Why Vote for a Small Political Party?

There is a General Election in July (2024) in the UK, so I thought I'd put forward a few ideas why you should ditch the main parties and seriously consider voting for a smaller party. In my humble opinion the best of the bunch is (by far) the Social Democratic Party (SDP). I urge you to give them your vote if you get the chance. They won't win. But even so, here's why you should give them your vote.

General Election 2024 - So What's On Offer

It looks like the current broken and dysfunctional UK government run by the Conservative Party will be replaced by an equally broken and dysfunctional (though marginally different) government run by the Labour Party. 

Maybe there’s a chance there’ll be a (equally dysfunctional) Lib/Lab coalition or whatever.

There seems little chance that the Conservatives will win another term. Frankly, after their record, they really do not deserve consideration. They deserve to lose, and badly.

But what about the Labour Party? 

I am sure I don’t have to relate the horror stories about the extremist, anti-Semitic and generally poisonous nature of a large section of the Labour party. 

A party that clearly puts the working class (aka the people who usually elect it) at the very back of the queue. They are (and will be) placed behind every minority, fad, cult and other extremist who demands the attention of the inner Labour Party Clique. The decent people of this country will be lucky to get the table scraps.

We are in for a (very) hard five years. Whatever the outcome of the election. 

But still, why vote for anyone else? Especially a small party. You’ll surely be voting for a loser. 

So why vote at all?

In a democracy you have the privilege of voting. But that privilege entails you making a choice.

But what if there is NO choice? Or maybe a choice like between drinking Hemlock or swallowing Arsenic? 

What do you do? 

You look for an alternative to the poison on offer. If there isn’t one,  you do nothing.

So Boycott Maybe?

I was brought up to treasure democracy. But one option is to do nothing. Not vote. Boycott it. 

Though I don't consider this the best option, it is not as nugatory as some believe. Staying at home and not voting pushes down the turnout. The winner’s legitimacy is compromised. If only ever so slightly. So if there is no-one worth voting for  then boycotting the vote is at least a away of showing your disgust. 

A Better Option

But a better way of showing your disgust is to vote for one of the other candidates. 

They may have no chance of winning but at the end of the day your vote will show. It will show your disillusionment with the Lib/Lab/Con/Grn hegemony. 

But won’t a small Party vote be ignored?

Well, if it's for Lord Bucket-Head - maybe. 

But if it's for a political party that has already put the Labour Party's nose seriously out of joint in Leeds like the SDP has  (well done Councillors Dixon, Pogson-Golden  and Chesterfield) it will focus minds wonderfully. Just like in these examples below.

Here’s a few examples.

1. George Galloway.

Hardly a person I support or agree with. But a very, very clever political operator. Look at the influence and control he has over the Labour Party with his pro-Islamic stance. See how in every seat contended by Galloway's party the Labour Party buckle and shift towards Galloway's agenda. The Labour Party (to it’s disgrace) has been falling over itself to “accommodate” people with views concurrent with with those of Galloway. It that is not political influence, what is?

2. Reform.

Reform is unlikely to get any MPs in July. But the Conservative party is bending over backwards to try and placate and accommodate those liable to leave it for Reform. A bit late in the day maybe. But after the election, does anyone believe that the Conservative will not try and win back their supporters lost to Reform? How will they do that? By adopting Reform policies.

3.(The original) UKIP.

Do you think that the Lib/Lab/Con/Grn hegemony would have ever approved an EU referendum (by 91% of MP’s by the way) unless the then UKIP hadn’t been breathing down their collective necks? Remember UKIP simply didn’t exist 25 years before the referendum. For most of that time it was regarded as a figure of fun by the Lib/Lab/Con/Grn hegemony. But they weren't laughing in 2016.

Influence

So by voting for small apparently insignificant parties you can at least influence the eventual policy outcome. All parties start as pressure groups. Then they build. Influence turns to power.

Building Visibility and Support

As disillusionment grows (and it will) so will support for decent parties like the SDP. A hundred votes this year gets you noticed. People see your policies and attitude. Word spreads. Next election it’s a thousand, then ten thousand.

That’s how the Labour Party came to power back in the 20th century. That's before it got poisoned by the elitist snobs who run it today.

That’s how the SDP will do it. Bit by bit. Election by election. Council seat by council seat. Then MP by MP.

We have to start somewhere. Turning our country round is going to be monumentally difficult. Things will almost certainly get worse before they get better. 

So lets all start the fight back by putting an X in the box marked SDP on the 4th July.

The Social Democratic Party - Where Now?

In the recent Peterborough Parliamentary by-election there was a candidate whose experience and expertise placed him head and shoulders above the rest.

That candidate was Patrick O’Flynn of the SDP. Here he is on YouTube sticking it to the pompous Brussels elite in the EU Parliament when he was an MEP.

Impressive eh?

But Patrick didn’t win in Peterborough. In fact he lost his deposit.

Meanwhile in an election almost certainly sullied by voting fraud, the Brexit Party candidate, coming from nowhere also lost when the seat was stolen from him.

Arguably if the election had been fair and free from cheating, the Brexit Party candidate would have won and we would have our first Brexit Party MP.

But this is not about the Brexit Party.

This is about the SDP or Social Democratic Party to give it its full name.

I expect most folk reading this already know about the history of this party but here’s a two point resume. Skip it if you know this already.

• The SDP changed British Politics forever back in the 1980’s. Then it went through a near death experience. The party staggered along for years with a handful of members. Recently it has gone through a rapid expansion as the Brexit betrayal by both the Tories and Labour came to the fore. 

• The implosion of UKIP along with disillusionment with the anti-Brexit bias of both Conservative and Labour elites gave the SDP a ready supply of new members. I understand the membership now currently stands around 10,000. Which is a hell of a leap forward!

So why, with such an excellent candidate as Patrick O’Flynn, did the SDP do so badly in this by-election?

I believe the answer to that is simple. It is anonymity.

While Patrick (and others) have done stirling work on the MSM and social media to promote the party, it still  has no edge. No clear identity to the public.

Compare the SDP to the pompous odious identity of the Green Party. While nobody really knows the crack-pot policies the Greens expound people still know “who” they are.

The Green Party has achieved this because they have for years successfully ridden of the backs of drama laden romantic attention seekers who have courted publicity at every stage.

These people played the victim (or the victim proxy) even when they were actually the intimidators, going around ruining peoples lives, jobs and (ironically on many occasions) the environment itself with their antics.

But the Green Party shamelessly hooked up with these characters, rode the wave and now has one MP and many councillors.

The SDP  cannot do what the Green party has done. After-all the SDP is anything but an extremist party.

There is no publicity hungry enterprise that goes out of its way to promote social cohesion that the SDP can piggy-back off.

There is no pool of fanatics who will make lots of noise and disruption in the name of common sense.

There is no extremist driven ideology promoting the middle ground that the SDP can use to power it forward.

In essence the SDP is “The Sensible Party” and sadly in the real world this means it will fare even less well than its namesake in Monty Python.

Clearly, if the SDP cannot make a bigger impact on Parliamentary Elections than at Peterborough, especially when offering a truly superb candidate as Patrick O’Flynn, then it needs to re-think its strategy.

Especially as Parliamentary elections  are ruinously expensive in money, time and effort.

Even if there was a miracle pathway to parliamentary success it would be pretty much choked off today by the Brexit Party. Both partys are strongly pro-brexit but today all the electoral firepower is with the Brexit Party.

If anything, in this narrow point in time where Brexit will be the electoral priority of those who would potentially vote SDP then a vote for the  SDP will only be a counter-productive vote splitter in Parliamentary elections.

After Brexit though, things change.

Unlike the Brexit Party, the SDP is not seen (if it is seen at all!) as a single issue group. The Brexit Party is. Much as it tries to say otherwise it is seen as a single issue concern. The clue is in the name.

There are also avenues in other tiers of UK government that the Brexit Party appears to be simply not interested in. These offer fertile grounds for the SDP and some are in fact starved of any political input from just about anyone.

So could the SDP have a relationship with the Brexit party? And how can the SDP seek a pathway to influence and power in the near term other than through Westminster?

Here's the full set of posts on this topic.

The Social Democratic Party - Where Now?

The SDP and the Brexit Party

SDP: Local Politics and the Low Hanging Fruit

Arming the Parish Councillors

Parish Councillors: Party Aligned? or Independent?

Parish Councils are Dying: So What?