You must have heard people say: "Oh, I could never vote for [Ed/Cameron/Farage etc]". Well, of course they cannot unless they live in the nominee's constituency. In a representative democracy we do not vote for a Party; for a Leader; for a set of ideas. We can only vote for a candidate in our own constituency. True, we may be motivated by any of the above to support that representative but our vote is for the person. S/he may prove a Party loyalist or a rebel; inspirational or disappointing. And the person we support may not even be elected, leaving our interests in the hands of someone with whose values we may be wildly at odds. This is our system.
The word "democracy" brings together "the people" and "power". This remote lottery of a representative system may seem rather estranged from the expectations we are encouraged to have about our empowerment. The legitimacy as an elected representative of someone for whom perhaps only 20,000 people have voted may seem questionable. It is no wonder that many people follow the dubious lead of demagogues who eschew the Party system; or engage in politics through single-issue campaigns and petitions, not least when the latter may attract tens or even hundreds of thousands of signatories. These may feel a sense of belonging, engagement and empowerment greater than that of belonging even to one of the large Parties, whose policies one may agree withy only in part. So these alternatives suit "the people"; but have little apparent power. The latter still lies in the hands of the Parties which win elections, for the foreseeable future.
For this reason, despite all of the criticisms one can justly make of the system we have, it still seems that the only way of making democracy work is to engage in its mechanisms, including finding the person who merits your vote. I shall be voting for my local Labour candidate, Solomon Curtis, in Wealden on May 7th. Join me.
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