Taking a walk on the mild side…

Last Thursday, 3,000 people went to the polls in Blackwall & Cubitt Town (BCT), to vote in a by-election. On Saturday, some 600 people marched through Tower Hamlets to protest against government funding cuts to GP surgeries. It’s a contemporary reminder of the old debate: how do we effect political change – by protest or by the ballot box?

There they are! Three Labour councillors wait for their members to turn up (two members and an MP were lurking elsewhere in the park).

There’s a joke on the left and in progressive groups: if there’s a demo coming up, your first step is to get enough people there to carry the banner. Labour did manage to get enough people there to carry the banner – there were at least six Labour Party members in Altab Ali Park, where the demo started – but they didn’t seem to have brought their banner, so there was no carrying to be done.

A group of Tower Hamlets First campaigners.

Tower Hamlets First were also there in number, but they don’t seem to have a banner, so they were not that visible.

The Green Party came out well, with its own banner and enough people to carry it. However, the out and out winners on the visibility stakes were the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) –who, as demonstration-goers know, invest heavily in branded placards – and Save Our Surgeries, who were handing out pretty little placards to anyone who didn’t have an SWP one.

How different it had been that few days earlier at the BCT by-election. There was a 31% turnout in the by-election – substantially down from the 48% turnout in the recent mayoral election. In other words, some 3,000 people came out to vote – perhaps six times more than came out for the Save Our Surgeries demonstration.

Labour had pounded the streets in BCT several times a week since the new year. Their candidates secured between 872 and 956 votes. That’s an average of 901 votes each – with an electorate of 9,193 that means that the two successful candidates were elected on the basis of the votes of 10% of the electorate.

Incidentally, when Lutfur Rahman was first elected mayor in Tower Hamlets in October 2010, his 23,283 votes represented 13% of the electorate. Labour always rubbished that result as totally not representative and not representing a mandate: they may need to think again on that one.

The average vote the Tories received was 818 and of Tower Hamlets First was 728. What that really means is that there is a massive anti-Tory majority of two to one. That anti-Tory majority is irrelevant while Labour persists in banishing Tower Hamlets First and may not survive the occupants of the next round of development in the ward joining the electoral register.

However, the smaller parties fared abysmally. The Greens secured around 100 votes. The SWP doesn’t stand in elections, so there is no direct comparison with the demonstration tactic here, but the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) stood. TUSC had fielded candidates in the scheduled elections in June and in some wards the handfuls of votes they picked up may have decided who won. In the BCT by-election, the two TUSC candidates (and the one independent) received eleven votes. Given that they needed ten voters to sign their nomination papers, the weeks of campaigning netted these three candidates one single voter each. This should be final and conclusive proof that standing in elections is pointless for these smaller parties – at least the ones to the left of Labour. However, hope will probably triumph over experience the next time nominations open.

Few demonstrations reverse government policy on their own: but the SWP seems to regard them as an end in itself; and the other small parties or non-aligned individuals seem to regard them as the pinnacle of campaigning activity. Elections often change the policy landscape and more people get involved in them than in demonstrations: but how do you influence what elected representatives do in between elections? One way to do this would be to join the political parties and push them to adopt the policies you want and hold the elected representatives to account. That may take more time and effort than going out to vote or even than going out on a demonstration, but it may be a great deal more successful.