Following on from yesterday’s article, we are very lucky this guest post by Michael Talbot, a PhD Researcher currently based in Turkey.

The bunting hanging across almost every street and the minivans blaring out propaganda songs announce season in Turkey, and scarce a street in Istanbul is without the posters and flags of the 25+ parties contesting this year’s general election on 12 June.

By far the most common displays of loyalty are for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi/ Justice and Development Party), and the PM’s face, forward-looking and decisive, dominates billboards across the city. From boot-blacks to university students, AKP seems to have something that appeals to almost every section of society. Economic growth, improvements in higher education, strong international diplomacy, judicial reform, eroding the power of the Kemalist elite (particularly the army), these are just some of the reasons I have been given for why people will vote for Erdoğan, often beginning their explanations with, ‘I/my family have never voted for AKP before but…’

With unknown millions of lira poured into his election campaign, and with hundreds of thousands attending his party rallies across this vast country, it seems safe to say that Erdoğan will gain another four years of government. Much of the enthusiasm comes from the PM’s ‘Hedef 2023′ (2023 objective), a series of policies designed to demonstrate Turkey’s greatness and progressiveness in time for the centenary of the Republic’s founding. The vision includes plans to universalise healthcare, to reform the country’s energy consumption through both renewable sources and nuclear power, to expand domestic infrastructure and institute a Turkish space program. Foreign policy and the economy are the two main points of this objective. By 2023, Erdoğan’s Turkey aims to develop economic and political integration in its immediate neighbourhood (i.e. the Balkans, Caucasus and Middle East) and, after a rather long wait, to become a full EU member state. All of this will be achieved by massive investment in the country’s economy, bringing down the perennially high unemployment figures through new industries and services aimed at the export market, the result of which will see Turkey zoom into one of the top ten world economies.

This is music to the ears of many. Although Turkey has been affected by the global financial crises, and possesses an ever-growing budget deficit, the AKP, by introducing tax-breaks for locally produced goods, has managed to stimulate industrial growth, despite losing much of its EU manufacturing market to China. Most importantly, the very fresh memory of the catastrophic market crash in 2001 – which resulted in insane inflation, a massive loss of the country’s foreign currency reserves, and mass unemployment – means that the current economic situation, and the promise of better to come, has won the party many supporters.

Moreover, the PM is planning hold a referendum after the election on a new constitution with wide-ranging political reforms, including an American-style presidential system, to replace the current constitution imposed after the 1980 Coup (with some judicial amendments approved with 58% support in last year’s referendum). This all sounds very promising to a large number of Turkish voters, especially here in Istanbul which, with 85 seats out of a 550-seat parliament up for grabs, is crucial for any electoral success.

But what about the opposition? The CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi/ Republican People’s Party), the party of Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, has been gaining some ground in these later stages of the campaign. Its incredibly charming leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, nicknamed ‘Gandhi’ for his remarkable resemblance to old Mahatma, seems to be appealing to more and more people, which is not hard after replacing the very unappealing Deniz Baykal about this time last year. But the problem is, perhaps, that being so new a figure, it will take time for him to establish himself as a popular figure, although his book outlining his ideology seems to be doing quite well in the bookstores recently.

However the CHP does at the election, it will not face the problem of most political parties in Turkey. Under the PR system here, parties must attain over 10% of the national vote in order to gain representation in parliament. In the last general election in 2007, in addition to AKP and CHP, only the ultra-nationalist MHP (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi/ Nationalist Movement Party) gained such a percentage (although a number of independents made it in). MHP, led by the sinister Devlet Bahçeli is currently mired in scandal, losing six major members after a rather dicey sex-tape was leaked to the press in mid-May, a big no-no for its conservative and rural support base. At the moment it seems likely to scrape past the electoral barrier, but a repeat of its huge successes in 2007 seems far off.

So that leaves another 25-or-so parties, often based on personality cults and splinter groups. For instance, the newly-formed HAS Parti (Halkın Sesi Partisi / Voice of the People Party) is the brain-child of an ex-member of the SP (Saadet Partisi / Felicity Party), and has developed a loyal and socially conservative fan-base almost solely around the leader’s charisma.

Most centre-left parties have merged with CHP, but there are still a number of more radical parties contesting the elections. Some are more visible in the public arena than others. The TKP (Türkiye Komünist Partisi / Communist Party of Turkey), whose campaign is running under the slogan ‘Boyun Eğme’ (don’t submit), has been leafleting in the heaving ferry terminals at Eminönü and Istanbul’s Oxford Street, İstiklâl Caddessi, as well as putting up posters and banners all over the centre of the city.

Smaller groups include EMEP (Emek Partisi / Labour Party), whose support-base seems to be growing, and which is associated with one of the few genuinely left papers Turkey, Evrensel (Universal). There are two parties that specifically class themselves as ‘libertarian socialist’ (özgürlükçü sosyalist), essentially loose associations of various socialist and anarchist groups, the EDP (Eşitlik ve Demokrasi Partisi / Equality and Democracy Party) and ÖDP (Özgürlük ve Dayanışma Partisi / Freedom and Solidarity Party), which is dominated by the Dev Sol (Revolutionary Left), a radical movement that has struggled since the 1970s against the Kemalist establishment, fascist militias, and Islamists. The İP (İşçi Partisi / Workers’ Party) hold a bizarre mix of policies, based in part on Maoism and Kemalist nationalism.

The left in Turkey suffers from the same problems as its comrades abroad, large egos and continual disagreement over dogma. Although there are frequent protests, in Istanbul and Ankara for rights for LGBTT, women, and minorities, as well as anti-NATO actions and an attempted occupation of Istanbul’s Taksim Square in protest over moves to build new nuclear plants in Turkey, these actions attract anything from a few dozen to maybe a couple of thousand, nothing more. Between them, the parties above may receive, judging on various polls and previous results, these various left parties might receive between 1 to 1.5% of the national vote.

The party to watch, in terms of its electoral success and post-election actions, will be the BDP (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi / Peace and Democracy Party). The BDP has its predecessors have often been described as ‘Kurdish’ parties, but it is really much more complex. Yes, a lot of its support base comes from Kurds, but many Turkish progressives also support the party; yes it attracts many Kurdish nationalists, but also those who see the Kurds’ struggle against Turkey as a means to fight both kinds of nationalism. The BDP will do will, gaining perhaps 5.5 to 6% of the vote on a good day, but, of course, this is still well below the necessary 10% for representation. Although Turkish politics is prone to shock results now and then, it seems unlikely that the party can break that barrier.

This electoral barrier is therefore a huge problem for left parties in Turkey. It creates a bi-partisan system, where the AKP and CHP dominate, the system discouraging people from voting for TKP/EMEP et. al. on account of the 10% barrier making them seem like wasted votes. And raising mass movements is incredibly difficult. There are two main reasons for this which I will briefly explain, based on conversations at protests and emails with different activists and journalists in Istanbul from different parties and ideologies.

One major problem is AKP’s use of Islam as a political discourse. Whenever in conversation the occasional cooperation between certain left and Islamist groups in Europe, and the concept of Islamophobia in the UK has come up, the overwhelming response here has been one of dismay. ‘Let them see what Islam has done here,’ one activist told me, ‘and they will think twice about cooperating with these people.’ Far from criticising the role of Islam in politics from the perspective of Kemalist laïcité, the left in Turkey views Islam as reactionary, and its influence on AKP’s policies as fundamentally damaging to Turkey’s most oppressed. Erdoğan recently dismissed Kurdish nationalism, arguing that they were all brothers in Islam. The recent protest commemorating the one-year anniversary of the attack on the Mavi Marmara was not so much a rally in support of the Palestinians as a demonstration of AKP’s power. Many of the activists I have spoken to believe that the AKP’s focus on the issue of Palestine distracts from Turkey’s oppression of the Kurds. Moreover, thousands of supporters chanting ‘Allahu Ekber’ in the secular heart of Istanbul was a clear message to political opponents that, in a country where such a rally would have been unthinkable even ten years ago, AKP has the power and influence mobilise thousands of angry people on demand.

AKP publicises the ‘good works’ of various Islamic philanthropists, foundations and charities which provide some relief for the poverty-stricken. These are supported by but not funded by the government, thus removing the expense of welfare from the state. Such institutions do little to alleviate the massive problems of widespread child labour, lack of pensions and support for the elderly, oppression of women (no, not the headscarf issue but honour killings, marital rape, and general forced subservience to men for a large number of women), oppression of minorities, and sub-standard housing. Education is becoming a big problem, with a growing emphasis on Islamic education and schools, and increased government funding to religious schools, which do not provide a suitable education, unless you consider studying one book over and over again to be sufficient. At the same time, secular state schools are threatened with cuts and privatisation, leading to the formation of groups such as Okuluma Dokunma İnisiyatifi uniting students and activists to protect their institutions.

So the Islamic element is a problem, but it is by no means the biggest. When posed the question, ‘what are the biggest challenges facing progressives in Turkey today?’, one activist/journalist responded simply:

‘Freedom of expression! It is possible for you to find yourself in court facing the judge right after you opened your mouth. There are some other important problems, but this is so fundamental a problem.’

There are elements of this linked to the Islamic factor, with various AKP initiatives being proposed (and in some places implemented) to curb alcohol consumption and (sorry Reuben) smoking as detrimental to public morality and health – some worry that Islam will replace Kemalism as the new censor, although this seems unlikely. The biggest problem here is that Turkey still suffers from huge violations of rights of protest and speech. Journalists are very often harrassed, with kidnappings and murders a hazard of the job. Political prisoners are still tortured. Police and military go unpunished for their brutality. Those attempting to express any opinion on ‘sensitive’ issues such as the right of Kurdish self-determination and the ‘events of 1915′ can get in serious trouble. With the army on the back foot following allegations of an attempted coup a few years ago, the police have become increasingly employed as the strong arm of the government. Just two days ago, a demonstration in Istanbul by mothers of men murdered in police custody attracted the attention of several coach-loads of heavily armed police who intimidated them and threatened force against them.

But resistance is always there, from bereaved wives to enraged students. Many have asked me if the Kurds or others will take a leaf from the Arab world. The fact is that those struggling for equality and justice in Turkey have plenty of experience, and plenty of ideas. Both the Kurdish population and the radical left have fought a war for many decades, both rhetorically and physically, against the forces of the Kemalist establishment and now the AKP. From the throwing of eggs at politicians visiting university campuses to the full-scale riots in Hopa when Erdoğan visited last week (brutally suppressed by the police), from the increasing graffiti campaigns in the major cities to growing mobilisation of activists, it seems that something is brewing. Several activists I have spoken too have told me that big unrest is being planned should AKP gain a large majority in these elections, primarily nonviolent civil disobedience, but more drastic measures too. Whether this is just bravado or not will have to be seen, but it is clear that although many are happy with what AKP has been doing in Turkey, there are others who see that its reforms and Erdoğan’s visions will not only fail to tackle the huge disparities in wealth and massive social and political injustices in the country, but indeed deepen them.

To contact Reuben email reuben@thethirdestate.net

Like most readers of this blog, the Budget made me pretty angry – the VAT increase and tighter controls on benefits combined with the cut in corporation tax make a complete mockery of the claims that this Budget was ‘progressive’ in any sense, and millions of the poorest and most vulnerable people in this country will be worse off because of it. But this has been said by any number of people with far more expertise than me in great detail already, so I don’t intend to go over the same ground. What I want to write about is the overwhelming desire I have, now that a supposedly centre-left party is colluding with Tories to bring in the most regressive economic measures in decades, to grab every soi-disant leftie I know who voted Lib Dem and shout ‘Is this what you wanted? Is it? Osborne’s going to be able to do everything Thatcher didn’t have the guts to do, and you helped it happen!’ in their smug self-deluding faces. But I want to write about it because I don’t think that reaction’s justified, no matter how strong its appeal might be. Yes, a blue-yellow coalition was always a possibility under a hung parliament, and one that those voting for the Lib Dems should have borne in mind. But that’s all it was; a possibility, not an inevitability. And in any case, it’s hard to judge people too harshly for turning away from Labour when you consider so much of the record of the Blair and Brown governments.

First, consider the actual election result. Thanks to the random vagaries of our electoral system, no one could have predicted the result we got. A hung parliament was always quite likely, of course, but the specific result of a hung parliament where Labour and the Lib Dems didn’t have a majority between them wasn’t something anyone predicted. And it’s because of this result that the Lib Dems didn’t really have many options open to them other than getting into bed with Cameron and friends; remember that Labour was pretty openly against Alex Salmond’s suggestion of a centre-left ‘rainbow coalition’ and that pretty much no party save the Tories really had the money to fight another election campaign (which would have been the likely result of a minority Conservative government). There weren’t many options open to the Liberal Democrats after the election, and none were appealing.

As for those who actually voted for the Lib Dems, it’s easy to criticise them in hindsight, now that we know what we do about how things turned out. But equally there were a hell of a lot of good reasons for people to turn away from Labour, and – given our first past the post system – not many credible alternatives in most parts of the country. The reforms to jobseekers’ and disability living allowance being introduced now are atrocious, but we shouldn’t forget that the benefits system was already pretty damn draconian – a point made by our own Dan during the election campaign and more recently by Laurie Penny at the New Statesman. Then there were the attacks on civil liberties (and for all the hateful shit the coalition’s doing, we can at least be thankful that ID cards and the vetting and barring scheme are on the way out), the privatisations, the corruption, the utter failure to do anything meaningful about climate change, the warmongering…it’s a familiar list, and one that could be made a lot longer. I voted Labour because my local MP was opposed to most of that, but if I lived in an area where that wasn’t the case I’d find putting a cross next to that red rose logo on the ballot paper a lot harder to stomach.

Laying the blame for the coalition’s failings at the feet of those who voted Lib Dem is easy and very tempting. It was, in retrospect, a serious error. But it was an understandable error, and what’s more, it’s an error that many Lib Dem voters are now recognising. The left cause won’t be helped by going on about it. Right now we need to do everything we can to minimise the damage the government’s going to do to the social fabric of the UK. Turning on each other over past differences really isn’t going to help.

Well the election is over, the dust is settling, back-room deals are being made to find new ways to screw the country over, you’ve forgotten your towel and things are looking grim. DON’T PANIC!

It’s not as bad as it seems.

Across the lefty web, journalists and bloggers are taking stock of their situation, looking for explanations as to why things seem so bad and desperately trying to work out where to go from here. Some want to retreat into localism, some are still clinging to the hope that constitutional convention will override democracy and save us from a Tory government, most are swearing at the Lib Dem lie and the state of the socialist left and almost all are hanging their heads. But I’m an optimist. And here on The Third Estate, I’m going to give you a little glass half-full election analysis. Don’t worry, be happy; always look on the bright side of life; and most of all, DON’T PANIC!

The Cloud

First of all, we have to recognise the realities. There’s no point running away from them. The Conservatives have won. I’ve seen a number of left-wing commentators clinging to outdated conventions which give the incumbent Prime Minister the first right to form a government, even if he or she were clearly defeated and the party they want to help prop them up against the wishes of the electorate was even more resoundingly trounced. But as socialists, as republicans, as democratic reformists, we should not be relying on Queen and convention to save us. Moral rights have always been more important to us than constitutional ones. That’s why we boycotted South Africa. We have to accept that the Tories gained the most votes and the most seats. A coalition of losers is not an anti-Tory majority anymore than one could argue that Labour should not have been allowed to form a government in 2005 because the vast majority of the electorate didn’t vote for them. The Tories may well fail to reach a deal with the Lib Dems, but they have the strongest mandate of all the parties to govern alone.

The Silver Lining

Firstly, and most obviously, the Conservatives didn’t win a majority. After 13 years of New Labour, after two unpopular wars, the worst financial crisis in almost a century, the total ideological abandonment of Labour’s traditional supporters and a raft of scandals, that the Tories didn’t win by a landslide is nothing short of a miracle. In two-party politics, enforced by our archaic and deeply undemocratic electoral system, parties enter parliament on a wave of support, they become increasingly unpopular the longer they’re in power, then the other party gets in and the cycle repeats. That’s how politics works. Not this time. Clearly there is a deep dissatisfaction with the way politics operates and there is a yearning for change. That will have to come, and the case for PR has never been stronger.

Unless the Tories can offer the Lib Dems PR, they are likely going to have to govern alone as a minority. Their priority, as they’ve consistently argued, is to reign in the country’s deficit through severe cuts to public spending. This is going to be a catastrophically unpopular move. Even before the election, Mervyn King was arguing that whoever wins will be out of power for the next 30 years for precisely that reason. This sounds to me somewhat alarmist, but should the Conservatives move immediately down the cuts route, they will find their already limited popularity significantly dented. They have a moral mandate to govern. But unlike Tony Blair in 1997, they don’t have a mandate to do whatever the hell they like and screw whoever the hell they like over in the process. Meanwhile, they will find it increasingly difficult to operate as a minority government, particularly on the most contentious pieces of legislation. If they are unable to compromise, it is a real possibility that they will lose a vote on the Queen’s Speech of the Budget and bam, that’s a vote of no confidence and another election. An election which, if their popularity has already been severely hit by proposed cuts, they may very well lose. Winning the election in this way may very well be the worst thing to happen to the Conservative Party since 1997.

You Could’ve Been a Contender

Of course, no election analysis would be complete without looking at the minor parties. The failure of Respect, since the split, is disappointing, but not all that surprising. They simply don’t have the national structure on the ground to be a serious political force, and local politics, no matter how strong, is not enough. Galloway’s failure to turn up at the count is the clearest sign that the Respect project is dead in the water. The loss of his seat, however, is not the end for Galloway. In fairness, he never really engaged much with parliamentary politics anyway. But like him or loathe him – and I continue to believe that on balance he is a force for good – Galloway is a tireless campaigner and whether he’s sitting in the Commons or standing on a speaker’s podium, the struggle carries on.

Respect, of course, remains the strongest traditional socialist party in the country. The dismal position of the TUSC demonstrates that. But all the minor parties found themselves getting squeezed in this election.

The one exception to this rule, and by far my highlight of the night, was Caroline Lucas’s election in Brighton Pavillion. She deserved to win that seat and win it she did. The country has gained a truely radical MP, a powerful voice for progressive change and a firm kick up the backside. The Greens have a much stronger national operation than Respect ever had, even before the departure of the SWP, and with a little luck and a whole lot of hard work, they can build on this historic win to become a new force in national politics. And for all the lefties who claim they’re still a bunch a middle class liberals with beards, read their manifesto. It’s as socialist as they come.

At First, When I See You Cry, I Go Ahead and Smile

The BNP got pwned! Yes pwned. I can use that word, because nothing else can describe it. This should make any decent human being incredibly happy. I never believed the hype and fear that they would gain their first seat at this election. They didn’t come close. In fact, they lost over half their council seats and were utterly wiped out in Barking and Dagenham. With the amount of money they will have lost in this election and the in-fighting threatening to tear them apart, this may very well be the beginning of the end for the BNP.

So you see, it’s not all doom and gloom. There’s plenty out there to cheer. In the meantime, the struggle carries on. As I write, a rally is just starting in Trafalgar Square for democratic reform. If this election proves anything, it’s that we need it now more than ever.

Here’s something to depress you. YouTube, hosts of the next Election debate, are offering viewers the chance to submit and ‘vote’ for questions. Just click here – http://www.youtube.com/ukelection

Your question can be placed in one of five categories – Economy, Foreign Policy, Law & Order, Health & Education and Miscellaneous (a rather broad category that presumably covers everything from Arts spending to Electoral Reform to ‘Who would win in a fight, Ninja Turtles or the SS?’) – after which other site visitors can vote on whether they like it.

A few minutes of clicking through the questions offers some idea of which members of our society take the keenest interest in political discussions. There are -

People who can’t spell,

“would any of the oppistion partys increse the defence buget and and think about increesing the size of the royal navy and british army. also restoring the army regaments that were resently merged and disbanded under the labour goverment.”
brian young ex soldier, falkirk.scotland

Inarticulate people who use capital letters,

Danusia, London

People who enjoy employing baffling non-sequiturs,

damiank, london

Paranoid lunatics,

dahrb, liverpool

More paranoid lunatics,

Alan, Ilford

Self-important marginal issue nuts,

Spanyardie, West Sussex

and

“What/how are you going to control the amount of airbrushing that is done on magazine covers? Airbrushed images have a huge effect on young people (women especially) particularly with regards to eating disorders.How can you change this for the better?”

littlemunchkin, Glasgow

People who really can’t think of anything to ask,

Kevin Peirce, Ipswich

Death Penalty advocates:

simmsy, Dudley

Bullies:

Ricky, Bristol

People who contradict their own question, in mid-question:

JohnB, Leeds

Americans:

Steve D., USA

Children who think they pay tax:

I Want To Know Why In Scotland There Is No University Fees? We Have To Pay For Tax And Still Pay! Everyone Should Be Entitled To A Free Education. Students Have To Take Loans And Pay Them Back After. It Is Very Expensive.”

Samad Age:14, Birmingham

Arseholes:

Gordon, why don’t you wear an eye patch? We will respect you, and most of us don’t really like you and make fun of you in the first place. Cameron, why do the conservatives act like children crying out ‘your mother’ jokes? Nick, who are you?”Seriously.,

Taxi drivers:

Bextaximan, East Sussex

‘All you have questions they are belong to us now’ types:

oneeyemasamune,

People who seem to enjoy but not fully understand the use of flying apostrophes:

anonymouse1234dipat, london

People whose questions are so boring and grammatically wayward you give up halfway through:

williamwstewart, Little Neston

People whose questions aren’t questions:

richhatepoor,

Optimistic UFO spotters

Ben, Lowestoft

And finally, the simply insane:

Mark Stratton, Kent

So far the only question I’ve posed concerns the vital issue of ‘Boxers or Y-Fronts?’, under the nickname of Noam Chomsky, from Stockwell. So far 2 positive responses, no negative ones. I’ll keep you updated on its popularity.

Hagley Road to Ladywood has an excellent piece by Third Estate hotseat alumnus, Peter Tatchell, on why we should vote Green. Well worth a read.

Labour has lost its heart and soul. It has become the party of war, privatisation and the erosion of hard-won civil liberties. The Lib Dems support free market capitalism, use dirty tricks during election campaigns, and when they get into office they always drift to the right. The Conservatives are split between modernisers and the reactionary old guard. Their green-friendly image is contradicted by their anti-green policies of supporting new motorways, aviation expansion and more nuclear power stations – just like Labour.

As I see it, the Green Party is the most progressive force in British politics, with a visionary agenda for democratic reform, social justice, human rights, global equity, environmental protection, peace and internationalism.

With an empowering new political and economic paradigm, the Greens offer the best hope for radical reform, as set out in our Manifesto for a Sustainable Society.

Unlike the far left, the Greens often win. We’ve got elected representatives in local councils all over Britain, and in the London Assembly and the Scottish and European Parliaments. Opinion polls suggest that the Greens are poised to win their first MPs. Caroline Lucas is leading in Brighton Pavilion and the Greens are also polling well in Norwich South and Lewisham Deptford.

The Greens are not just an environmental party. We are also a social justice party, with commitments to industrial democracy, workers cooperatives and trade union rights. Our aim is a democratic economy, which gives all employees a real say in how their institution is run and which utilises their accumulated skill and experience to improve private enterprises and public services.

We want to make society fairer and more equal, and to redistribute wealth and power. This democratisation and socialisation of the economy is necessary, we argue, to improve productivity, prevent a repeat of the reckless decisions that led to the economic meltdown and to reorient production to meet people’s needs. This includes switching from weapons production to the manufacture of renewable energy and advanced medical technologies, which are socially useful and have huge export potential.

The Greens are not retreads of the old Left. Traditional socialism is flawed. It is based on a left-wing version of big business growth-driven economics, with the goal of producing more and consuming more. This uncritical drive to maximise economic expansion is destroying our planet, causing life-threatening pollution, climate chaos and species extinction. It is also dramatically depleting reserves of natural resources, such as oil, that are vital to the global economy and to the long-term maintenance of a decent standard of living. This old-style growth-fixated economics, which is shared by both the left and the right, is outdated and reactionary. It is time for fresh thinking.

The Greens argue that quality of life and fair shares for all are more important than the left’s simplistic agenda of spending more on public services. Greens would, of course, invest more in health and education. But we also believe that government needs to radically rethink basic premises, like shifting the focus in the NHS from curative to preventative medicine. Our aim is to ensure that many fewer people get sick in the first place, rather than merely throwing more money into treating people once they become ill.

The Greens realise that the whole economic system has to change, in order to meet people’s needs and to ensure the survival of life on this planet. We propose a synthesis of the best bits of red and green, combining social justice with sustainable economics.

A good example of how we would do this is our proposed Roosevelt-style Green New Deal. It would stimulate the economy through large-scale government investment in socially and environmentally valuable energy conservation, renewable energy and cheap, hi-tech public transport. This would slash carbon emissions and tackle climate change, as well as creating hundreds of thousands of green jobs.

We’d fund the Green New Deal by axing Labour and Tory plans to waste £160 billion on Trident nuclear missiles (£76bn), super aircraft carriers (£4bn), Eurofighter aircraft (£20bn), A400 air transporter (£3bn), national identity register (£10bn), the Afghan war (£5bn), motorway building and widening (£30bn) and NHS computerisation (£20bn).

The Green Party rejects the failed neo-liberal economic policies that are backed by the three main parties – policies that recently pushed the world to the brink of a second great depression and which leave billions of people malnourished, illiterate, homeless, diseased and impoverished. But amid the gloom, we say: A different world is possible. The future is bright – bright Green.

The whole blog seems to have caught election fever, and what with various other priorities pulling my more creative attention away, I thought I might as well stick my oar in and let people know what my personal priorities are going to be around the election. Obviously, I think these should be your priorities too.

Firstly, the challenge to the left of Labour. This is unfortunately going to be far weaker than it needs to be. Nonetheless, a few trade union branches, activists and organisations have got together to form the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). I’m not wild about TUSC’s prospects, but some of the candidates are well placed to have an impact. In Preston, where I’ve done some electoral work before, Valerie Wise, former Labour councillor and daughter of the former Labour MP will be standing. Valerie is a good candidate, and should get a credible vote. In Cambridge, where I also have some experience, Martin Booth, a well-respected local trade unionist is standing, and I assume there will be a challenge for the council seats too. Activists in Cambridge have been doing good electoral work over the past few years, and last year Tom Woodcock received an excellent vote for the council standing on the slogan ‘make the bankers pay’. I’ll be spending a weekend or two in Cambridge giving them a hand. I can’t speak confidently about the other areas that TUSC is standing, though I hear good things from Manchester and Sheffield, and I heard the candidate from Tottenham speak last week. She is a teacher at the sharp end of cuts in Further Education in the area, and is standing against Education Minister David Lammy. That could be interesting. It is important that where we stand we get credible votes. Getting weak votes damages confidence and credibility. Finally, beyond TUSC (and I’m going to say this very clearly so our friends at Socialist Unity can hear me), we should be supporting Salma Yaqoob in Birmingham, George Galloway and Abjol Miah in East London, Dai Davies in Blaenau Gwent and Caroline Lucas in Brighton, and some other Greens as well.

Secondly, beating the fascists. We need a mass campaign against the BNP which exposes them as the fascists they are. This means all the hard work in constituencies, leafleting door to door, talking to people, arguing with them to use their vote against the BNP etc. It means challenging them wherever they appear, and it means taking the media to task whenever they give them a platform. This is an encouraging campaign launched by those in the media against giving the BNP a soft ride. In the past few months there have been two worrying incidents where hardened, experienced fascists have been presented as examples of ‘disaffected young people thinking about the BNP’. Where this happens it needs challenging and exposing. From my new home in Essex I’ll be joining a couple of Unite Against Fascism’s days of action in Barking, trying to ensure that Nick Griffin doesn’t win a seat. Find out what UAF and Love Music Hate Racism are doing in your area.

Finally, and this is the bit many of you won’t like, in Colchester I will be voting Labour.  I’m not going to join the Labour Party, I’m committed to building an alternative to it, but who wins in this election makes a difference.  It will make a difference whether public sector cuts are made by an agressive, ideologically committed Tory Government or by a Labour government with one hand tied behind its back. It will make a difference to the confidence of working class people to resist these cuts. It will mattter whether or not it is Brown’s  face or Cameron’s we wake up to on the 7th May, a Tory victory would demoralise the best activists, and empower every scab and every bigot. 

The final task in the next few months, something that cannot be considered apart from the election, is to build networks of resistance that can fight back whoever wins. Whether this is in Education, in the wider public sector, or in the IT or airline industry, these networks will be vital in the months and years to come. This cannot be postponed until after the election. Stop the Tories, but build the resistance whoever wins.

Image: Daily Mail

As a lefty and an ethnic minority who has always campaigned for the rights of immigrants and against the division of racial hatred, I think it’s fair to say that I have a little bit of a vested interest in Nick Griffin failing to oust Margaret Hodge in Barking to become the BNP’s first MP. I respect the need to build as broad an anti-fascist vote as possible, and recognise that splitting it presents dangers. However, in this instance, I believe Barking Green Party are absolutely right to stand a candidate in the forthcoming general election.

Green Left has always argued against standing in Barking. In response to the decision, Derek Wall posted the following statement:

I am exceptionally lucky. All the main political parties care deeply about me. They show their love weekly with solicitous letters, cards and visits. I fully anticipate flowers soon enough. I bet most of you don’t get that.

So why the special treatment? I’m not a special person, I haven’t had a recent bereavement that can be capitalised on and it’s definitely not because I’m a member of the press (most of my local parties don’t know that at the moment, but thanks to the miracle of the search engine they probably will after this…). Don’t think for one second I am receiving this attention because of the caring and altruistic nature of political parties, there’s a reason everyone wants to be my friend: I happen to live in a marginal constituency.

In fact, it’s better than that – I happen to live in a newly formed constituency. The boundaries of the current constituency I live in, Hammersmith and Fulham, have been redrawn for the next election. What was an extremely diverse constituency – with pockets of extreme prosperity, particularly in Fulham, and pockets of deprivation – particularly in the White City area north of Shepherds Bush – has been radically altered.

My current MP must be ecstatic – in the five years that I’ve been following his utterances he has almost never mentioned the poorer, more ethnically diverse northern areas in his constituency. Occasionally he just refers to his constituency as Fulham and misses out the Hammersmith part altogether. Luckily, soon he will be fighting the newly created uber-prosperous constituency of Fulham and Chelsea. Phew!

The new constituency of Hammersmith will have a different demographic and it’s all up for grabs. All the parties are positioning themselves with the exuberance and urgency of a hoard of people waiting for the IKEA sale to open. So for the next six months I, and everyone else who lives in the area, will be treated like Mariah Carey. Our every whim attended to. I expect the streets to be lined with white kittens by May.

So what about those of you (the vast majority) who don’t live in a marginal seat? Well I have bad news for you. You’re not as special as me.

Percentage-wise few seats changed hands at the last election, this election is expected to be more tumultuous but that’s a little like saying taupe is a more dynamic colour than beige. The truth is that, with the current ‘first past the post’ system, it takes a massive swing to effect change so mostly things will stay roughly as they are. Unless you live in a seat which is new (like mine) or where your MP is clinging to an extremely tenuous majority your vote just doesn’t count for as much.

It’s well known that people already move house – or rent properties in certain catchment areas – to gain access to the best schools. How long before they start moving home just to get their voice heard? Eventually, politics could be the sole preserve of the middle classes (many would argue it already is in many areas).

I’m actually selling my flat at the moment and I’m already having regrets about this. As an ordinary person, I will possibly never again have such a golden opportunity to get the ear of all the parties. I should have put it in my HIP.

There’s no reason why my vote should count more than yours, but it does. And until the electoral system is reformed I will get door-stepped and you will get treated like a doormat.

So, Power2010 has been criticised on the grounds that it won’t have the massive reach and appeal that it’s aiming for. This seems likely to be true, but how much does it matter? I don’t think that in order to revive mass popular interest in our political system it’s necessary to have a campaign which itself has mass popular support. That seems to be demanding the impossible; if only a small unrepresentative minority is currently interested in parliamentary politics (which I would argue is indeed the case, even if there is widespread interest in politics as it impinges on people’s everyday lives), and if we want that to change, then unfortunately it’s up to that small unrepresentative minority to re-engage everyone else.

In order to do this, I suggest that getting rid of the First Past the Post system has to be the first step. Salman already covered electoral reform in his post on this, but in my view it’s a far more important issue than any of the others under discussion. A written constitution, resolving the West Lothian question, reforming the Lords …yes, these are all important changes that need to be made. But I don’t think any of them are going to re-engage people’s interest in politics. There are two (related) reasons why electoral reform would do this where other changes wouldn’t.

First, every vote cast in an election would actually matter, and every voter’s views would have to be taken into account in an election campaign. As things stand, party manifestoes are targeted at a tiny group of voters – centrist swing voters in marginal seats – hence all the drivel spouted every election cycle about Mondeo Man and Worcester Woman. This is why the parliamentary parties have all moved so far into the centre, and why so much parliamentary debate  just reduces to bickering over who thought of a policy first (cf. the squabbles over inheritance tax and points-based immigration systems).

Second, the reason why parties’ high commands know they can get away with this is that it’s nigh-on impossible to break the two-party deadlock under the present system. It tends to be strongly majoritarian, disproportionately favouring large parties over smaller ones. (Though it also has random quirks, such as favouring small parties with concentrated support in one area, like the SNP and Plaid Cymru, and occasionally gifting a parliamentary majority to a party that comes second in the popular vote, like the Tories in 1951). In the entire history of the British Parliament, the second and third parties in British politics have only changed places once – when the Liberals were superseded by Labour in the 1920s – and that took a much-disputed combination of a World War, the Liberal Party literally tearing itself apart with infighting and the introduction of universal suffrage. The upshot of this is that as things stand the most likely effect of supporting a small leftwing party rather than Labour is that the Tories will get stronger. It’s worth noting that while Labour were busy overtaking the Liberals in the 1920s, the Tories were in government almost continuously for decades; they were in power either absolutely or in Tory-dominated ‘National Governments’ for all but three years between 1918 and 1945.

I’m still undecided as to which specific voting system would be the best replacement – though dusting off the findings of the Jenkins Commission wouldn’t be a bad idea – but pretty much anything would be better than the current setup. No more FPTP would mean that parties would have to take into account everyone’s views, not just a few geographically fortunate waverers. It would, as Salman so eloquently put it, turn the House of Commons from a tricolour into a rainbow. Yes, it’s a top-down reform that only cared about by a few geeks with an unhealthy interest in politics. But it’s one we desperately need.

The Third Estate is brought to you today by the letters DEMOCRACY and the number 2010. In just one month the Power2010 campaign has received over 2000 ideas to reform our political system. To highlight their launch, I invited Guy Aitchison to set out the campaign’s stall in a piece that was met with mixed reactions, and some head banging from Dave Semple who has just written a detailed rebuttal of the campaign’s approach, alongside a picture of Wolfie Smith praying for the glorious day. Last week, Guy returned the favour by tagging me in his new meme to encourage bloggers to post their own suggestions for Power2010. I would have responded to it sooner had I not been writing up my interview with Nick Clegg who, amongst the usual policy platitudes, said: “One of the great things about Power2010 is that it’s asking for your ideas, from people well beyond the bubble at Westminster. I’m really looking forward to reading what people come up with after November 30th. Politicians don’t know it all, and we have to ask people directly if we’re to know what they want.” That’s how big it’s got.

Do I think Power2010 is the answer to the millions of British people who are rightly disenfranchised with a broken political system? I don’t know. But then, I didn’t really think we were going to stop the war either and I gave that my best shot too. So here goes, my grand plan come that glorious day!

When I am king, you will be first against the wall

The Lords have got to go. Almost a century has passed since the Parliament Act and we still have an unelected upper house. No serious approach to democratic reform can begin without addressing the Lords.

What do we want? Democracy! When do we want it? Erm. Now!

The crucial stumbling block for leaders trying to reconnect people with politics is the first-past-the-post method, which essentially leads to a system based on voters choosing the major party they dislike the least. When, as in the last decade, the difference between the two main parties appears to have evaporated faster than Gordon Brown’s popularity, people begin to believe that their vote won’t make a difference. That’s why they stay at home. That’s why Nick Griffin ends up on Question Time. The answer to both problems is, quite simply, to introduce proportional representation. Not only will it ensure that people can vote for who they want to run the country, rather than just voting against who they don’t want to run the country, but it will turn the House of Commons from a tricolour into a rainbow, giving people a genuine choice and reconnecting politics with ideology.

Please sir, I want some more lollipop ladies outside my school

The biggest potential drawback to proportional representation is that it might remove one of the most popular elements of British democracy: the local MP who hears the concerns of their constituents, represents them to Parliament and faces losing their seat if they fail to do so. This is where the Lords come in. I propose an upper house composed of constituency politicians directly elected by the alternative vote system to sit alongside a lower house that proportionately represents the wider passions of the people. All neatly tied up? I think so. Why am I not Prime Minister yet?

For some strange reason I can’t quite fathom, other people have different (some might even say better) ideas for democratic reform. So I’d like to tag a few of them. Some may be sympathetic to Power2010’s aims and objectives. Others may prefer to bang their heads. It’s their choice. That’s democracy.

Jim Jepps – The Daily (Maybe)

Andy Newman – Socialist Unity

Phil BC – A Very Public Sociologist

Derek Wall – Another Green World

Carl Packman – Raincoat Optimism

Left Outside