Voting... why bother?

If you don't vote in elections because you feel that your vote won't make a difference, please think again!

In the 2017 General Election (GE) some 12,878,460 people (40% of the vote) supported Labour candidates, whilst the Conservatives gained 13,669,883 votes - just 791,423 more than did Labour - which, due to the FPPT voting system in the UK, resulted in 55 more Tory MPs (317) than Labour MPs (262).

Stats chart by Awake the Dragon

Interestingly, at least for numbers geeks like me, if you divide the total number of votes for each of the two main parties by the number of MPs elected for each of the two main parties this is the result:

• Tory 13,669,883 votes / 317 seats = 43,122 average votes per elected MP
• Labour 12,878,460 votes / 262 seats = 49,154 average votes per elected MP

So, nationally, it could be said that each Labour MP speaks for more Labour voters than does each Tory MP for Tory voters!

However, the turnout for the 2017 GE was 32,203,481 voters, equating to 68.8% of the registered electorate of 46,807,385. This means that 14,603,904 people on the electoral register did not vote. That non-voting figure is larger than the number of voters who voted for either the Tory or the Labour party, so those votes can and would make a difference.  Add onto that the number of people eligible to vote but who are not on the electoral register, which is thought to be around a further 4 million people, and you see a different picture of voter power.

Stats chart by Awake the Dragon

What conclusion might we draw from the figures above? Clearly, that governments are elected not by a majority of the voting age population, but by a majority of the population who bothers to vote. For those who say that voting changes nothing, the figures would indicate otherwise, as if the 20 million people who were eligible to vote on 8th June 2017 had done so, the country might not be enduring yet another austerity driven government benefiting the privileged few and causing hardship and harm to many. The message really is, "EVERY VOTE COUNTS!"

To make sure that you have and keep your eligibility to vote at future elections, please make sure you are on the electoral register. See here for how: https://www.gov.uk/browse/citizenship/voting - don't put it off. There is supposed to be a fixed five year term between General Elections but, as we saw in June 2017, things can change resulting in an early GE, especially with the uncertainty of the DUP continuing to prop up the Tory government if the Irish border / BREXIT issue causes a rift.

Should Jeremy Corbyn worry about not getting the GMB endorsement?

One of today's big stories is that the GMB union has endorsed Owen Smith for Labour leader in this year's leadership contest, as against no endorsement by them last year. I can partially understand the decision, as GMB represents Trident workers and Owen is pro-Trident renewal whilst Jeremy is anti-Trident renewal, so there is some protecting of their interests involved, but that ignores the fact that keeping Trident is still currently national Labour Party policy and that at its annual GMB congress earlier this year the union called for "clear and unambiguous" support for Mr Corbyn.

It does seem that the buzz about how good having the GMB's support, as one of the UK's biggest unions, is a bit disingenuous given that of the GMB's massive 641,000 members only 43,419 of them voted in the endorsement ballot (i.e. 6.77% of the GMB membership). Of those 43,419 members the 60% who voted for Owen represent 26,051 members, which as a percentage of the total is just 4.06% of the whole GMB membership, which might just take the gloss off the gingerbread slightly. Ballot figures are as given in the BBC News story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37026145

Meanwhile, there are multiple reports on social media by GMB members who are asking, "what ballot?" as they claim they have not been asked at all, as some of the examples below show:

@GMB_union As a member I haven't received a ballot paper or been consulted on who the Union will back in Labour Leadership race @Tim_Roache

— rob kelsall (@rob_kelsall) August 10, 2016

@rob_kelsall @Rachael_Swindon @GMB_union @Tim_Roache neither has my Hubby..been a fully paid up member for 47yrs

— Christine Taylor. (@Malchris1954) August 10, 2016

@rob_kelsall @GMB_union @Tim_Roache Same here. First I heard was an email about the results, so it's not as though I wasn't contactable.

— ABAC (@AintBigAintClev) August 10, 2016

@rob_kelsall @GMB_union @Tim_Roache me neither! What the hell is going on here???

— Jack Nimrod (@jacknimrod1) August 10, 2016

@ChrisCr711 @caerdyddhome @bentos_j @NEWTEKWORLDNEWS We were not balloted only selected group GMB leadership fix disgraceful disreputable

— Colin J Smart (@colinsmartone) August 10, 2016

@rob_kelsall @GMB_union @Tim_Roache glad I'm not the only one, first I've heard about this vote was today via social media, not good advert

— Ian Hawthorne (@IanHawthorne8) August 10, 2016

Tim Roache, GMB's General Secretary, took to Twitter to refute the claims and to assert all GMB members were balloted:

No. Over 40,000 VOTED. ALL GMB members were asked. The response rate is down to individuals like any other ballot https://t.co/O2n0gpXpeI

— Tim Roache GMB (@Tim_Roache) August 10, 2016

But members in Scotland were excluded from the ballot (has the GMB written off Labour in Scotland?) as this article on the GMB website shows, whilst NewTekWorldNews claims that ​Scotland didn't want to participate in the nominations process.

Regardless of how the ballot was conducted, one thing that did come out of the various figures being bandied about today was that the GMB has only around 30,000 members paying the political levy as part of their membership, so they will be the ones who can actually vote in the leadership election itself once ballot forms are sent out from 22nd August, but will they and, crucially, for whom?