The Joys of Living in a Safe Seat, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love ‘Democracy’

As those of you reading this blog may have picked up (I know you’re out there), I’m a Wigan-born lad, living in the Makerfield constituency to be precise. Makerfield and Wigan at large are industrial areas, or at least they used to be before the pits closed. As a result, they are about as staunch Labour as as you can find in this country. I don’t think I can overstate this. To give you some idea about how safe a seat Makerfield is, we have returned a Labour MP for the past 100 years. A century of Labour rule. Let that sink in for a minute. We’ve been electing a Labour MP back when the word ‘Labour’ actually meant something!

Now, I realise people might not be interested in the details of my specific constituency. That’s fair enough. But the example of Makerfield has wide-reaching implications with the run up to the General Election. Makerfield is certainly not the only constituency to be classified as a safe seat - there are many others like it up and down the country. The obvious problem with this, of course, is how a democracy be said to exist in these areas. When somewhere can return an MP of the same party for the past 100 years, to me that says that there is something fundamentally wrong with the electoral system in this country.

In name, at least, we have a democracy in the safe-seats; we are free to vote for any party on the list at the polling station, though it’s highly unlikely your choice will get elected if it’s not the incumbent party. But here lies another problem; is there even a guarantee of choice on the ballot paper? Here are the people standing in Makerfield:

Itrat Ali (Conservative)
Yvonne Fovargue (Labour)
Dave Crowther (Lib Dem)
Ken Heslam(BNP)

...Is this some kind of joke? What kind of choice is this? Here we have the 3 wings of the ‘Fuck The Proles’ party in all their resplendent glory, as well as the joke candidate from the ‘Fuck the Foreign Proles’ party. This isn’t choice, it’s the illusion of choice, and its a poor one at that. Although nominations for candidates conclude on April 20th, (should there be a new nominee worthy of support I’ll update this post), even if a credible alternative was put forward we come back to the problem of the Labour stranglehold on the constituency. Once again, I can guarantee that Makerfield is not unique for its lack of options in this election, hailed by some of those detached from reality as ‘the most exciting in a generation.’

So what can be done by those unfortunate enough to live in safe seats? The long term goal would be to support widespread political reform, with the institution of some kind of PR system. Obviously, we can’t simply wait for that to happen, there is a sense of immediacy with the election right around the corner. People may still want to vote but have no credible alternative to support. If you are in that position, I would suggest spoiling the ballot, perhaps by writing ‘none of the above’on the ballot paper. Spoiled ballots still get counted when the results come, and that’s the best bet if you’re in an ultra-safe seat. Of course, you could always give this fella some support: