"With a Heavy Heart, and in the UK's National Interest"

Am I really the only person who can see the elephant that fills the proverbial living room as we crank our necks around it to watch the dying throes of the UK’s longest ever election campaign on our television screens this evening?

Much energy has been expended discussing the prospect of anything between 35 and 59 SNP Members of Parliament holding the balance of power, and what an outrage it would be to have Scottish MPs that nobody in England voted for legislating for the whole of the UK in a way that only English parties that nobody in Scotland voted for should be permitted to do. In the constitutional fog that has been visited upon us from Alba we could be excused for forgetting that the Liberal Democrats had ever existed.

And yet in spite of their low poll ratings, the Lib Dems look good for maybe 25 to 30 seats as they fight a rearguard action in their areas of strength whilst remaining content to battle it out with Bus Stop Elvis in the remainder. Thirty seats of course is less than the SNP is expected to receive, but probably enough if combined with either of the major parties to be able to outvote the other one.

NEW DYNAMIC

It occurs to me that, with the SNP having pledged to do nothing to help put the Tories back into office, a new dynamic has been created which moves the hitherto forgotten Liberal Democrats very much centre stage.

Assuming (as we shouldn’t, but for the purposes of this article we must) an outcome tomorrow which is something akin to what we have been seeing in the opinion polls, a 30-seat Lib Dem premium added to either the Tory or the Labour total would, discarding for the moment other parties, give the beneficiary a numerical advantage over its competitor. For whatever reason the assumption would appear to be being made that the Lib Dems will line up with the Tories. But if the combined total number of seats won by Labour and the SNP was to exceed the combined total for the Tories and Lib Dems (possibly fortified by those of the DUP and/or UKIP) then both Tories and Lib Dems would suddenly find themselves powerless. And powerless is not what Nick Clegg aspires to be.

If, on the other hand, the Lib Dems were to throw their lot in with Labour in what would probably still be a minority coalition, it kind of dares the SNP to line up with the Tories or face being effectively airbrushed from the picture. Abstaining on votes would not be enough. In order to defeat the (Lab-LD) government on any vote the SNP and the Tories would have to join forces, if only on an ad hoc basis and strictly for the purpose of.

Would the Liberal Democrats abandon their present course and join with Labour instead? There are a number of catalysts which have the potential to unite to bring this about, the first being the Tories’ proposed EU referendum which is being touted as a red line issue for the Tories in any potential future negotiations. As the most Euro-friendly amongst the parties this cannot be an easy one for the Libs. Labour, taking the opposite position, may have more appeal.

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

And then there is the question of proportional representation. A major negotiating chip for Nick Clegg in the coalition talks of 2010, he somehow allowed David Cameron to schmooze him into accepting the half-arsed Alternative Vote option as an acceptable substitute and then suffered the indignity of watching his coalition partner rubbish it as being, well, a half-arsed alternative, at the ensuing referendum. Although Labour is, on balance, opposed to PR (and for pretty much the same self-serving reasons as the Tories), there is a substantial body of opinion within the party – including, significantly, Ed Miliband – which sees things differently, looking upon PR as having the potential to rally progressive voting support under one roof, thereby providing a near-guarantee against a conservative majority at any time in the future.

Informed opinion has it that Nick Clegg, as Leader of the Liberal Democrats, is instinctively more comfortable around the Tories than he would be with the Labour Party. This could help to explain why reports from Clegg’s constituency in Sheffield Hallam are strongly predicting widespread tactical voting for Clegg from Tory supporters as a counter to a strong electoral challenge from Labour. But were Clegg to lose his seat, or were he to be ousted through an internal coup as soon as the new Parliament is formed, his successor might well be less wedded to the Tories in any event.

Other Lib Dem “red lines” might not prove insurmountable. Clegg has thus far promised more in increased funding to the NHS than has Miliband, but then Miliband has already told us he wishes to be a Prime Minister who “under-promises and over-achieves”. More spending on the NHS is unlikely to be a cause for violent protests from traditional Labour supporters. The Lib Dems also insist upon lifting more of the lower-paid out of tax, which is a euphemism for saying that for an ever-greater number of people wages should be kept so low that their tax contributions will not be missed. As we move towards a society in which “Minimum Wage” effectively becomes the wage that almost everybody can expect to earn, Labour is already doing its bit to manage expectations by raising it to a marginally more generous level.

LEGITIMACY

Which leaves Clegg’s obsession with “legitimacy”, a term which he treats as being synonymous with a party having won the largest number of seats, surely a peculiar position for an opponent of First Past The Post to take. Most of the polls seem to have the Tories slightly ahead in this regard, although unlike Ed’s promises it is far from being carved in stone. But his policy is only to speak to the largest party first, not necessary to ally himself with that party. If a better deal can be made with the second largest party we can bet our bottom euro that is where the Lib Dems will be heading.

When all is said and done the clincher could well be that by allying himself with Labour, and in so doing rescuing Ed Miliband from the indignity of having to depend on the hated SNP for support, Clegg could consider himself to be “acting in the UK’s national interest”, much indulging his penchant for striking a lofty pose. The elephant in my living room tells me that this is a prospect he will find difficult to resist.

Meantime the reaction of the Scottish voters to having been stitched up a second time is unlikely to differ very much from the first. The case for independence will become incontestable. The case for change moves ever forward.

Why I'll Be Voting "Yes" to AV

Next month I will be voting "Yes" in the referendum to change the voting system at British general elections from First Past The Post (FPTP) to Alternative Voting (AV).

I have never been one to get particularly excited about proportional representation. My default view is that when the time has come for change then democracy's natural selection process will eventually see to it that that change happens irrespective of which voting system we have. However slow and stupified they may sometimes appear, the voters tend to make the right decision on the day.

Alternative Voting is not proportional representation, of course. It is a fudge that lies somewhere between PR and FPTP. Essentially it means you can vote for a candidate whom you like but who is unlikely to win in the knowledge that when he or she is inevitably unsuccessful your second preference vote for a more credible candidate will still count for something. In other words you need not vote for a candidate who would not otherwise be your first choice for fear of wasting your vote completely.

From a purely selfish perspective I believe that on balance AV would have benefited ICG candidates at local elections, some might argue unfairly so, and that we probably would have won across the board in both Isleworth and Syon wards had it been in operation locally in 2010 in spite of the general election having been held on the same day. My reason for thinking this is that, whilst the politicos from both of the major parties might themselves prefer the relative safety of one another to the (to them) uncertain radicalism of the ICG, the voters themselves would probably have thought differently. In my view casual Labour voters (as opposed to members) would in most cases have preferred the ICG to their traditional Tory opponents, and likewise Tory voters would in most cases have opted for the ICG ahead of Labour.

In other words in the absence of a straight 50% first preference vote for either Labour or the Conservatives (unlikely in Labour's case and nowt but a pipe dream for the Conservatives), the likelihood is that the ICG's second preference vote tally would have been substantially more powerful than either of theirs.

At the local elections in 2002 and 2006 on the other hand, when we won our seats with very strong majorities in the absence of a "general election factor", AV would almost certainly have made no difference to the outcome.

But all that is by the by. All those elections were fought under FPTP and even the proposed changes would only apply to general elections, at least to begin with. So my interest in the subject now, inasfar as I have any, concerns the effect upon the national body politic of a conversion to an AV system of voting.

The likely consequence of "Yes" vote would be a significant increase in the number of seats held by the Liberal Democrats (under less controversial conditions than presently exist anyway), and an effective normalisation of the currently unusual spectre of coalition government.

Some Labour politicians (although not Ed Miliband) are opposing AV because they feel a "No" vote will weaken the political standing of the Liberal Democrat leadership, who have kissed a lot of butts in order that this referendum might become a reality. A "No" result would make so many of those sacrifices appear to have been in vain. Others are whining about the cost of holding the referendum.

But it is surely wrong to judge an issue as fundamental as electoral reform on consideration of short-term political advantage? And it is certainly not good enough to try to place a price on democracy (and let's face it, money is certainly no object where the crusade to "bring democracy" to the lesser breeds of the Middle East and North Africa via the bomb and bullet are concerned).

A more valid fear is that AV will lead to perpetual coalition in which Labour might be the loser. Anybody who has had dealings with Labour as an organisation will know how politically frigid and unapproachable they tend to be and this leads sometimes to the most improbable coalitions finding themselves lined up against them often almost by default.

Some, most notably the Labour leader Ed Miliband, take the contrary view that Britain has an inbuilt "progressive majority" which would make it much more difficult for the Conservatives to achieve absolute power, a view that may be shared by the Tories themselves if their almost unanimous opposition to AV is to be explained.

One possibly accidental consequence of the AV debate therefore has been to force the Labour camp to consider what is ultimately more important to them - their "progressivism" or their party badge.

I believe Ed Miliband has taken a very intelligent position, probably recognising as a forward-thinking and relatively young man that the shelf-life of the Labour Party, like those of the other traditional parties, is nearing its end and that the product is likely to be replaced sooner or later by something altogether less tribal, less reactionary and more suited to the open society that must be an inevitable consequence of the Internet age.

There will as I see it be a realignment in our body politic with new alliances being formed that will empower the progressive majority but at the expense of the Labour Party in its current insular persona.

Almost anything that shakes up the stale old system and that encourages voters to think outside the box into which it has successfully confined them for so long has to be a good thing. That is why I intend to vote "Yes" on May 5th.

If you don't hate, don't vote for my old mate

If you are like me you will be underwhelmed by the imminence of the European Elections which are to take place on June 4th. I haven't even thought about who I might be voting for yet, and if one considers that I'm actually involved in politics on a day to day basis then what does that say for the sense of excitement that the contest must have induced in most other people?

With the recent revelations about MPs' expense claims, the public can be forgiven for being unenthusiastic about any of the main parties. To paraphrase the old poster slogan, wouldn't it be funny if they called an election and nobody turned up?

Sadly, uninspiring though the established politicans may seem or indeed be, not turning out to vote may have far graver consequences than electing some undeserving bounty hunter of whatever political hue. Under the d'Hondt system of Proportional Representation that is to be used for the purpose of allocating seats, any party that achieves more than a stated minimum percentage of votes in any given region will have at least one member elected to the European Parliament.

Even in less cynical times, British voters on the whole never cared have too much who is elected to Brussels. At the previous two Euro Elections, also conducted under PR, a large protest vote went respectively to the Green Party and to the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). What is significant is that neither party was particularly in the ascendancy at the time when they achieved their success. They were just in the right place at the right time when the British voter had the opportunity to register a protest.

The party which finds itself in a similar position today is the British National Party (BNP). As an ex-member of the National Front myself (a party in which many of the current BNP leaders, including the Chairman Nick Griffin, cut their political teeth) I have been studying the BNP's recent fortunes at close quarters. Having exploded onto the scene from relative obscurity a few years ago, the BNP has hovered steadily at around its current level for the last few years. Whilst is hasn't imploded in the sensational manner of the National Front at the 1979 General Election, it has flatlined somewhat, with the odd victory being celebrated but at least as many losses being quietly recorded.

Anybody who takes reassurance from this that the BNP will not present a major threat on June 4th, as some anti-racists seem to have done, is a fool. The general public do not know about the internal issues that trouble the BNP, nor will they have a sophisticated handle on its recent election results. The simple fact is that the BNP, like the Greens and UKIP before them, are the ones who are strategically poised to take advantage of the low voter turnout and the wave of quite understandable disillusionment that is sweeping the country at the moment.

In a certain respect as observers go I am in a unique position. It may be nearly twenty years since I abandoned the ideology (or more precisely the ideologies, for they changed like the wind) that I had pursued along with my former NF comrades back in the 1980s, but I have seen many of the current BNP leaders and their methods at close quarters. Along with one or two others I actually pioneered the electoral strategy that much later brought the BNP its limited successes.

Although he is older, bigger and has one eye fewer than he did when I knew him, the Nick Griffin I see on Newsnight and the equally slick performer who graces our various news bulletins is the same guy that I have enjoyed many a curry and a beer with, visited at his home, been entertained by his family (and he by mine) and talked politics and strategy with on countless occasions. Because I believe I always got along well with Nick Griffin and because our parting was political rather than personal, I have difficulty seeing in him the swivel-eyed monster of traditional anti-fascist folklore. Nonetheless, I firmly believe that the election of BNP MEPs on June 4th would be an unmitigated disaster for our community.

As an NF activist in the 1980s one of my pet hates was the media. No matter what the NF did any coverage received, as I saw it then, was hostile and inaccurate. It was so unfair. Worse than that, it was a plot. A Jewish plot. The possiblity that the complexities of the obscure and irrational ideology that I followed in those days might have been innocently misunderstood was not to be contemplated in the black and white world of the fanatic. The whole world was against us. They were wrong, and we alone were right.

And so it is that, rather than rely upon media interpretation to inform my opinion of the BNP today, my instinct is to look at the publications and the public pronouncements of the BNP itself. In recent years the BNP has gone to a lot of trouble trying to remodel itself as a legitimate and mainstream, if still very right wing, political party. It has dropped its lunatic commitment to "the compulsory repatriation of all non-white immigrants along with their dependents and descendants" and has instead adopted an ostensibly more reasonable policy of "voluntary repatriation". It isn't about race any more guv, it's only about numbers.

I giggle slightly wickedly when I read about all this, because having been there amongst the people involved I know the perpetual juggling act that Nick Griffin will have been forced by his own "conversion" to the BNP's new "Civic Nationalist" values to perform, reassuring his own loyal followers that he remains privately "of the faith" whilst simultaneously trying to impress the wider world that he is a changed man. It isn't easy, and the reason it isn't easy is because it isn't honest.

I believe it was this dichotomy which backed Nick Griffin recently to into an ideological corner, compelling him to spell out the old racist values that still underpin the "new" BNP. Speaking to the BBC, he declared that Asian Britons and black Britons "do not exist" and that people from African-Caribbean backgrounds and Asian backgrounds should be regarded as "racial foreigners", irrespective of whether they arrived yesterday or whether their ancestors have lived in the UK for generations. Somehow Nick Griffin and the BNP still insist on trying to square this with their protestation that they are not a racist party.

It is vital that voters who may be disillusioned with the mainstream understand that the BNP are not a benign protest party. People have every right to be discontented in the current climate. It is perfectly legitimate to question the size of the population and the various social consequences of excessive immigration. But the BNP's concerns, as evidenced by Nick Griffin's comments, are not about numbers, nor for that matter about jobs, housing, education nor anything else of that kind. They are about race. Just as they were when I was involved with the far right. All that has changed, essentially, is the packaging.

So if you are of the belief that the hard-working, friendly and decent family living next door to you, born in the UK of Asian parents or decended from Asian grandparents but thoroughly Anglicised, cannot be British due to an accident of birth - or If you believe that the black guy who drinks in your pub and speaks with a London accent and goes to watch football is not as good as you, or the same as you, because his grandfather came to England on a boat from Trinidad to work on the London buses - then the British National Party is maybe the party you should be voting for.

But if your concerns are merely those that we all share, especially at a time of economic privation, or if you are simply angry that so many of our "leaders" seem to more content with filling their faces and living like kings while the rest of us struggle to make ends meet, then there are easier ways of making your protest than by voting for a supposedly "non-racist" party that by its own admission judges people's Britishness according to skin pigmentation.

The beauty of the d'Honst system is that, just as it makes it easier for extremist parties to gain a foothold in our political institutions, so it also provides us with an easy means of keeping them out. Just vote for someone else. Anyone else. If none of the big parties float your boat at the moment there will be plenty of green parties, yellow parties, purple parties, rainbow alliances and Baron Bucketheads putting their fortunes to the test. A vote for one of them will do just as nicely to keep the BNP out.

If you vote for the BNP and it gains seats at Brussels on June 4th you will have done more than register a protest. You will have handed an openly racist party hundreds of thousands of pounds in funding which effectively comes with every Euro seat. The knot you tied in the establishment's shoelaces as a lesson may prove very difficult indeed to undo.

Even if you are as uninterested in the Euro elections as I am, and as uninspired by the large majority of the people who inhabit or seek to inhabit the European Parliament on our behalf, it is in the interests of our strong and united local community that you go out and vote. The Sunday Sport Party might yet see power.