Greetings from sunny Birmingham, where I am currently on a bus on the motorway. This is my second attempt to take advantage of the time on the journey to post about the result of the Scottish Green leadership election. I fell asleep during my first attempt (not a snide comment - I literally fell asleep), and I thought that was fate telling me to abandon the idea. But I've been moved to have a second go after seeing Stew's post on the subject. What a remarkable lack of curiosity he has. He takes endless delight in sneering about the 90% abstention rate as if it can somehow be explained entirely by a lack of enthusiasm for the candidates, seemingly without it occurring to him how phenomenally improbable that notion is.
Something very strange is happening here - members of political parties are generally far less apathetic than the public at large, not far more so. A lack of interest simply can't plausibly explain a 10% turnout. Have the Greens been massively exaggerating their membership numbers? Did they fail to adequately advertise the leadership election to members or to properly explain the voting process?
For what it's worth, although the new Greer/Mackay leadership will not resolve the Greens' biggest problem (their identity politics extremism), I think they may have marginally boosted their chances of electoral success by narrowly ousting Lorna Slater. Anecdotally, she really grated on people. I don't think that's anti-Canadianism (if such a thing exists), because there are plenty of very attractive Canadian accents, but she just comes across as very hectoring and humourless.
As for Stew's ongoing fantasies about next year's Holyrood election producing some sort of Green Armageddon, again I think that's wide of the mark. If Polanski wins the English Green leadership race and goes into an electoral pact with the Jeremy Corbyn/Zarah Sultana party, it becomes very difficult for the Scottish Greens not to consider a similar arrangement, which might actually help them prosper. My main concern would be the implications of that for their pro-independence stance.
This is the first ive heard of the 90% abstention, I haven't read wings piece.
ReplyDeleteThat's remarkable whatever the reason.
It must have been the upper middle class twit of the year compo. And they could have elected Bonzo the Chimp rather than Ross Greer. At least Bonzo wouldn't have reeked of class entitlement, would have had a similar level of shreaking, and would have been equally competent. They have found someone even worse than Lorna Bottle-Banks.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm understanding this correctly only 10% of party members voted ? Might it just be possible that members simply didn't like the candidates ?
ReplyDeleteAs it stands I'm thinking of only voting SNP on the list. Our candidate is an advanced skills numpty aspiring to an obedient place at the salary trough.
A known opponent continuing to hold the seat may do less damage to the indy cause than yet another Trojan horse inside.
Never considered this approach before and wouldn't now if our candidate was not worse than useless.
Strange days cause strange situations perhaps ?
"Might it just be possible that members simply didn't like the candidates ?"
DeleteNope. That's the point the blogpost is making. Of all the possible explanations, we can firmly rule that one out. It can't even begin to explain a 10% turnout.
Marcia
ReplyDeleteThe Turnout was 12.5% not 10%. Still extremely low.
ReplyDeleteAs a Green Party member, I only got round to voting on the Saturday, and found that the voting had closed on the Friday. I’d been working flat out for too long, and it was my first moment. I’d suggest such polls should close on a Sunday night.
ReplyDelete