare good judgement, decided he did not want to put his name to it.  Kelly's financial assets are widely known to be significantly less than zero and thus any action for libel, even if I could afford it myself, would be a non-starter.

And yet Mr. Botterill, as UKIP leader, was clearly happy for a highly defamatory anti-ICG campaign to be conducted in his party's name.  Why?

One rather telling aside was a little, abortive and frankly rather daft smear campaign which appeared a week or so before polling day and fizzled out very shortly afterwards.  In essence the rumour was put about that I was in some way in league with David W. Griffiths, the original and rather eccentric UKIP candidate who remained in the fray as an independent after being dropped by his party and who circulated leaflets claiming that he was still the "leading UKIP candidate", urging Isleworth residents to vote for him as their first choice and thereafter for two of the three "official" candidates.

Quite why I would encourage anybody to vote for any UKIP candidate, Official or Provisional, as opposed to the three ICG candidates who were in the field, was not explained, but the groundless rumour (originated by Labour) was dutifully carried by Mr. Botterill to the Hounslow Chronicle, who repeated it along with my firm denial.  Shortly afterwards Labour's Sue Sampson saw fit to bring the article to the attention of the UKIP candidate Kelly Adams (supposedly a political rival) via Facebook, where they are friends, as is shown below (the "Isleworth British Legion Legion" account is maintained by Kelly):

Those who attended the Verification of Votes on the evening of Thursday 22nd May and the Counting of Votes on Friday 23rd May could not have helped but have noticed that Kelly (the only Isleworth UKIP candidate who bothered to attend either) spent the entire duration of both in the company of her Isleworth Labour friends.  True she sported the purple rosette and went through the motions of "sampling" (the practice engaged in by anoraks of trying to record the numbers of votes achieved by each slate of candidates as they fall out of the ballot box onto the counting table) - on a sheet identical to those being used by the Labour counting agents and probably provided to her by same - but, absurdly, she only recorded the votes cast for UKIP and in so doing entirely defeated the object of the exercise.  When the result of the contest in Isleworth ward was announced, her delight was evident, which some may have considered strange bearing in mind that the party she apparently represented had come fourth.

Like I said at the beginning, I have no heart to continue the squabbles which occupied me for far too long prior to May 22nd.  I certainly have no hard feelings towards Kelly Adams, who is herself a nice person and whom I feel was exploited during the campaign as a vehicle through which other people's battles were being fought.  But it is important that these deeply cynical events are recorded, should they need to be revisited for any purpose in the future.

As for the mysterious Colin Botterill, he lost his seat and it really couldn't have happened to a nicer person.  Why he did what he did I still have no idea, but unlike most captains whose duty it is to go down with their ship, Mr. Botterill made sure his ship went down with him.  His genuine candidates, some of whom were noticeably of good quality, deserved much better.

Isleworth Labour and UKIP Together in Big Local Election Con-Trick

Labour in Isleworth fields slate of “UKIP” candidates in bid to split protest vote

The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is standing three candidates in Isleworth ward in the London Borough of Hounslow at the local government elections on May 22^nd – the only full slate being fielded by UKIP anywhere in the borough other than in its target ward of Hanworth Park, where it currently holds two seats.

But these are UKIP candidates with a difference.  That is because they are not UKIP candidates at all, but rather are “Labour” candidates who have been “loaned” to UKIP by Labour, or at least by one of its ward councillors, to the right-wing party in an attempt to split the protest vote which is likely to go to Labour’s main rival in the ward, the politically centrist and non-racist Independent Community Group (ICG).

That is not to say they are, necessarily, Labour Party members.  But their friendship with a serving ward councillor has led to them agreeing to participate in a con-trick being performed by the local Labour Group on the voters of Isleworth ward.

Even more astonishing is that UKIP’s local leadership is fully aware of the bogus nature of its candidates, but has proceeded to use them anyway, one can only presume so as not to lose face after having failed to meet its promises in respect of the number of candidates it would stand.

BACKGROUND

After years of enjoying only a nominal presence in the London Borough of Hounslow, UKIP exploded onto the local scene at the end of May 2013 when four sitting Conservative councillors – Colin Botterill, Rebecca Stewart, Beverley Williams and Gill Hutchison – resigned their party whip and formed a UKIP group on the Council.  The new group announced its intentions to contest the 2014 local elections with a view to increasing its representation in Hounslow by taking advantage of the wave of popularity presently being enjoyed by leader Nigel Farage and his party.

        

UKIP AND THE ICG

Within days the ICG was accused by Labour critics of having met with UKIP councillors to try to persuade them not to stand in the wards which we would be targeting if we decided to contest the local elections.  As it happened we hadn’t – we had had no contact at all with them at that time – but we decided that we would anyway.  Although most if not all of our key people did not share UKIP’s main policy positions – on Europe and immigration – we were supportive of the party’s plans for local referenda and for recall of under-performing MPs (and by implication councillors) and, besides, saw nothing sinister or wrong about trying to talk a right-wing but democratic party out of contesting elections on our home turf.  We had two meetings, the first with Councillors Stewart and Williams and the second with all four.

During those meetings UKIP attempted to talk us into agreeing a two-and-one arrangement in which we would field two candidates each in Syon and Isleworth wards and UKIP would field one, with a tacit agreement in place for each of the two groups to big up the other, in effect a joint slate.  We declined on the grounds that we did not want to be associated with their – or indeed any – party political cause, as that would be contrary to everything we stood for.  Some time later UKIP advised us that they would be standing one candidate in each of the wards, and this remained their position thereafter.

In fact, it even remained their position earlier this month when by pure fluke I “caught” Councillor Botterill (pictured above) in Worple Avenue - I think with his three candidates - collecting nominations, and he glad-handed me and told me even then that UKIP was only fielding one candidate (“You know Kelly, don’t you?” he asked sheepishly) in the ward.

Not recognising the other two girls, I assumed at that point that they were just hangers-on of some sort.  But yes, I did know Kelly.  Kelly, I told him, was a very close friend of Isleworth Labour councillor Sue Sampson and was certainly no UKIPer.  She owed an awful lot to Councillor Sampson (of which more below) and no way would she be standing against her in an election without her blessing.  I expected Councillor Botterill to be surprised by this news, but he wasn’t.  He just looked at his shoes (fortunately for him he was also wearing dark glasses) and walked away.

Kelly Males/Root/Adams - Isleworth "UKIP" candidate - hosts the Mayor of Hounslow at a community event fronted by Isleworth Labour councillor Sue Sampson (below)

Immediately I telephoned Councillor Stewart, and during the course of that evening we had a couple of conversations about Kelly.  But I have to say she seemed more concerned by some of my other information (of which more later in the campaign) than she did about the fact that Kelly was a Labour “ringer”.  But still, she reassured me, at least UKIP were only fielding one candidate!

I’m getting ahead of myself here though, so once again more of this anon.

      UKIP AND THE “ANTICHRIST”

I should mention in the meantime that Kelly was not, in fact, UKIP’s preferred candidate in Isleworth.  This was a chap called David W. Griffiths, a name with which I was vaguely familiar although he and I have never actually met.

Mr. Griffiths, for all I know, may be a very nice bloke, but I was aware that he had some “form” when it came to political controversy.  Nothing wrong with that necessarily, as a repentant ex-member of the National Front I have plenty of form myself on that front.  But some comments he had made recently – and openly, as a UKIP member – had been reported in the national press and so I thought it was strange that Councillor Botterill and his colleagues had selected a man to be a candidate who had delivered himself of the view, in the wake of Nelson Mandela’s death, that some people were “born to be slaves”.

And so I contacted Councillor Stewart, to alert her to her colleague’s faux pas.  For good measure I sent her a copy of an old article from the local Chronicle in which Mr. Griffiths had claimed during an interview to have been the Antichrist, chosen by persons unknown to bring an end to Christianity on Earth and also taking the slightly controversial view that homeless people should be shot in the streets and homosexuals should be banished to an island.

WAS COUNCILLOR RUTH CADBURY INVOLVED?

Mr. Griffiths’ past activities, or his views on slavery, were not the only thing Councillor Botterill needed to be concerned about.  He had, after all, already circulated his own election leaflet to most of Isleworth ward, apparently without the party’s approval, in which he had declared his “two big things” to have been “old people” and “breastfeeding”.  The leaflet was, shall we say, a tad unconventional.

But at the same time that I had contacted UKIP in a genuine attempt to be helpful (and also, I freely admit, in the hope of knocking out a rival candidate who would have attracted some protest votes otherwise destined for the ICG no matter how eccentric his views), Brentford Labour councillor and parliamentary hopeful Ruth Cadbury was tweeting a copy of the leaflet, presumably provided to her by her Labour colleagues in Isleworth, to her many followers – including, of course, the local press.

Some might consider it odd that Councillor Cadbury, whose political savvy is acknowledged by friend and foe alike, should have done a thing that must inevitably have had the effect of removing a UKIP candidate from the field who would have served a useful purpose in drawing protest votes from ICG candidates without there being any danger of himself being elected.  Unless, of course, she knew that her Isleworth colleagues were waiting impatiently in the wings for the opportunity to offer the hapless Councillor Botterill a helping hand?

Was our prospective MP involved in the deception and confidence trick that was about to be pulled on the voters of Isleworth by her fellow Labour candidates?  The jury remains out as I write.  But her tweet was indeed featured in the Chronicle and the local UKIP leader, who must surely have already known from the national publicity it had generated that his first-choice candidate had made such appalling statements about slavery, now had no option but to withdraw him.

This was on Thursday, April 10^th.  Two days later Councillor Stewart surprised me by advising me that UKIP had “possibly” found a replacement for Mr. Griffiths.  Apparently it was a lady who had long been interested in being an Isleworth candidate but whose “papers” had spent “a long time coming through the system” as UKIP had a strict candidate vetting process (I promise I am not making this up) which took about six weeks to complete.  But I shouldn’t worry, at worst there would only be one UKIP candidate in Isleworth ward!

LABOUR LENDS A HAND

Nominations closed on Thursday, April 24^th and the full candidate lists were published the morning after.  UKIP had put up a full slate of three candidates in Isleworth – Kelly (whose surname is Males and her maiden name is Root but had listed herself as Adams, one assumes to have her name listed at the top of the ballot paper), Melanie Flynn and Sharon Smith.  It would seem the two new candidates had somehow found their way around UKIP’s foolproof six-week vetting process.

Melanie Flynn we had never heard of, although she seems to have arrived on Councillor Botterill’s doorstep at the same time as the others and must be assumed by her continued participation to be happy in the company she is keeping.  I’ll add more information on her if and when any comes to me.

But if Kelly Males/Root/Adams is not an obvious enough “plant” by Councillor Sue Sampson there should be no doubts at all when it comes to Sharon Smith.  Here’s a few little screenshots from the Brentford TW8.com and Chiswick W4.com community forums to be getting along with.

 

A Labour voter, a “socialist”, a staunch defender of former MP Ann Keen’s infamous expense claims and an opponent of fox-hunting – perfect UKIP material if I must say so myself!

I have been promised some further damning evidence, as if any was needed, that Sharon is contesting this election as a “UKIP” candidate for no other reason than to “do Sue a favour”.  When I get it I shall post it onto this blog.

Kelly and Cllr. Sampson, Dec. 2013

But let us go back in the meantime to Kelly Males/Root/Adams.  As I wrote earlier Adams is not her current married name.  Neither is it her maiden name.  It is not even the name of the father of her first children.  She may for all I know have a legitimate reason for having suddenly acquired the name “Adams”, other than to put herself at the top of the ballot paper where, traditionally, there are a few more votes to be had.  She has, I am assured, presented “evidence” of her name change to the elections department at the London Borough of Hounslow, and she will be aware that it is a criminal offence to falsify such evidence and must know I will be having this looked into.  But is it just me who thinks it strange that somebody who is in the business of trying to win votes should suddenly change her name to one by which none of her own friends and contacts knows her?

Under her own name Kelly is an active kind of girl, often to be found supporting good causes.  One cause that she supports is called Middlesex Anti-Racist Action (MARA).  In the screenshot reproduced below you can see her name on its list of followers:

Nothing wrong with that.  Only as you can see here MARA is not particularly fond of UKIP:

Another contradiction.  But nothing is so much a contradiction as Kelly’s apparent ingratitude, by standing against her, to Councillor Sampson.  It was following Councillor Sampson’s intervention that Kelly and her family were able to move into the large council dwelling in which she currently lives, with tens of thousands of pounds and hundreds of hours of work spent on it, without having to go through the Locata system which ordinary mortals are required to negotiate before being rehoused.  

One way in which Kelly was able to repay Councillor Sampson was by writing a letter to the Chronicle in October 2013 taking a pop at various local community organisations, such as The Isleworth Society, the Isleworth Public Hall Users Group and the Friends of Isleworth Public Hall.  Generally the Labour Party in Isleworth has been reluctant to go onto the offensive against community groups, other than the ICG, because their avowedly non-political nature would make them unreasonable targets in the eyes of decent local people and the party has always been at pains to hide its essentially anti-community instincts, by which I mean its opposition to any form of community organisation operating outside of its own discipline.  Kelly's was one of a series of letters written by various of Councillor Sampson's personal friends which basically took on this dirty work.  As recently as six months ago Kelly's affinity with the Labour administration in Hounslow was there for all to see:

  
A CONFIDENCE TRICK ON ISLEWORTH’S VOTERS

As I explained earlier there is a very good reason why Labour feel they would benefit from having a slate of UKIP candidates in the field during this local election campaign.  Although the ICG and UKIP are two very different organisations both would be likely to benefit from any “protest vote”.  With one UKIP candidate standing people who had voted for that party in the European election which is being held on the same day might have been inclined to give their other two votes to the ICG.  That won’t happen, Labour figure, if UKIP has three candidates.

As for UKIP, their motives for entering into this sordid alliance are less clear as only humiliation and embarrassment await them even if these candidates were to win the election in Isleworth.  One can only speculate, but it is likely that their actions were motivated by nothing more than the desire to maximise the number of candidates they could boast they were standing.  But in doing so they have demonstrated that they are utterly untrustworthy, duplicitous, cynical, and by no means least desperate.  How could anybody in this borough take such a shoddy and amateurish outfit seriously?

By their actions both Labour and UKIP are quite consciously playing a confidence trick on local voters.  If the Isleworth UKIP candidates are elected – not unthinkable in the current climate – they will, I’m sure, “convert” to Labour on the very day of the election count, giving Isleworth electors three Labour councillors they didn’t vote for and the local UKIP unit a credibility problem to die for.  But in achieving that Labour will have helped to raise UKIP’s profile in the borough and beyond.  Remember this the next time your local Labour representative pontificates to you about UKIP, racism and xenophobia.

UKIP voters, of course, have the opportunity to support their party by giving them their vote at the European election on the same day.  Like them or loathe them, the names on the (white) Euro ballot paper are at least those of genuine UKIP candidates. 

But it is difficult to see how anybody with any integrity or respect for the democratic process can vote for either Labour or UKIP in Isleworth, or in UKIP’s case anywhere in the borough.  What a big price they are doomed to pay for three extra names on the published list of candidates.