Democracy is irrelevant and the impact of voting is negligible, according to Russell Brand.
Democracy is irrelevant and the impact of voting is negligible, according to Russell Brand. Much more important, he writes, is that there are ‘Men and women strong enough to defy the system and live according to higher laws.’
If this is all a bit Mussolini for you, then I have some good news: voting can and does change things and there is no need to rely on the power of ‘strong men and women’ and ‘higher laws’.
Here are just five reasons why voting is so important. I’m sure you can think of more.
1. It kept the far-right out
In 2004, the British National Party narrowly missed out on a seat in the London Assembly, losing by just a handful of votes. In 2008, the party also came close to winning council seats in Amber Valley where the party lost by just a single vote.
Considering the fact that Russell Brand has spent some time around the BNP for his documentary Nazi Boy, it’s strange that he doesn’t recognise how crucial voting has been in keeping the fascists out.
2. It made possible the creation of the National Health Service
Believe it or not, the Attlee government of 1945 to 1951 had to win an election in order to carry out its sweeping social reforms such as the creation of the NHS. At the risk of stating the obvious, Labour secured a 393 seats majority in the House of Commons because people actually went out and bothered to vote.
There was plenty of ‘revolution’ in Russia at the time of course if that was your thing, where millions of people were being murdered by Stalin and the Bolsheviks; but the welfare state was created by compromise and lots of boring meetings. Oh, and by voting.
3. It kept Labour in power between 1997 and 2010
It has become incredibly fashionable in recent years to sneer at the last Labour government. Like most forms of cynicism, however, this depends on a certain amount of detachment from the consequences of apathy. To put it bluntly, Russell Brand has a $2 million dollar mansion in the Hollywood Hills; it therefore makes very little difference to him whether there is a minimum wage or not or whether there are free prescriptions for people undergoing treatment for cancer.
This is not to say that wealthy people don’t often care about such things; but ultimately they do have the option of not caring, whereas poor people don’t. This is why celebrity cynicism should be taken with a pinch of white powder.
4. Young people get a raw deal from politics precisely because they don’t vote
Russell Brand has been commended by many for connecting with young people who get a raw deal from the political establishment. And I would agree, today’s young people do seem to have a hard time of it compared to older relatives. There is no longer any such thing as a job for life, a university education incurs massive debts, and for most young people buying a home is a pipe dream.
You can be sure, however, that the government and the opposition will court the so-called grey vote far more assiduously than young people as we approach the 2015 General Election. And the rational for doing so is simple: older people are far more likely to turn out to vote than younger people. Getting young people engaged in politics and voting would do far more to change this than encouraging them to become even more apathetic than they already are.
5. If you don’t believe in voting, what do you believe in?
While it may be enough on the celebrity circuit to rally against ‘the regime’ and lazily call for ‘revolution’, if you appear on programmes like Newsnight and in the pages of the Guardian you should expect to have to expand on what it is that you want.
Brand puts his faith in ‘Men and women strong enough to defy the system and live according to higher laws.’ But what ‘higher laws’? and who makes such ‘laws’? When he calls for ‘socialist equality’ what does he mean? Absolute equality secured by extreme force, or a reduction in inequality? If it’s the latter, then that is a view I share, which is why I will vote for a candidate at the next election who proposes that. If it’s the former, North Korea is supposed to be very nice at this time of year.
88 Responses to “A response to Russell Brand: Five ways that voting does make a difference”
Rick Curtis
Firstly, I’m not so sure keeping the Far Right out of government is a bad thing since it would provide the general public with a more detailed view of their lunacy. As for the remaining arguments, it is likely that many of these progressive changes would come about as a result of changing social perspectives over time, regardless of which party happens to be in power. In addition, there are numerous financial incentives that come with providing services to the public, such as the selling of expensive technical equipment and prescription drugs to the NHS. You can be assured that this progress comes with a hefty price tag – your taxes – and someone is making a mint. The current political system is highly constrained and fairly corrupt (if seemingly civil), and we should welcome the perspectives of anyone with the fortitude to give it a good deal of criticism.
Ric Hardacre
I suggest spoiling of ballots because these are counted and the numbers are published. Wouldn’t it be interesting if in the next General Election a whole slew of major party candidates had less votes than the “none of the above” count. Secondly this can’t be written off as apathy or laziness. BUT if there *is* a candidate you really genuinely like then vote for them, even if they’re an independent and end up with only a handful of votes, that’s fine because the WORST thing people can do is just walk into the polling station and think “who’s in government right now? Red or Blue?” and just vote for the other one. THAT is lazy.
Mr Spock
That looks like a Tory slogan to me and frankly anyone so aggressively touting a dont vote Labour line must be a Tory anyway
The Mayor of the Dunghill
OK – a point for point rebuttal
1. The BNP imploded after its candidates were elected to the European Parliament and a number of local councils, and their hopeless incompetence was revealed even for bigots to see. Perhaps that means we’re better off not voting and letting the fascists in, thereby giving them enough rope to hang themselves.
2. Britain would have ended up with a welfare state, a mixed economy and some kind of universal healthcare system (albeit probably not on the NHS model) even if the Tories had somehow managed to win in 1945. That’s the way things were going then – the Beveridge report was supported by all parties. We wouldn’t have had mass nationalisation, but that was reversed eventually.
3. Yes, it has become incredibly fashionable to sneer at the government that gave us PFI, ATOS, the second great depression and left a trail of blood across half the world.
On a wider point, arguing that ‘voting matters because it kept Labour in power for 13 years’ misses the fact that Labour is now no longer in power. And that was bound to happen. For all the talk at every election about how it’s Labour or the Tories, in the long run we always end up getting both. The point of having elections is not so much to award victory to one side as to ensure that no side ever really ‘wins’ – because there’s always another election around the corner.
4. I’m seeing this ‘the government favours pensioners because they’re more likely to vote than younger people’ argument all over the place at the moment. The problem is that, even if young people voted at the same rate as everyone else, they would still be outnumbered by pensioners. Also, when considering the power of the OAP vote, you have to take into account not only current pensioners but the even larger group of people who expect to become pensioners at some point in the not too distant future. (It wouldn’t be in the interests of, say, a 50 year old to support a cut in pensions, because he’d just be impoverishing himself in 20 years time. In contrast very few of the electorate will ever see 18 again). Young people are basically doomed to get a raw deal from the electoral process, a fact that will only become more true in the future as society ages further.
5. I’d agree that Brand’s ‘alternative’ was vague (so would he by all accounts). I don’t vote for different reasons to him – because I’m rational enough to realise that one vote in 30 million isn’t going to affect the outcome, and I don’t consider myself a part of any larger group or collective to which I feel any kind of duty.
GO
Look past the media spin and, yes, some of Labour’s own rhetoric.
The Tories are the party of welfare because the Tories are prepared to tolerate persistently high rates of unemployment, benefit claimants doing unpaid work, abuse of zero hours contracts, low pay, dwindling housing supply, etc., all of which leave the taxpayer facing a higher welfare bill. Labour are beginning to talk again about full employment, guaranteed jobs for the long-term unemployed, fair terms and conditions at work, decent pay, and building houses in preference to paying out housing benefit. As such they are, and bloody well ought to be, ‘tougher than the Tories’ on welfare spending. Yes, they also accept the need for the sort of ‘toughness’ the media are so obsessed with, i.e. requiring unemployed people to take up offers of work in certain circumstances – which seems fair enough so long as it’s real paid work we’re talking about. But there’s a much bigger picture here.