COUNCILBUSTING

Rachel Charman on why the people of Southend should “fiercely” interact with local politics.

James Harrod asked me to write a piece for Longpier’s relaunch on ‘something to do with local politics or maybe what you’d like to see change in Southend.’ I decided to combine the two, as that’s what Councilbust is for, and that’s what I do.

My knee-jerk reaction was to write a piece about why Southenders should topple the Tory supremacy in Southend; as a natural Labour voter, you can’t blame me for that (and, journalistically, I’m under no obligation to be impartial; I’m not the BBC, so please don’t write in and complain). Roughly 3.5 seconds later, I realised that an article like that would be (a) patronising, (b) potentially offensive, and (c) a short exercise in pissing in the wind. Southend is a Tory town, with two Tory MPs. In fact, Southend hasn’t had an MP that wasn’t Tory since 1906 (that was Rowland Whitehead, if you’re wondering). Telling everyone how lovely and cuddly the Labour party is will not alter their core values or belief systems.

So, with that in mind, I switched to something that wouldn’t alienate the majority of Southend’s registered voters, and that’s how we do politics. I’m not talking about the system itself, which is relatively fair, democratic and effective, or the much-publicised abuse of the system, which is changing anyway, but politics as a whole; meaning the engagement of the people. Let’s start with the most obvious form: voting.

A friend of mine spent election day volunteering for a local political party, helping to get out the vote. That means knocking on the doors of people who have previously said they would vote for the party, and reminding them to actually go and do it. An alarming number of women answered the door and said, “Oh no, dear, I’m not voting, but my husband is.” I don’t think I need to point out how utterly ridiculous that is, but it is symptomatic of the lack of engagement our political system suffers from.

In Southend West, turnout was 65.6%. In Rochford and Southend East, turnout was 58.6%. Across our town, at least 34% of the electorate did not cast their vote. That means that in every ten people, roughly four didn’t make it to the ballot box. You might say that under the current first-past-the-post system, those four-in-ten see no point in turning out to vote. If that’s the case, though, you can do more to engage with politics than simply casting your vote.

You can, of course, actually stand for election, locally or nationally. If you don’t like the way the borough is being run, there are 17 different wards to stand in as a councillor. Whilst I have no beef with any particular councillors in Southend, I find it dismaying to look around the council chamber and see that three-quarters of the representatives there are male, only two are black or Asian, and only one is openly gay. The overwhelming majority of councillors are over the age of 40 too. Now, I’m not saying someone’s ethnic minority, gender or age affects their ability to represent their community, but I do think that this lack of diversity on the Council shows a lack of engagement in the whole system from young people, women, and the BME population.

Understanding of the system itself is also quite poor, considering the amount of publicity it gets. Many people I have spoken to did not know the difference between what their MP does and what the Council does, and how the two have nothing to do with each other. They also did not understand that some projects implemented by the Council in Southend are the Council’s decision, and some are initiatives from central government, which the Council has no choice but to implement. I heard one Conservative councillor remarking that the Southend Tories brought in free swimming for the over 65s. I think that’s quite misleading, considering that it was actually a national initiative brought in by the Labour government. Better understanding of how the system works would help voters themselves both hold politicians to account, and choose politicians with their best interest at heart.

There’s just one thing that I don’t get about all of this, and that is that Southend is a politically active town, full of people who are out to work with each other to improve life. There is so much debate about politics in Southend, on here, in the Echo, and on Councilbust. There are so many people working together in community organisations like the Milton Community Partnership, Turning Tides and the various residents associations, or campaigning for a cause, like SKIPP or SAEN. People may not realise that what they are doing is political. Whilst it may not be party-political, talking about how to bring down crime, improve public services and better educate young people is raw, neat politics itself. What I would like to see in Southend is that fierce interest in the way our town is run and the way we interact with each other channelled towards the system and used to make a more participatory, representative politics. I only hope that the cobbled-together victory of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats helps to galvanize the electorate into making that happen.