Dear Melody, I’m feeling politically adrift. Where should I focus my attention?
I think you may have me mistaken for someone who might understand politics! Believe it when I say, I’m quite adrift myself. England is facing the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis without real leadership, while a group of inexperienced but very vocal marauders push us ever further to the right. And it’s not as if we can’t look across the Atlantic to see what lies ahead if we don’t change course. Immigration via small boats isn’t the real issue, it’s the lobbyists, the right-wing media and an electorate being kept in the dark about the serious challenges ahead.
According to my political compass, which Hubster kindly annotated, I’m a left libertarian, which means the only parties that truly align with my values are the SDLP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party. Since I don’t live in Northern Ireland or Wales, the Greens are undoubtedly my best option. I wear my green heart on my sleeve, and that should make them my political home. Yet, despite having more local government councillors than Reform, whatever the papers might suggest, they’ll always struggle in our first-past-the-post system.
With all the major parties clustered together, dissatisfaction with the status quo won’t be solved by voting for another right-wing authoritarian party that sits in the same space as the one that has sunk this country for the past 14 years. This is likely why voter turnout was low in the recent elections and the proportion of spoiled ballots was high. These parties are the same people, doing the same things, just with a different flag on their mast. If we want real change, we must support parties that genuinely offer a real alternative. Realistically, in England, that means sailing with the Greens.
Voting Reform won’t do it.
Not voting won’t do it.
And, in Hubster’s immortal words, “drawing a penis on the ballot definitely won’t do it”.
Our environmental challenges and the nature of politics means I’m under no illusion that our own democratic choices will allow us to cruise into a beautiful sunset. Over the coming weeks, there is even potential for mutiny within the leadership of the Green Party with the deputy leader, Zack Polanski, vying to become captain. Maybe he’s the one who can steer the ship safely through these turbulent times. Buoy, do we need it before we all take to the liferafts in the rising seas!
Unfathomably yours,
Melody PS: You can plot your own course with the Political Compass
