Parking not Putin
Voting for a local Labour councillor is not a vote for Corbyn.
Fearing a Labour landslide in liberal London the Tories went door to door telling voters yesterday’s local elections were about “Bins not Brexit”.
In a similar vein I voted for my local Labour councillor despite the national leadership. In fact, I even helped my local party ‘get out the vote’ in Southend, as I have done for the past eight years.
I cannot say that I have played a particularly critical role in these set of elections. I really have embraced a backseat mentality since stepping down as Chair of Southend Labour. In fact I have become even more disillusioned and angry with the party recently. All I did prior to Election Day was a round of leaflets for my friend who was standing. Even then I could not quite reconcile my actions with my feelings about Jeremy Corbyn and his associates.
I am sure I am not the only Labour activist or voter trying to justify my actions to myself.
As I was half-heartedly stuffing leaflets through doors last month “Parking not Putin” sprung to mind. A phrase which pretty much sums up my attitude although over the preceding weeks others seemed to work: “anti-social behavior not anti-Semites” or “Housing not Hamas”. Basically I’m for any of the local government issues Labour is dealing with and against all of Corbyn’s toxic friends.
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The past few months have been particularly shameful for the Labour Party. The issue of antisemitism has rightly been exposed again within the party and the leadership has once again disgraced itself with their unprincipled response to the Russian novichok poisoning and Bashar al-Assad’s butchering of Syrian civilians.
Of course this is no surprise given Corbyn’s long and close association with Jew haters, like Raed Salah, or his track record of appeasement and genocide denial in the name of anti-war activism. I cannot fane ignorance — I know exactly what the Party is about. Yet I went out to vote for them — well sort of. In my mind, I went out to re-elect my hardworking Labour councillor in Southend. I voted for “Cheryl Nevin not chemical weapons”.
Cheryl embodies the best the Labour Party has to offer and is a hardworking local councillor. Local elections, if they are about anything, should be about electing the best person to deal with issues in the local area: parking, housing, anti-social behaviour. All of which Cheryl has personally helped me with and I know she has helped others with similar problems. Cheryl is the sort of person who will spend her weekend driving around the ward reporting fly-tipping or speaking to local residents. She is also part of a fantastic team.
Southend Labour has much to be proud of — even though, due to the ‘true blue’ mentality of the town, it spends a lot of time in opposition. In power it has done what any decent social democrat would want by saving local libraries and ensuring services for the most vulnerable are protected. I can whole-heartedly endorse all of their elected councillors and their manifesto. The problem with Labour is the national leadership whereas, at the moment at least, my local party is led by true Labour stalwarts who were there long before Corbyn arrived on the scene. I am voting for them to put their good Labour values into practice and to make my town better for all its residents. My vote does not in any way make Corbyn Prime Minister.
There are some who argue differently but I cannot see how putting Cheryl back onto Southend Borough Council puts Corbyn into Number 10 Downing Street. There is the argument that voting Labour locally will bolster the national leadership. However using my one vote to protest against Labour is in the grand scheme of things insignificant and distorts the purpose of voting. Voting should be about choosing who you think will represent you and your views best. It should not be about predicting national results and then assuming what your one additional vote may or may not signal. What is more is that Corbyn is here to stay no matter what. Even when Labour came third in Scotland or when it lost the Copeland by-election, a seat in an area which was Labour since the 1930s, he was untouchable. Even if everyone like me did decide to protest, and it actually worked and battered Labour nationally, the leadership would be kept in place by his zealot supporters.
So seeing as my vote is insignificant nationally and important locally I decided to use it to elect the person who will best represent me, my views and my town best. I am not exactly enthused about voting — in many ways I wish these elections were not happening and that I could carryon ignoring British politics. Unlike previous years I did not spend the night before polling preparing campaign material nor did I spend the preceding months knocking doors. Yesterday, I did not work flat out from 5am till close of polls getting out the vote, like I used to. In fact, instead of running frantically from door to door I snuck in a bit of time to catch up with friends, write this and enjoy two pints in-between running the campaign board. I did however have a duty to vote and so I did — I voted for the best and most principled person and the best local party because that is what local elections are about.
Note: Nationally this election does not seem to say much although given the Conservatives have been in power for 8 years you would expect a better result for Labour. In London, Labour failed to gain key councils but seem to have done well in terms of councillors. The losses in Barnet say something about the party’s shameful record on anti-Semitism in recent years. Similarly, the loss of Dudley says something about Labour’s shift towards more liberal and metropolitan voters. However, it was good to see the UKIP surge of four years ago crushed — especially in Essex! Locally, I’m very happy that all of Labour’s sitting councillors who were up for re-election won with thumping majorities. Plus Southend Labour made two gains and very good progress in other areas. Lastly, being at the count and seeing all the smug Tory grandees alongside my Labour comrades reminded me, that excluding the current leadership, I am on the right side.
