This site has frequently addressed the idea of abstentionism and how it could be effective. Gradually, awareness of the topic is rising.
A central problem with convincing doubters remains the lack of a mechanism by which abstention can be registered accurately. Take Rutherglen and Hamilton West as an example. We wrote about it here: Off-Topic Scotland | Count Us Out (offtopicscotland.com)
‘As always, the main players are not visible on the streets but their shadows are cast across the whole event. Sturgeon, Sarwar, Salmond, Starmer, Sunak. Making sense of how the vote breaks down will occupy psephologists over the coming weekend and beyond but the metropolitan focus will shift elsewhere, leaving the residents of Rutherglen and Hamilton West with an MP who was voted for by a grotesquely small percentage of the eligible electorate.’
We repeat the question we raised then: how many of the 63% who didn’t vote that day were abstaining? How many were unaware of the election and/or never vote anyway? How many couldn’t bring themselves to cast a vote for any of the candidates on offer? How many were tied-in to work/care commitments which made it impossible for them to physically attend a polling station? How many had applied for postal votes and forgotten to send their choice in time or the vote was ‘lost in the mail’? The list goes on and on…
The bottom-line is this - we can never know how many eligible voters in R&HW made a conscious effort not to vote. Isn’t that decision - a conscious, deliberate act - worthy of acknowledgement and consideration?
So - the act of abstention is important but it is not, in itself, capable of producing concrete data that can’t simply be ignored by mainstream media. We need a way to supplement that action, to underscore its importance, make it ‘real’.
Many of us didn’t fully appreciate it at the time but the Yes movement achieved something huge. It brought people together. There was an end in sight, a target. Ultimately, we didn’t win, but we didn’t ‘fail’ either. Anyone who was involved in that movement, looking back now, speaks of the energy, the enthusiasm, the sheer excitement of it all, and that came from being with like-minded folk sharing a noble aim. We believed that our coming together was a means to an end. Now, in retrospect, it is plain that the gathering-together was a worthy end in itself. There’s no reason why we can’t do so again, building that sense of solidarity and purpose. And the British State, in staging a nationwide poll which, in effect, brings the entire country to a halt and receives global media coverage for weeks in advance, will be providing us with a ‘day off’ from normal life in which we can embarrass them whilst sending a message internationally.
What’s one day anyway? We still don’t know when the next UK general election will be. Could be May 7th, only 12 weeks away. Could be October. It could be as late as January of 2025. We just don’t know.
But there are things we do know.
It’ll be a Thursday. As usual, citizens will have the opportunity to cast their vote from 7 in the morning until 10 at night. The schools will be closed, many of them serving as polling stations.
So, on that day - be it in May, October or whenever - we don’t attend the grand party organised by the State. We have better things to do.
Some essential services must continue but they already do so more or less effectively on other days of the year. There need be no panic about cancelled operations because we’ll all have had plenty of notice. Many of those waiting for operations have become accustomed to waiting for months or years anyway so one day won’t make much difference.
Rather than dutifully cast our votes for more of the same, we talk to others in our communities about why we’re not participating and we do it right outside polling stations.
For us, the most important metric when it comes to assessing the progress of our country is the child poverty rate. The Scottish Government’s own statistics can be found here:
Child Poverty in Scotland since the 1960s | Scottish Parliament
In brief: 30 years ago, child poverty in Scotland was over 30%. It decreased steadily, flatlining at just over 20% from 2008-2011. It has been rising since 2012 and is now at 24%
Almost a quarter of Scotland’s children living in poverty, in 2024.
If a vital tool is broken, you have options, but not many. You can repair it, or you can bin it and get one that works.
If ‘democracy’ can be viewed as a ‘vital tool’ then, we contend, ours is broken. Whether or not it is beyond repair is debatable. But in order to get on with the job for which the tool was intended it is first necessary to acknowledge that it is in need of repair. You don’t just keep trying to use it when you have already established that it is not fit for purpose. Too many - and they’re not just diehard Sturgeon fans - cannot or will not accept that we don’t have the tools to achieve independence.
So, our call for a ‘strike’ on the day of the next UK General Election is serious. We don’t know if there are any circumstances in which such an important national election can or should be declared null and void due to a lack of participation. Would 50% be too low for the result to stand? 30%? At what point does the government, in a democracy, acknowledge that there is a problem of engagement with the process which they cannot simply dismiss as ‘voter apathy’?
What choice do we have, right now, in Scotland? Tories? Non-starter. Labour? Rubbing their hands at the prospect of resuming control of the gravy train in what they’ve always viewed as their fiefdom? No thanks. Lib-Dems? (Stop sniggering there.) And then, of course, there’s the SNP but we’re not going to revisit the multitude of reasons why every current SNP MP deserves to be hoofed.
It's not about the fate of particular parties or the career of this or that 'celebrity' politician. And the most effective way to deal with narcissists is to ignore them.
The single biggest ‘party’ capable of making the next GE in Scotland worth observing at all is the electorate. And exercising our strength should be motivation enough to unite Scots of every political hue - a vanishingly small number of us benefit from the status quo and even then, many who have prospered since the days of Thatcher know full-well that the fundamental inequalities we continue to tolerate are not sustainable. Some have made their cash, secured their pension pots. Fair enough. They took advantage of conditions prepared for them by others who made even more - they benefited from ‘trickle-down’ in the same way that those in-on a ponzi scheme right at the start reap the benefits.
But for the rest of us, it’s time to do a Great Reset of our own. That starts with accepting that the tool is broken - it must now be repaired or binned.
We are told, repeatedly, that the ballot box is preferable to the bullet, as if those were the only options. They are not. There is a third way and it was practised by Gandhi. We use non-violent resistance. Rendering the current electoral system, with its jaded runners and riders, obsolete, would be a good place to start.
And make no mistake - such action is feasible. Scotland, thanks in no small part to the 2014 referendum, has an engaged, informed, intelligent electorate. We must start acting like one, boxing clever with an adversary which looks to be out on its feet.
PS. Today’s collection of comments, NHTW#12, shows support for abstentionism growing and the following comment has just appeared on Wings Over Scotland’s latest, here:
Wings Over Scotland | Storm in a coffee cup
Frank Gillougley
'I’m afraid I really find the descent of scottish politics into a reality tv show (Tractors) and the tabloid abyss meaningless and risible that only serves those in power ad nauseum.
Sorry, but following on from the previous article, as it really is where we are, I can’t remember the last time i voted without having spoiled my ballot. Omo or Daz or Daz or Omo? What to do?
Well, here’s a serious suggestion. Many of us on here have previously said it in many ways. There is a book of fiction by the elderly Portuguese author Jose Saramago called, ‘Seeing’ (2007) Vintage. Here is the description from the back of the book:
‘Despite the heavy rain, the presiding officer at Polling Station 14 finds it odd that by midday on National Election Day only a handful of voters have turned out. Puzzlement quickly escalates to shock when the final count reveals seventy per cent of the votes are blank – not spoiled, simply blank. National law decrees the election should be repeated eight days later. The result is worse, eighty-three per cent of the votes are blank. The authorities seized with panic decamp from the capital and declare a state of emergency. In his new novel, Jose Saramago has deftly created the politician’s ultimate nightmare: disillusionment that renders the entire democratic system useless. ‘Seeing’ explores how simply this could be achieved and how devastating the results might be.’
And there you have it. How to effect change.’
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