What becomes of the disenfranchised?

On May 7th  2015, our country will go to the polls to elect our next government. As I have related in a previous post [1], thanks to my Grandfather, I have always considered it important to exercise my democratic right to vote. The Catechism of the Catholic Church impresses upon the faithful the importance of making informed decisions with regards to politics where it suggests "by reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God's will... It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are closely associated that these may always be effected and grow according to Christ and maybe to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer." [2]

As with most major elections, the Bishops Conference of England and Wales have released a letter [3] which it believes highlights the most pressing issues for Catholics. Though I  have found some previous letters poorly veiled attempts to support a particular party (Tony Blair's New Labour for example) or lacking in a fully Catholic vision, this year I think it's balanced, helpful and prescient. The headings alone match most of my concerns for this election: Respecting life, Supporting marriage and family life; alleviating poverty, Educating for the good of all, Building communities, Caring for the world.

Despite my best intentions to vote in a positive manner I still feel disenfranchised by the British political system. If anything, the feelings of alienation from and ambivalence towards the prevailing culture have worsened since the European elections as the political classes continue to enact policies and make decisions which undermine the moral fabric of society, run contrary to social justice and threaten religious freedom. The rejection of the Abortion (Sex-Selection) Bill, derailed because abortion is a seemingly untouchable bastion of the existing liberal consensus, revealed to me the truly duplicitous nature of British politics. The Bill would not have altered the law but clarified that the sex of a child could not be a contributing factor to any of the criteria required for a an abortion. Among the spurious reasons given for voting against the Bill, MPs suggested that it would risk criminalising women who were being pressured to seek a sex selective abortion and that the terminology conferred "personhood on the foetus" even though the term "baby" is already present in the existing legislation. So called feminists should be particularly ashamed of their failure to vote for the Bill as female children are disproportionately affected by the issue. Is abortion really the lynch pin for all that "feminists" hope to achieve? 

I believe that the primary responsibilities of government are to promote virtue and enact policies which promote the cohesion and stability of society. Virtue is most effectively encouraged in the family and for this reason, society should be built upon family and families should be placed at the center of governmental strategy. This does not mean that individuals have no place in society, that their voices should remain unheard or that they should not be cared for - on the contrary, they will be better served by a society in which respecting individuals is part of the moral and social fabric. Society has a duty of care to to all it's members but this is particularly true for the poorest and most vulnerable. 

In the lead up to the previous General Election, I agreed that in order to tackle the government deficit which had steadily been accrued by the irresponsible spending of the previous Labour government, some form of austerity would be required. In addition, recognising that some of this debt was necessary to protect the country from the impact of the financial crisis precipitated by the selfish and greedy actions of businesses and banks, I hoped that the new government would seek to promote more ethical practices throughout the sector which would ensure greater fiscal and social responsibility. Additionally, with personal UK debt standing at over one trillion pounds, I wanted the government to do more to dissuade people from going into debt and to ensure that those that did were not held to ransom by banks and lenders. Five years on, the promises of the Conservative and Liberal Coalition on debt management have not been entirely met and I believe that the austerity measures disproportionately affected many of the most vulnerable in society.

Given the issues which matter to me the most, I cannot in good conscience vote for any particularly party. The Conservatives appear to be under the sway of vested economic interests and the Labour party appears to be fiscally irresponsible, forever keeping us in a spiral of boom and bust as it spends money we don't have, waiting for the next government to take the unpopular decisions required to redeem the country's finances. All the major parties have long supported the progressive liberal social agenda which is so antithetical to the Christian understanding of the dignity of the human person whilst the Green party manifesto reads like something from a distopian novel. Despite their protestations, UKIP are a rather one dimensional party which attracts some of the more unsavory elements of British society. There is nothing inherently racist in opposing immigration but many of those who claim to support UKIP do so precisely for that reason. I am personally not against immigration but I would like more confidence in the system if only to ensure that those people we welcome into our country intend to do us no harm. As an affluent country, I believe we have a duty to give aid our international brothers and sisters so UKIP's promise to cut the UK’s foreign aid budget by two-thirds strikes me inhumane as some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world depend on the UK for food, medicine and education.

As I could not bring myself to vote for a particular party, I decided that I would be willing to vote for a local candidate if I thought they would represent my concerns in parliament. I therefore emailed (details below) the candidates for Swansea West for the Conservative, Liberal, UKIP Green and Plaid Cymru parties to see if I could give my vote to one of them (I didn't bother with Geraint Davies our current Labour MP as his voting record is exceedingly poor). Unfortunately, not one of the candidates has replied to my email. 

I hope one day to be sufficiently convinced of the qualities of an individual or party to be able to vote for them but until a party or movement emerges which is brave enough to take on the liberal hegemony, I am set to continue the time honoured practice of spoiling my vote.

Email to Candidates
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Dear XXX,

I believe that it important to use our right to vote in an informed and considered manner. Despite this belief however, I have long felt felt alienated by the British political system and its parties and therefore am inclined to register this dissatisfaction with a spoiled vote. As I feel unable to give positive assent to a particular party, I am willing to consider voting for an individual candidate based on their own convictions. In order to help me decide whether or not to vote for you in the upcoming election, please could you answer the following questions:

1) Had you been an MP in the previous parliamentary term, how would you have voted on


a) Abortion (Sex-Selection) Bill - http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2014-15/abortionsexselection.html
b) Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Mitochondrial Donation) Regulations 2015 - http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2015/february/commons-debate-statutory-instrument-on-mitochondrial-donation/
c) Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 - http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2012-13/marriagesamesexcouplesbill.html


2) If elected to parliament, how would you vote on the Assisted Dying Bill (http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2014-15/assisteddying.html), if it were to be presented?

Kind Regards,

Luke O'Sullivan

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[1] http://lucascambrensis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/spoiling-for-vote.html
[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 898
[3] http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/content/download/54629/421861/file/elect15-bps-letter.pdf

Spoiling for a vote

Today I exercised my democratic right by spoiling my vote for the elections to the European Parliament. To register my disapproval, I chose to adorn my ballot with a picture of R2D2 and C3PO and the caption "these aren't the candidates we're looking for". I have long since felt disenfranchised by the British political system and I feel little enthusiasm for the European Union.

With regards to Europe, I have no problem with immigration, especially for humanitarian purposes, provided there is a robust screening process which protects our country from people who would seek to harm it. Indeed, I think many European countries have a better social structure than Britain and I have the faint hope that they might help improve our own. I don't see however why any British sovereignty should be held by Brussels - the larger an institution, the more bureaucracy and inertia it creates. I might feel different if I thought the ruling powers of Europe were better than our own but, from what little I have read, that doesn't seem to be the case.

I find your lack of faith disturbing

The importance of voting was drummed into by my grandfather to whom the right to take part in a democracy seemed intrinsically linked with the sacrifices of the two world wars. I suspect this is the case for most of my grandfather's generation, especially as one considers than universal suffrage would have been a new phenomenon for their parents.

My voting habits will always be informed by my faith for as the Catechism suggests, "by reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God's will... It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are closely associated that these may always be effected and grow according to Christ and maybe to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer." [1]

As a consequence, issues of social justice, religious freedom and morality are of greater importance to me than the economy, though I recognise that the latter often has direct consequences to the former. When I was first able to vote, despite some reservations, the Conservative Party seemed to be the closest match to my conservative social tendencies but voting in such a fashion in a first past the post electoral system is an exercise in futility in South Wales. 

In the present, all the mainstream political parties ascribe to the liberal social and moral juggernaut which inexorably quashes opposition thought if not yet quite by de jure then certainly de facto. The family, the bedrock of society, has been economically and ontologically undermined by successive Labour and Conservative governments, religious freedoms fall foul to so-called equality legislation and faith itself is being forced to resign from the public sphere. If the liberal elite have any courage in their convictions, logic dictates that they must confront religious beliefs at odds with their own not just in public but also Church, Mosque, Synagogue and Temple. Liberality should work both ways but many who march under it's banner only seem interested in taking what they can, while they can, actively seeking confrontation, rejoicing when another opposition voice is forced into silence. Such people would do well to remember the advise of Plato "the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery [arises] out of the most extreme liberty".

It's the economy stupid

Personally, I feel that the greatest single contributing economic factor to the current social malaise is exorbitant house and rent prices. The exponential growth of the cost of housing in proportion to the average wage is a social evil. It ties up the majority of our country's earnings in the hands of a few interested parties (mortgage lenders, banks, estate agents, property portfolios) and perpetuates their strangle hold over society. High housing costs locks up capital which would otherwise be spent across a wide variety of industries, thus increasing commerce, creating demand and consequently more job opportunities. It puts greater pressure on the state to provide benefits for those struggling to afford to keep a home of their own, it forces both parents to work to the detriment of family life and also impinges on the quality time they have to spend with one another.

To my mind, a narrow focus on the economy with little consideration for ethics, is leading the country to ruin. We appear to be stuck in an endless cycle of boom and bust, perpetuated by a moribund political system and established elite: Labour get elected and spend money in a completely irresponsible manner; the Conservatives get elected and then enact sometimes draconian cuts which favour their traditional support base. Successive generations of those caught between an ever diminishing political spectrum are alienated during each round of voting and history repeats itself. The result I fear shall be a larger, more desperate and radical body with no natural political home.

To whom shall we go?

Thus we have a conundrum : Men must be governed. Often not wisely, I will grant you, but governed nonetheless. [2] Politics, as a rule, is one of my least favourite topics. I find it very difficult to watch Question Time and debates from the House of Commons, saturated as they are with brinksmanship, points scoring and waffle. I can therefore offer very little by way of alternative suggestions to governance which might dissuade me of my apathy and cure our social ills. In an ideal world, we would be governed by just men and women who took decisions based on what was right and not politically expedient but such dreams are pure fantasy. I wonder if rule by Privy Council was that dissimilar in outcome from our current democracy? Perhaps Churchill was right, the best we can say about democracy is that "it is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried".

And yet, through our vocation to participate fully in the Kingdom of God in temporal affairs, we are called to exercise God's own authority, delegated to us according to the capacities of our own nature. "The way God acts in governing the world, which bears witness to such great regard for human freedom, should inspire the wisdom of those who govern human communities. They should behave as ministers of divine providence." In this regard, I do not envy our politicians! 

Man, as a political animal, is bound to be restless. As St Augustine says however, "Our hearts are restless, until they rest in God". 

[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 898

[2] Captain Jack Aubrey, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, 2003

[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1884