Nottingham witholds its vote

According to the Nottingham Post and Nottingham City Council, the big news is that Nottingham has voted 'No' to having an elected Mayor. However, only 23.9% of people voted overall, a figure that sank to as low as 8.5% in the Arboretum ward. Isn't the real story here that the political system is disconnected from 76.1% of people in Nottingham?

After a desperate campaign by Jon Collins to cling onto power, including scare leaflets being handed out in ethnic minority neighbourhoods, Labour anti-Mayor leaflets being sent out to everyone in the city, and local Labour MPs having last minute conversions to the anti-Mayor cause, they have got what they wanted. We will continue to be ruled by Jon Collins, a leader selected by the local Labour party, not the electorate. Technically speaking, they're off the hook.

But there is a real crisis bubbling away under the surface. The campaigning around the issue of the Mayor brought the bubbling resentments of Nottingham people to the fore. In a totally Labour dominated city (50 Labour councillors with an opposition of just 5 Tories), the Labour candidate nearly always wins. In mmost areas, whoever the local party select as their candidate is guaranteed to be selected. Elections are just a formality. And even if you do manage to elect someone else, they will have no ability to change policy within the Council at large, given the enormous Labour majority. This has inevitably contributed to the enormous sense of disenchantment with the political process that results in such high abstention rates.

But it's not just the Nottingham political landscape that is a problem. Over the past few decades the politics of the big parties have become increasingly homogeneous, dictated more by the needs of neoliberal global capitalism than by any engagement with the interests of their supporters. Whoever you vote for, the capitalist system wins. Given that this system has far more impact on our lives than any of the window dressing with policies parties engage in, it's unsurprising increasing numbers of people are choosing not to engage with the charade of democracy.

So, Jon Collins continues to have a disproportionate say in how our lives work, not because we want him to, but simply because more of the minority who are still engaged in the political process (13.7% of people in the city) don't want change than those who do.

Whether we have a Leader of the Council or a Mayor, we still have almost no say in most important decisions about how the city works and still less in how the country and the world works. I think it's time we started stripping power away from these unrepresentative politicians and involving everyone in the decision-making process.