The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Our journalists are really betraying their biases today. Elections are, admittedly, a crude tool. It is hard to express complex opinions with a single "X" on a ballot sheet.  But the media interpretation of the EU Parliament election results is shocking. It seems the left/liberal Establishment now sees every election as no more than an opportunity for the people to enter into a dialogue with the Labour Party.

Labour secured the votes of about 1/5th of the electorate in the 2005 General Election. We have generally (and, I think, wrongly) accepted that as a democratic mandate to do
all in its manifesto and more. Yet now it seems that those of us who vote for any other party are not approving its polices so much as expressing discontent with Labour's and/or with Labour's leadership.

Is our "default" vote now Labour? Is an "X" beside any other party's name, simply a negotiation of what we require to return to the Socialist fold? If so, this seems a dangerous route to follow.

No passing Martian today would believe that anyone voted for UKIP last Thursday because they wanted Britain to leave the EU. Its astonishing success, in the face of hostile coverage that consistently and unfairly bracketed it with the BNP, is (very oddly) presented as a protest against Westminster corruption. Nor would that Martian believe that more than a million BNP voters actually want non-white immigrants to be encouraged back to their lands of origin. The discussions simply assume they were expressing extreme discomfort with Labour.

There may be elements of truth in these interpretations, but they are no less impertinent for that. Surely votes should be taken at face value as positive support for the policies of the party voted for? That may never be 100% true. Even within parties, there is a wide range of opinion and any given voter's opinions may be highly nuanced. Still, it's the safest and most respectful approach. It is also the only one that forces our would-be leaders to engage in a genuine discussion about the nation's future with those outside the narrow circles of their followers. Yes, voters can be wrong. Sometimes, they can be very wrong, but it's not helpful to tell them so. In fact, it is likely to infuriate them and push them to ever greater extremes. Perhaps politicians, journalists and other opinion-formers should embrace the shocking possibility that the voters may be right?