Make Votes Matter!
After attending a voting reform rally in Manchester, Graham Lloyd examines how our current system is silencing young voters.
On the weekend closest to the anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre, a group of democrats rallied in Albert Square, Manchester, close to what is now St Peter’s Square, the site of the horrific event. Before we get to the rally for voting reform held in Manchester this weekend, it is important to put that day into perspective.
In 1819, some 60,000 peaceful pro-democracy anti-poverty protesters (sound familiar?) gathered to voice their anger at their disenfranchisement. Local magistrates seeing the gathering assembly started to panic. Seeing placards declaring ‘Reform’, ‘Universal Suffrage’, ‘Equal Representation’ and, ‘Love’. The magistrates read the riot act, which thus determined the assembly unlawful. With more than a thousand armed cavalry, infantry and local yeomanry at the magistrates disposal, and with apparent scores to settle the cavalry charged at the protesters. By 14:00 eighteen people, including women and children were killed, slashed by sabres or trampled to death. Seven hundred were seriously injured.
“In 1819, some 60,000 peaceful pro-democracy anti-poverty protesters gathered to voice their anger at their disenfranchisement”
Journalists present were arrested. One observer went on to found The Manchester Guardian. This is all at a time when only 2% of the population had the right to vote and hunger was rife.
The speakers and organisers were put on trial, on charges of high treason, whilst the military and magistrates were congratulated by the Prince Regent. No charges were brought against the murderous troops.
We have come a long way since then in democratic terms, but for many in the UK and particularly England, we still haven’t gone far enough. This is why organisations such as Make Votes Matter, the Electoral Reform Society, and members of political parties are campaigning to change the Westminster voting system in the UK.
At the rally, there were speeches amongst others, Natalie Bennett former leader of the Green Party, Chris Davies from the Liberal Democrats, and Mary Southcott of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, as well as Darren Hughes of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS). This shows that the issue is not party political. In the speeches, we learnt that 80% of the world’s democracies don’t have the archaic voting system we have in the UK. We learnt that 22 million people in Britain do not have political representation due to the system, the Labour MPs newly elected in 2015 who were against electoral reform lost their seats in 2017, and we learnt that despite typical wet and windy Manchester weather, small acorns were planted in the minds of passers-by.
“22 million people in Britain do not have political representation due to the system”
Natalie Bennett reminded us that our dodgy electoral system led to dodgy political decisions, and that our system is adversarial. Yet, Proportional Representation means cooperation and compromise. Chris Davis made it clear that in terms of the popular vote his party should have 46 MPs, yet the Liberal Democrats only have 12! He also pointed out that millions of Britons had to vote for a party they didn’t really want to vote for as their party of choice stood no chance in the current first past the post system.
From Labour it was clear there were two viewpoints, but rather than shoot them down over their stances we do not like, we should congratulate them on what they actually have done well, so that we can work on them to change their minds in many things, like PR. Darren Hughes from the ERS pointed out the rainbow flag flying above the town hall in preparation for next week’s Pride weekend, comparing it to the politics of all the parties working together for the common good — a rainbow coalition, with no one party dominating, a positive outcome of PR. Ironically, First Past the Post is praised for delivering strong and stable governments. Where have we heard that before? Make Votes Matter pointed out that this has not happened in the last three elections. One of the results was the most disproportionate in history. Whilst we can not compare this campaign to that which led to the Peterloo Massacre, there were enough people at the rally to take the message that we still are not yet a democratic country, as the voice of all the people regardless of their political persuasion is not being heard let alone being represented in Westminster.
There is some form of proportional voting in every part of the UK, just not Westminster. Is it any wonder young people don’t vote if their voice is not heard or they are not represented because of our broken out of date voting system? Surely the time has come to change it?
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