Why I'll not vote

On Thursday, I face an important question. My guitar teacher will ask whether I can play an E flat minor harmonic scale at 160bpm.

Other people will confront another question. Here are some reasons why I’ll not join them and not vote.

1. It’s none of my business. The main parties are targeting the self-interest of median voters in marginal constituencies. But I’m neither a median voter nor in a marginal constituency. What’s more, no party is targeting the self-interest of single people in good health on above-average incomes. Worse still, they are not even bothering to tell us why our interests shouldn’t count.

2. I want to protest against the notion that anyone should vote in their own narrow interests. The fact is that instrumental rationality, in itself, provides no justification for voting at all. Even if you are the median voter in a marginal, the chances of your vote deciding the election outcome are vanishingly small. The costs of voting – especially if its an unpleasant walk on a rainy day – therefore outweigh the benefits. There are only two cases for voting. One is lies in diagnostic expected utility: “if I vote, maybe people like me will also vote". The other lies in symbolic rationality; you want to signal (if only to yourself) what sort of person you are.

3. No party offers a programme I want to identify with. As a minimum, I want civil liberties – no ID cards, no detention without trial, no laws against inciting religious hatred – free markets and a citizens’ basic income. No party offers these. The Greens offer two out of three. But they’re not asking for two-thirds of my vote; they want all of it. And besides, I don’t what to identify with a party many of whose members consider Michael Moore, Naomi Klein and George Monbiot to be intellectual influences.

4. The voting system is too crude. I wouldn’t expect to have to choose between Tesco and Sainsburys only once every four years. So why should my political choices have to be so crude. I don’t buy job lots.

5. All the parties, to a greater or lesser degree, believe in managerialism and hierarchy – the notion that central elites can guide our futures and over-ride the wisdom of markets. No-one’s offering direct democracy and a massive delayering of state hierarchies.

6. I want to protest against the narrowness of the political choice. For two and a half millennia the question of what is a good state has been addressed by some of the greatest minds that ever lived. And how is this tradition embodied in today’s politics? “Forward, not back”, “cleaner hospitals”. Our political choices shouldn’t be limited to what our parties are offering.

You might raise an objection here, especially so close to the 60^th anniversary of VE Day. Millions of people, all of them braver than I, have died so that I might vote. Am I insulting their sacrifice by not voting?

No. What I’m saying is that my vote is a precious thing. Too precious to waste on idiots.

What worries me is that my abstention will be misinterpreted. The meeja will think it’s apathy.

This is a howling fallacy. If you were to ask Gordon Ramsey whether he preferred McDonalds or Burger King, and he replied “they’re both shit”, would you infer that he was apathetic about food? Why, then, infer that I’m apathetic about politics.

It’s not apathy I feel. It’s contempt.

Comments

[Snafu]

Stumbling, I totally agree with your sentiments and feel unable to endorse the one party to whom I should be a "natural core voter". However, I am still undecided as to whether I should vote for them just to keep the Liberal Democrats out in my local constituency.

[ghytred]

Very nicely put. Me too!

[Ronnie Horesh]

I suggest we express policy goals in terms of targeted social and environmental outcomes. That would close the gap between public and politicians. See my website.

[dearieme]

I give my wife a proxy so that she can vote for me. This relieves me of a great burden of responsibility.

[Steve T]

Why not spoil your ballot paper? This would indicate that it wasn't apathy, just that none of the candidates were worth your vote. Start a campaign (bit late now) for people to write 'noe of teh above' or some such slogan.

[Paul Davies]

Worthy sentiments indeed and ones that echo my, and I'm sure many other people's thoughts.

May I humbly suggest that those who agree with said thoughts, rather than voting for a party/candidate/man in a monkey suit vote instead for a change to the cause of all the above mentioned problems - the voting system.

you can do so here: www.makemyvotecount.org.uk and read about it in all sorts of interesting ways by clicking on my name that accompanies this comment.

[willchill]

nicely written post, and sentiments I share at a certain level, but i have to disagree with your overall argument.

politcal parties are coalitions of political interests and you can't expect to agree with any one party 100%. in a parliamentary system coalitions are an inevitable feature of the system, and in a more proportional voting arrangement the coalitions end up being between parties rather than within them, but in either event there is horse-trading and tendencies towards the mean voter when governments get formed.

the political process then is essentailly one of forming effective coalitions, and just because the slogans of these coaltions at election time are crude - e.g. "cleaner hospitals" etc. - this does not mean that there are not substantial differences between them, and that their political message is not in fact a lot more nuanced. we do know what michael howard is really thinking beyond just his headline pledges, and fortunately most people seem not to like it very much.

it is a wishful illusion, i think, to imagine that disaggregating voting preferences across a greater number of issues, parties and voting occasions would lead to a better democracy, instanced by the likely rejection by the british public of the european constitution, due more to the influence of a hostile media than a real appreciation of its merits or otherwise.