1585: Taxing Polls

Did you vote today? I did, and so did Andie. I don’t actually really care all that much whether or not you did — I’m guessing you didn’t if you’re reading this from outside the UK — but it seems to be “the done thing” to ask today.

For those reading from outside the UK, it was a combination of local elections and European elections today. I don’t follow politics with any great interest, so I’m not really 100% sure what both of these elections will decide in the long term, but I do know that a significant proportion of people on the Internet were absolutely adamant that we must not vote for UKIP.

UKIP, for the uninitiated, are a party led by a sour-faced trout called Nigel Farage who are strongly in favour of, among other things, the UK’s independence from the rest of Europe. They’ve also garnered something of a reputation in recent weeks in particular for being possibly a little bit racist, maybe. Not quite as flagrantly, unashamedly racist as the British National Party (BNP), mind, but still enough to give people pause, especially if they are a member of an ethnic minority group or an immigrant themselves.

Before we go any further, I’ll note up front that I didn’t vote UKIP. I disagree with what I know of their policies, I don’t like racist attitudes and I think Nigel Farage is a twat. This site also suggested that I fundamentally disagreed with UKIP on all but three of the thirty different policies and opinions it tested, and had the greatest affinity with the Green Party, most closely followed by the Lib Dems, then after a bit of a gap, Labour and the Conservatives. I didn’t have any particularly strong feelings before taking the test, so I voted Green today. They’re one of those parties that are pretty unlikely to ever have any real power, but the way democracy is supposed to work is through you voting for the party that most closely aligns with your beliefs, right?

Anyway. Now I’ve said that, I feel I can say that the run-up to this election has been absolutely insufferable largely due to the number of smug people pointing out with great delight how they’re not going to be voting for UKIP. I saw the same “hilarious” Twitter messages that “Farage hates” being retweeted time and time again; the same Stewart Lee speech shared over and over again; the same people congratulating one another on how awesomely politically switched-on they were.

Trouble is, the stated (or implied) intent in what these people were doing — to convince other people that voting UKIP would be a bad idea — was somewhat flawed. When it comes to political views, people are pretty ill-informed (I’m a fine example) and yet pretty stubborn when it comes to which party they choose to attach themselves to. (I am less of a fine example of this latter aspect.) This means that when you proudly declare how awful UKIP are and how you wouldn’t possibly vote for them ever, and how nobody else should vote for them ever, you’re not changing anyone’s mind. If anything, all you’re doing is reinforcing your own beliefs — and those of people you know already agree with you — and causing those people who do claim to support UKIP to dig their heels in and be more determined to vote for this party you detest and despise. Meanwhile, you end up irritating the fuck out of the people who don’t feel particularly strongly one way or the other and who wish the Internet would go back to arguing about whether 1080p and 60 frames per second really matters.

I suppose I can’t really fault people for at least appearing to stand up for what they believe in — particularly in these increasingly apathetic times. I simply don’t feel that the way people have chosen to express themselves in this instance — as with so many topics that people get passionate about on the Internet — has been particularly helpful or productive.

I guess we’ll find out when we hear the results of the elections, won’t we?