NOTA - None Of The Above

I believe that there is a growing number of effectively disenfranchised people in the UK. Labour supporters who thought that their party was all about supporting ordinary people. Tories who thought that their party was going to constrain the excesses of non-elected European officials. LibDems who knew their party was not going to raise tuition fees and were going to do something about the obscene behaviour of the banks.

What happens when your political home is demolished but you are still a functioning democrat? Do you:
A. Abstain from voting or
B. Do you go to the polling station and spoil your ballot paper or
C. Vote for a party that no longer represents your values?
Those are currently your options, none of which will meet your needs.

I wonder if the time is right for a party of the ignored. NOTA or None Of The Above would be a party that would have a single aim - to give a purpose to those disenfranchised votes. By adding a NOTA candidate to a ballot paper democrats could register their disgust at the way they are taken for granted or ignored.

NOTA would be for serious political thinkers who believe that the growing homogeneity of professional politicians is not only insulting but anti-democratic. NOTA would have only one function. To offer a means of translating disapproval of politicians behaviour into a large, unified voice that would appear as a statistic in the analyses of political parties. The ideal result would be for NOTA to come second in the ballots of constituencies all over the UK.

Why second? Because we are not politicians and do not want to be. We are the people who pay politicians to do a job. That job is to listen to constituents and represent their wishes in Parliament. There needs to be a mechanism where we can register protest. If politicians thought there was a risk they might be fighting a marginal seat perhaps they would be more responsive. The idea is to lodge a protest in a way that will not be ignored as is the case with 'spoiled ballot' statistics.

Many of us have no political allegiance. Many of us do not agree with party political dogfights that masquerade as a considered democratic response to the situation we find ourselves in. I know I feel that this is not the time to pursue party political goals, this is the time when an old Marxist like me must seek common ground with Tories and LibDems and those of no allegiance. The common ground I seek has a label but is difficult to define it is called fairness.

If anyone out there feels there is merit in the idea, let me know.