Spoil your vote

With the General Election fast approaching the political gurus are urging you to vote. Modern capitalism has long loved to sing of its own democratic credentials as supposedly evidenced by that magical moment of secrecy inside a wooden booth once every few years. Important as the idea of voting remains to any idea of democracy, it is nevertheless instructive to recognise how feeble a claim that is. True social democracy would take much more account of far more views, ideas, inputs and wishes than this tokenistic selection of one or other management team a couple of times per decade.

Members of the Socialist Party on principle will go to the polling booth to ‘spoil’ their ballot paper. This is in fact a long, noble and meaningful practice by those of us who simply wish to reject ‘what’s on offer’ and to say 'a plague on all your houses.' whilst registering the importance of the vote itself, and in that regard this makes perfect sense. It is somewhat frustrating therefore that this practice is not given more attention in the media. If, where a Socialist Party candidate is not running, you write the word 'World Socialism' across your ballot paper, your vote is spoiled but at any rate you have not signified that you are a willing supporter of capitalism.

So in this general election we call on the 'silent majority', unhappy – and even disgusted – by the performance of the clowns in this political circus, to protest by spoiling their ballot papers. In so doing they will be taking part in the democratic forum yet at the same time withdrawing their consent from those who would rule over them in the name of wealth for the few and tedium for the rest of us. Our voice will be heard. We will not allow it to be stifled under a welter of mindless political psycho-babble. And the more people who agree with us and do the same, the louder the voice and the more effective the protest against the whole ridiculous charade currently being played out before us in the name of our interests.