I am duly pessimistic about the upcoming election. I fully expect the Tories to be narrowly elected, and I find that thought a grim, grey fireblanket of a prospect, extinguishing any spark of hope I might have for the personal and collective future. I find it very, very hard to articulate just how much I DO NOT WANT to live under a Conservative government again. That isn’t really what this post is for, though.

Please register to vote by April 20th, and please vote on May 6th.

There isn’t a party I’m sufficiently happy with to encourage others to vote for. However, the main reasons I think it is important to vote are these:

1. The BNP. This election will have neo-fascist candidates contesting several seats. In the last set of European elections, the BNP vote didn’t substantially increase; what happened was that overall turnout decreased, allowing the existing level of BNP support to ensure that this country is now represented in the European Parliament by two neo-fascists. This disgusting state of affairs is, fortunately, very easily avoided on a national level, viz: if there is a BNP candidate standing in your constituency, vote for someone who isn’t them.

2. Do not let antagonism be deflected into apathy. A low turnout can be made to mean anything: it won’t be heralded as a sign of your disenchantment or disgust with the choice of parties or the voting system, because you won’t have done anything to let that be known. If there’s no one you can bring yourself to vote for, and there’s no one you have a duty to vote against, then get out there and spoil your ballot. Spoiled ballots don’t get counted, but all the candidates will be shown them. Write something you’d like them to see. Or just draw them a knob; knobs of course are intrinsically hilarious.

3. On a related point: few things get my goat politically more than the idea that not voting is some superior, coolly nihilistic act of rebellion. It isn’t, it’s selfish and lazy and it buggers things up for the rest of us – it is, in fact, a purely Thatcherite act. And here’s the thing: the right are always, always more likely to vote than the left. The right very rarely withdraw in disgust; if anything, when dissatisfied with their nominal party, they find someone more extreme to vote for. Tories and neo-fascists love it when you stay at home and whinge. Do something less boring instead.

4. And on a related point from that point: if anyone of your acquaintance says anything along the lines of ‘I don’t vote, it only encourages them’, or ‘It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always gets in’, or ‘If voting changed anything, they’d abolish it’*, please briskly clip them round the ear so we can all make for a better Britain.

* You too, Ken.

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