A couple of weeks
ago, following a by-election in the Vale of Glamorgan, this
blog post talked about the need to count, rather than assume, voters’
second choices. The question about making assumptions came up again on
Thursday, in this article by Ben Wildsmith
on Nation.Cymru, calling on Gareth Hughes and the Green Party to withdraw from
the Caerffili by-election. I’m something of a fan of Ben’s writing: his
articles are well-argued, make good points, and are often humorous to boot. But
on this occasion, I cannot agree with his logic. The idea that parties seen as
outside chances should ‘stand down’ to avoid ‘splitting the vote’ and letting
(insert your bête noir of choice here) win is not one I’ve ever been keen on,
although my view might be slightly coloured by having been on the receiving end
of such expectations on more than one occasion.
There tends to be
something of a belief amongst those performing mathematics on polling numbers
that there are only two pools of voters. One contains only progressive fish,
with Labour, Lib Dem, Plaid and Green anglers all trying to catch them, and the
other contains only reactionary fish, with anglers from the Tories and Reform
Ltd trying to haul them in. Since the number of fish in both ponds is limited,
any caught by one angler are unavailable to the other anglers, and if one of
those anglers is better at catching fish than the rest, his total catch is still
limited by the number of fish caught by his competitors. And, obviously, the
more anglers in one pond, the harder it is to match the catch of the best
angler in the other. I’ve knocked enough doors and spoken to enough punters to
know that life really isn’t that simple. Voters don’t always stay in their allotted
pond, and if the Green angler lays down his rod, some of the fish are as likely
to swim into the other pond as they are to leap onto the Plaid
angler's waiting hook.
There is a
convenient and comfortable myth to which many involved in Welsh politics cling,
in which the electorate in Wales is of a radical disposition and finds the Tories
toxic. Would that it were so; but whilst it may have been a couple of decades
ago, it isn’t today. And the rise of Reform Ltd shows us that Tory toxicity isn’t
about policies or personalities anyway, it’s just about branding. Take the same
people and the same policies and give them a different brand name, and many
voters will, apparently, flock to the cause. To a very large extent, I blame
Labour for that. Firstly, because they’ve ceased to be particularly radical or
even progressive, and secondly because they’ve depended for so long on one
simple attribute rather than arguing for any particular policy platform: being 'not-the-Tories'. It turns out that even those who
have voted for them for years, if not decades, have come to believe that Reform
Ltd, despite being largely composed of ex-Tories, are also now ‘not-the-Tories’,
with the additional advantage of being untainted (as a brand, even if not as
individuals) by having failed in the exercise of power.
And that’s the point
about the Green angler and his rod. Laying it down simply gives credence to,
and reinforces, the idea that all self-identified ‘progressives’ essentially
share a perspective, and that ‘progressive’ voters should support the ‘progressive’
candidate most likely to win. I doubt that the Green Party candidate will receive
many votes in the by-election (sorry, Gareth), but even if the total votes cast
for him is more than the difference between the first and second placed candidate,
there will be no way of knowing that his absence would have made a difference –
in a first-past-the-post election, his votes cannot simply be added
mathematically to those of another candidate. And he will be putting a
different perspective and agenda before the electorate – can giving the voters
more choice ever be a bad thing?
There is actually a
very good case for politicians to come to an agreement on which party will
stand where, but it applies only to a single issue and is only relevant in a
Westminster General Election. It relates to the question of electoral reform. A
short, single issue parliament which passed such a law and then dissolved
itself for a new election under new rules would be well worth while. The
problem is that that single issue doesn’t neatly split itself between self-styled
‘progressives’ and ‘reactionaries’. And whether Farage will still be as keen on
electoral reform if an election under FPTP gives him absolute power on a
minority vote is an unanswered question. Not one to which I really want to
discover the answer the hard way.
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