Brandishing the vote

Last week Russell Brand agreed to guest edit the New Statesman, wrote a piece about The Revolution and then, using some of the same language he used in that piece, told Paxman where to go. The main thing that everyone picked up, of course, is that he said he doesn't vote and never has.

The question of whether or not to vote is a really important one, it is part of the whole question of where politics is, where it should be, and what it means to be on the left when there is no left to serve your point of view. Where do you make your mark and is it worth it?

The argument against voting is a pretty sound one; I completely agree that there are a number of disengaged people. From a reasonably well educated bunch who are simply not interested, to groups of people who are frankly demonised - whether its because they receive some benefits or because they weren't born in this country (or somehow look as though they weren't). Westminster is almost entirely White (male) Middle Class and the policy wonks that circle it are pretty much of the same demographic. They have no idea what's going on in the real world.

I'm going to admit from now I haven't read the entire article, but I have read some and I completely agree with him on the 2011 riots. They were an overt political statement and it was frankly patronising to say otherwise, and to then apply disproportionate criminal charges. This was not apathy from those taking part and probably some of those same young people protested the removal of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) a year or so earlier. Equally, there are as many casual protesters as there probably would have been casual rioters.

So, his point is, nothing happened; the police are still wankers, education is getting more expensive and Cameron decided in his Conference speech this year to ensure young people can't get welfare, despite making it much harder for any poor young person, without help from their parents, to further their education. No one is going to argue with the wrongdoings of this or previous governments. No one is going to argue with the fact that sometimes, apathy just takes over.

People know what's going on, they are politically aware, and I think Brand appreciates that more than most. Yes many many people are not represented and most frighteningly, that lack of representation turns into pointing fingers and placing blame on blameless things - immigration, the NHS, welfare are all becoming populist scapegoats. Areas of policy which the many are ready to bludgeon, compounding the existing political will to destroy any decent institution and the people helped by them.

The system is broken, but, Russell, don't use your flowery, obtuse language to propose a revolution in its stead. That, I can't take seriously. If you wanted to start a revolution, you'd start by talking properly, in a language people understand, you'd also take that anger that we all know everyone to be feeling and turn it into real action, to mobilise. And this is where I get annoyed, because not voting, whether you see it as a political act, isn't an act at all. It is not potent, it is not pronounced, it does not renounce, it is non-action. There is nothing remotely political about not voting.

I can't blame anyone for choosing not to vote because they do not feel there is a party that represents them. Nor can I possibly argue with them that they should exercise that right, it really isn't for me or Russell Brand to say, I know my privilege. However, what I can't condone is bullshit.

I haven't got to the part in the article where he calls for revolution and proposes some sort of action that we can all take part in, I also haven't got to the bit where he translates his opaque message to a more general audience, or perhaps towards the one we would all agree could do with having a bit more of a voice. Until I can see that, until I know he is actually taking a stand, rather than inactively willing a revolution to come, I am going to say to him that he should really do one or two of those few small things available to him: one being voting.

What we don't have in this country is a totally corrupt system, our elections, would you believe it, are not just made up and somehow, in some disproportionate first-past-the-post way, our votes go somewhere. You can also join a Party, there are a couple that sit towards the left. You can take part in local politics and shape it. You can feel empowered by it. What is brilliant about this country is that voting for who you want to won't kill you.

I don't think there's a lack of interest in politics at all, I think there may be a lack of understanding. Education can play a big part here, potentially coupled with compulsory voting and the right for permanent residents (whether citizen or not) to vote, as well as prisoners and those without an address. I think more should be made of voting not less, and more should be made of politics and what politics is and can be and not less. Complaining that its exclusive and not participating in it keeps it exclusive.

My first post on this blog was essentially about my guilt in my inaction. I've been complicity ticking a box, according to Russell Brand, merely perpetuating an existing, unrepresentative system. But Brand, in his position of power seems to me, guilty of so much more.

I'm skim reading his article as I write this, finding it hard to take in because of his inability to write in clear sentences. His opacity hides the point he isn't making. Or at least, from my skim-read, the one I don't think he's making. He goes from not voting, from a problematic UK political system to global poverty, inequality, capitalism.

I know they're all intrinsically linked, but we need to unpick exactly who's revolution it is before we start raving about revolution as a general and global ideal. It's utterly naive as a White British Male to believe in revolution full stop. It is just as elitist as the top politicos to believe your revolution is someone else's revolution.

Revolution in the Middle East is, seemingly, about bringing about a system not dissimilar to our own. People in parts of Eastern Europe appear to want to join the EU, and participate in the system Brand so abhors. Yet, there are stirrings in parts of South America that would chime better with the UK/American-style 'Occupy' movements, generally the move against spending money on big shiny stadiums when the healthcare system is an abomination. There are intricacies in all these places I know nothing about, I'm generalising to a vast and potentially offensive degree but my point is of course, not to do that, and not to believe you know what's best for the world.

I should read the full article before criticising Russell Brand on all of this, but it seems sort of intrinsic to his whole argument from what I can gather. That there's no point in voting within our flawed system if it will only bow to global capitalism and continue to do so in an increasingly harmful way. And my point is, that yes there is, great importance in acting locally, because politics actually isn't universal, not when you get down to it. And here we benefit from more than most but it is important to find ways to provide access to those who don't have it already.

Participating where you can means small steps towards some kind of place you want to live in, to me that's voting, taking action where possible and engaging. To others it perhaps isn't, but until someone like Russell Brand can show me what he's going to do, what he's really going to fucking do, then I'm not going to back down from that one.

oh and, this is a much better article on the matter: http://redmonthly.com/2013/10/25/russell-brand-sexist-revolutionary/

Does anyone know what's left?

Enjoying a beer at a seafront hotel in Brighton, colleagues and I were chatting of left and right. Could I ever be friends with somebody on the right? I'm not sure, I answered. With Party politics occupying a blurry centre ground, and with left nipping over to right on the economy and right nipping over to the left on social policy, it's a tricky balance. Is anyone even still on the left, in real political terms I mean? Perhaps not.

We then got onto the common question: do you get more right wing with age? I believe not, staunchly. I refuse to accept that I will, all of a sudden, have no tolerance for any difference; that my money will be mine, all mine; that those less privileged than me need to pull their socks up and get a job; no, I refuse to believe this will happen to me.

But something does happen with age, according to colleagues, and I guess I would agree, that cynicism sets in. A disdain for all things. But the next question really made me think: can you be cynical and still be left wing?

Immediately I say 'absolutely, why not?' You can still disagree with the policies of the right, you can still believe that welfare is important, that the person curled up in a sleeping bag on the streets got there for reasons not always in their control. 

But, colleagues countered, to be cynical is to accept the status quo; to see the world as it is and find that no more can be done. To be right wing (or is it to be conservative?) is to be wary of change. I don't think the two meet here, one is to be against change, and to want to preserve the status quo (right wing or, potentially more correctly, conservatism) and the other is to simply hold your hands up to the fact - political Parties occupy a centre, there is no more to be done.

I got the sense that for my colleague, there is an activism inherent to being left wing, essentially it seems like he understood the left to be somehow connected with Marx's theory of the permanent revolution. For him, to be on the left is to actively strive for something else, something more, something better. To be on the left is to take on the struggle.

Of course, definitions got lost in this conversation: right wing and conservatism became interchangable; we didn't get to the bottom of what it means to be cynical; the left seemed to be necessarily revolutionary while the right was just anything else; in short, it was a casual, not particularly clever, conversation over a beer or three.

But it did make me think nonetheless. Because, the real issue here is not whether you can be cynical or on the left, but whether you can accept Party politics as they stand in the UK, participate in democratic elections between the Conservatives on the 'right' and Labour on the 'left', and still believe yourself to be left wing. It's long been an issue that Labour is no longer on the left; but does that mean that to be on the left in this country you become necessarily radical? And to then not be radical, or participate in political activism means you are - what?

It becomes a question of ideology and individualism; about living your life one way but purporting to believe another. All along accepting what is, and not believing in the possibility of change but getting angry at what is being done. If being left wing should, necessarily be about collectivism, then it needs to be about action, doesn't it?