Individual or Citizen?

What does it mean to be a citizen? To live among others in this country, certainly. To pay taxes which contribute to enabling the country to function, certainly [even the tax-hating Right love their war and security machines and Government jobs]. To have some say over how much tax we pay and on what it is spent? Surely. So how can we have that say if we eschew the very means which enable it - voting?

Some say there is no point in voting - nothing changes. Yet how else are politicians to be influenced to pass laws if not by voters? Mere opinion polls carry no power, like the real thing. Others say that all parties are the same - but clearly they are not, or political discourse would be at an end or at least less vicious and tribal. Some say that certain categories of society should not be allowed to vote - the under-18s; criminals; peers - yet surely those very categories have as much connection with what tax is spent on as any. Others would and do argue that just as taxes are inevitable, so why should voting not be mandatory too. Here lies a libertarian paradox - does freedom lie in paying or not paying tax?

Not voting - or even not registering to vote - can be seen as self-disenfranchisement; a distancing of the individual from the State and its interference in lives. This may be prevalent among those feeling excluded from society, those looking for new models for self-expression or those who feel let down by the current structures. Yet all those lives are lived among the shared culture, infrastructure, justice systems and public services managed by the very State so apparently disliked. People, it is clear, must feel that voting is important either because they feel a social duty from living in a community; or because there is a particular local or topical decision to be made to which they can relate or is seen as important. Nobody, surely, can be immune to the issues for which the State [including Local Government] acts on our behalf, be they economically deprived [in which case they are likely to be dependent] or affluent [in which case they may be concerned with how tax is applied].

Traditional politics, though, fails to make such arguments effectively to millions. Major parties are seen as tribal but cut from similar cloth and defensive of their accumulated influence. Smaller parties are seen as unable to grasp the levers of power with which to deliver their sometimes preferred agendas. Single issues and new media through which to espouse them may attract many but lead to neither votes nor laws. The lot of millions of workers without effective say on the conditions in their won workplaces may be an object lesson in the need for democracy to be shared and actively used by everybody. The challenge of democracy lies in how to make it attractive to and practised by all ages and categories of citizen. Labour of all political parties should be the champion of citizens and leave individualism to the others.

From little acorns ..... @LabourCC

There is something of Ground Hog Day about elections in "safe" constituencies - safe, that is, for the regular winner. For the regular loser in such a seat, nothing much changes. No voice; no representation; invisibility. Coastal and rural constituencies typically remain in Tory hands, decade after decade, so what are we Labour voters to do? We may mount a campaign of sorts, with few resources and little support, only to achieve yet another failure. Not only does the hard work of activists and candidates prove fruitless but those voters who, against the current, give their ticks to the inevitable loser give only false cheer to the campaigners and are then not represented. This presents a strong case for PR; but failing this, is there nothing we can do in our rural isolation to stimulate change?

In Wealden constituency, one which is typical of this dilemma, we have just selected a candidate to fight the General Election on May, who brings an approach which seems worth sharing, in case its precedent may help others selecting PPCs. Solomon Curtis, our appointee, is young. He sees that his youth equips him with one particular advantage: the ability to communicate with his peers. Young people? In East Sussex? Not perhaps in the Labour Party of today but what about tomorrow? Older candidates may carry the baggage of experience but they will be of limited appeal to a new generation of voters. The older Labour voter will tick his box anyway.

We are excited by the idea of building Labour afresh, from the students and NEETs of our towns and villages. This may not win us seats in the forthcoming campaign nor even the one after; but it could bring new activism to bear, raise the profile of Labour in apparently barren soil and build a new core of Labour voters who may gradually challenge the complacency of the land-owning classes. The future is theirs anyway, so let them make it the way they want it. We old oaks should nurture these energetic acorns.

Tom Serpell