Scotland deserves so much better than what is on offer at UK election

Before I moved to Scotland, I certainly had an interest in politics, but I wasn’t ever excited by it.

I was a card-carrying member of the Labour Party, but I was never anything more than just a card-carrier. The only election I ever voted in in my hometown was a local council election but, despite it being my first vote, I didn’t feel inspired or empowered by carrying out my democratic duty. Quite the opposite in fact.

I lived in one of the most marginal Liberal Democrat/Tory constituencies in the country, so tactical voting always felt absolutely critical. I didn’t feel like I was voting for what I believed in, rather just voting how I had to in order to keep the Tories from victory.

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The issue fundamentally stemmed from the nearly universal use of first past the post in all English elections – even council elections in multi-member wards.

As someone who supported neither the Tories nor the LibDems, but who recognised the real need to do whatever I had to do to stop the Tories, I felt I had no choice but to vote for the least-worst option rather than an option I felt genuinely passionate about.

Engaging in the democratic process felt actively disempowering – if you feel like you have no choice but to vote in a certain way despite not actually wanting to, how can that be democratic?

There are only two countries in Europe which still use first past the post as their primary voting system for national parliaments – the UK is one, and Belarus, aka “Europe’s last dictatorship”, is the other.

All other countries in Europe – and the majority globally – use some degree of proportionality in their voting systems, and when I moved to Scotland, I quickly discovered that Scotland mostly did too.

With single transferable voting used for council elections, and the additional member system used for Scottish Parliament elections, voters in Scotland can worry less about voting tactically and are more empowered to vote for what we really believe in. Neither system is perfect, with both having different flaws which drastically decrease their proportionality, but both are significant improvements on the deeply undemocratic first past the post.

I joined the Scottish Greens not long after moving to Scotland, and although I’ve not always been able to vote for them as my preferred choice in the few instances where the high cost of deposits has prevented the party (which unlike others isn’t backed by millionaire donors) from standing, I’ve still usually felt empowered at the polls when voting in Scotland.

It’s not to say that our elections don’t all involve some degree of tactical voting, and it’s not to say that toxic narratives from politicians trying to win your vote at these elections are nowhere to be seen.

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However, with more proportional voting systems the chances are far higher of your vote either translating into an elected representative, or sending a clear message to those elected instead. It’s a healthier, fairer way of doing politics. Scottish politics is far from a utopia though, and especially with a first-past-the-post Westminster election on the horizon this year, all of the most toxic narratives and bunfights are right at the forefront, showcasing the very worst of our politics.

One of Scottish Labour’s core messages this General Election is that Scottish voters should vote Labour to ensure Scotland is included as part of a future UK Labour government – but this argument sits deeply uncomfortably with me, with the suggestion that Scotland can only ever have a voice in government if we vote in line with England.

That’s not democracy. It’s peak pork barrel politics and it goes only to show the deep democratic deficit Scotland faces as part of the UK.

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Another such message is the idea that Scotland must vote Labour to ensure a big enough swing to take the Tories out of government – but this too holds up to very little scrutiny. It may well turn out that Scotland could be essential to a Labour majority, but with the SNP being the second-place party in every Tory constituency in Scotland, it’s pretty clear that Labour’s plea to Scots to vote Labour to boot the Tories out of government is a plea rooted in rhetoric rather than fact.

I’m tired of the disingenuous politics, with politicians fighting it out with mudslinging and hot air rather than offering genuine policy proposals and debating them like adults.

The SNP are quick to call Labour “red Tories”, while Humza Yousaf breaks bread with Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brian Souter and delivers devastating cuts to public services.

Labour are quick to call the SNP “tartan Tories” while Keir Starmer U-turns on every progressive pledge he’s ever committed to. No party can pretend to occupy the moral high ground.

I’ve written before about how the SNP and Labour have far more in common than either would like to admit, and this continues to be true in the run-up to the General Election.

First-past-the-post elections bring out the worst in our politicians, moving the narratives away from the real-life issues faced by ordinary people and onto tactics and rhetoric.

In the polling booth, voters shouldn’t have to tactically calculate which least-worst candidate they should vote for in order to prevent a worse party from forming a government – they should be able to look at the policies and records of all parties standing and vote for what they genuinely believe in.

Ultimately, even in a first-past-the-post election like those at Westminster, every vote matters and every vote sends a message, even if it doesn’t directly translate into an elected representative.

The SNP and Labour shouldn’t be taking any votes for granted, but rhetoric and bunfights with each other will do little to convince anyone. Scotland’s electorate deserves so much better than this, and so much better than this broken Westminster “democracy”.