A general election is coming – the left must keep its focus on marginalised voters
With the prorogation of parliament, and the government set on a no-deal Brexit, it’s easy to feel powerless. And yet this is not the time to feel helpless. A general election may have stalled but one is inevitably on its way. Those of us who wish to remove Boris Johnson and his hard-right ilk from power will need to organise with laser focus, not only setting out an inspiring vision for a fairer society but targeting its message to reach the public.
There is no better place to start than promoting voter registration. Progressive parties traditionally benefit from high turnout and the signs are already promising. More than 100,000 people applied to register to vote last week, with young people making up the bulk of the surge.
It’s widely understood that Labour was helped by an increased youth vote in the 2017 general election but it is important not to get complacent. Some academics point to the minimal impact it ultimately had on the result – describing
it as more of a “ripple than an earthquake” – while turnout is still at a much higher rate among older voters.
Still, if enough young voters are registered and marshalled, they could make a significant impact in marginal seats with large student populations. Momentum is rightly already developing a strategy here, focusing on a target list including Johnson’s own constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Non-partisan groups such as the National Union of Students are also mobilising. This week, it launched a voter-registration campaign in partnership with the Electoral Commission and will be visible at campus “welcome weeks” around the country, as well as on social media.
But while young voters rightly get attention, we must be careful not to ignore other groups. As University of Sheffield academic Matthew Flinders has pointed out, low turnout is a problem for British democracy but the real concern is the growing inequality in that turnout, and that goes for more than age.
Take wealth. At the 2010 general election, there was a staggering 23 percentage point gap between the turnout of the richest and poorest income groups. In the 2017 Brexit-fuelled general election, both the Conservatives and Labour increased their support from low-income groups but the inequality in engagement continued. For example, only 6% of the richest fifth said they did not support any party but that increased to nearly a quarter (24%) of the poorest fifth.
Electioneers will often say few things are harder than converting nonvoters – who feel they don’t have a stake in politics – to voters, but Labour must take on this challenge, reaching those who feel excluded from the political process, and listening and engaging
with them.
Some of this requires more practical steps. For example, parliamentary research shows that some ethnic minority groups believe (often wrongly) that they are not entitled to be registered to vote. And according to the charity Mencap, only one third of people with learning disabilities in the UK vote,but it estimates that one million prospective voters could be reached if political parties produced their manifestos in “easy read” formats. Two thirds of polling stations had “one or more significant access barriers” to disabled voters at the 2010 election, according to charity Scope and it’s thought that there’s been little progress since. Voter drives launched in the coming weeks must include improving provision for disabled voters – from tactile voting devices for blind voters to a loop system for hearing aids – and promote registering for postal voting for those who struggle to make it out of the house.
While the media and MPs convulse in anticipation of an upcoming election, large sections of the public remain increasingly disengaged. Others, by simple virtue of their class, disability, age or race are cut off. That these are the very people most damaged by a decade of Tory governments should not go unnoticed.
All this means that it is not only in Labour’s interest to get the public ready for the polls, but it’s the party’s duty too. Democratic engagement that puts marginalised groups at the centre of policy will be at the heart of rebuilding a fragmented society. It’s often said that a coming election will be a once in a lifetime battle to decide the future of the country, but this time it is not an exaggeration. When it comes, the election will decide our place in Europe as well as domestic issues, such as the housing crisis and a demolished NHS, climate change and affect the growing threat of the far right. Parliament may be suspended but galvanising the vote can start now. The best way to win is to be ready to fight.
• Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist and author of Crippled: Austerity and the Demonisation of Disabled People. You can register to vote at gov.uk/register-to-vote
At the 2010 election, there was a 23 percentage point gap between the turnout of the richest and poorest income groups