Promise

In the most recent election I voted Labour for the first time. There is much to make me believe it is also the last time. I will freely admit that my vote for Labour was tactical, as the thought of another five years of Tory rule was too depressing to contemplate. Of course the reality is even more depressing. I can't imagine I'm the only person who has all but stopped listening to the news because the sound of privileged elites braying about how wrecking what's left of this country's infrastructure, the lives of an entire generation of children and the extistential future of our race is not only sensible but morally right makes me want to break things/scream/cry. Of course in order to make this tragicomedy complete, we must also listen to the official opposition decide that they lost the election because they weren't enough like the party in power and that in order to be an effective opposition, they should just rubber-stamp the policies of a government who only 24%* of the electorate voted for. Following the interim leader's request, my MP abstained from voting against a welfare bill that even Margaret Thatcher might have thought a bit extreme. I voted for my MP expressly to avoid this sort of poor-bashing filth, and whilst I understand that she and her party might not be able to stop it, they could at least represent the people that voted for them by registering their opposition in the traditional manner. 

In the midst of all this, the Labour Party seem genuinely surprised that Jeremy Corbyn is ahead in the polls in the leadership election. I mean it's a massive surprise that the one candidate who appears to be genuinely opposed to the right wing orthodoxy that is poisoning this country is popular with the people who also oppose it. 

I do not deny that the Labour Party has some serious challenges to face up to following its electoral defeat. I accept that it has to overcome the daily barrage of propaganda churned out by a right wing media hegemony, but it what is the point of it doing that by simply giving in? Democracy requires alternatives otherwise it is just a process of rubber-stamping the whims of a dictatorship. At the moment, the Labour Party is failing to meet even the most basic fundamentals of the democratic process: representing your constituents and providing at least one alternative. I voted tactically in May and it turns out that my vote didn't count, not because I didn't vote for the winning candidate or the winning party, but because I voted for a candidate and a party who turn out not to represent me at all. Next time I'll go back to voting for someone who will at least try to represent me. 

*36.9% of 66.1%