Imagine this scenario: Reform UK and the Green Party are the only two options, with the result hanging on a single vote. You still haven’t marked your ballot. Not voting hands victory to the Greens. Voting Reform forces a re-vote. You choose not to vote. One year later, Muslim gangs are roaming the streets, rubber dinghies are the biggest trading export, and men in dresses and wigs are walking around smoking dope. Elections which come down to the wire are not unheralded in electoral history. Your vote is meaningful at any election.
Local council elections and some mayoral elections took place across the UK last week. Reform UK’s councillors won 1,453 seats, and now control 14 councils. Labour lost 1,496 seats; despite having a majority in Parliament, they now have very little control at a provincial level, and could be called a lame duck government. But, as satisfying as results go, the actual voter turnout overshadows this as it is worryingly low.
While voter turnout rose by 10-12% in English local councils this year, it still only ranged between 25% and 45% across all individual councils. This statistic for England’s local elections is worrying for British politics, as over half the electorate in some areas are still deciding not to vote. In Hull, the voter turnout was only 30%. Coventry reported a council-wide turnout of 26.4%, some Manchester boroughs were as low as 25%, and Cannock Chase was the lowest at 24.6%. The 2024 General Election also experienced a low turnout, certainly by national levels, as just under 60% of the electorate voted.
This voting trend has been a growing issue over past decades. Political participation in the UK has significantly decreased over the last century, particularly when looking at traditional measures like voter turnout. Peak participation at an election was in 1950 when 83.9% of the electorate voted. Between 1922 and 1997, turnout never fell below 71%. In 2001, turnout plummeted to 59.4% and never returned to peak levels.
There are many reasons for a decline in voting. Political apathy in the UK is rising, as there is a general lack of personal interest or curiosity regarding political issues. This has become a problem in politics amongst the younger generations, as their involvement in politics is dwindling. For example, 30-40% of 18-24 year-olds fail to vote and are skeptical about Westminster, with many believing democracy is rigged or that politicians are unresponsive to the public. This feeds directly into another major issue.
There is also a general lack of trust in politicians and governments, as people believe that they are no longer representing the views of the public and are not acting on their behalf. A survey conducted after the last Parliament found that 45% of the public ‘almost never’ trust governments. It also found that 78% did not trust MPs to tell the truth, while only 4% believed politicians are doing their best for the country. This disillusionment was driven by the Expenses Scandal in 2009 and the Partygate Scandal in 2019, which found that politicians breached their own ‘lockdown’ policies. And, most recently, the controversies and scandals within the current Labour government have contributed to this. A government entrusted to deliver real change, has been overshadowed and occupied with covering its own arse.
While political mistrust is high, refraining from voting surrenders decision-making powers to others. High turnout strengthens democratic legitimacy, because the government then represents a genuine majority of the population. If more people do not vote, this means that the country is relying on a small minority of the population to decide the outcome for everyone else. For example, in the UK’s 2019 general election, over 15 million registered voters did not cast a ballot, significantly shifting the political landscape.
Voting at elections also elects officials to make critical decisions on key areas which affect people locally and nationally. People have individual struggles, but choosing not to vote for the MP who would help is a self-inflicted defeat. Local elections matter most for daily life. They decide road repairs, school funding, recycling, and community policing – issues national headlines often ignore. It is crucial people vote to elect the most suitable candidate for delivering these changes.
Low turnout also dishonours the historic struggles of those who fought for the vote, from the Suffragettes to civil rights activists and working-class movements – many of whom paid with their lives. Throwing away a vote belittles one of Britain’s key political victories.
Voting and political engagement is on the decline. Governments have failed people and the electorate feel less willing to turn up at the polling station. But this is hindering democracy and legitimacy in the UK. An individual’s vote is one of the most valuable things they are entitled to. Not voting creates severe political and socio-economic risks, primarily because it shifts legislative power away from the general public and into the hands of the minority. Abstaining is never neutral – it hands your voice to someone else. Over time, this erodes democracy and leaves the country run by a shrinking minority. We know where that leads.
Jack Watson is a 17 year-old student in Year 12 at Wyke College, Hull. You can read his Substack about following Hull City FC here. Follow him on X here.
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The one glaring omission from the above analysis, is the issue of conscience. There ARE people – I’m one of them – whose conscience will not allow them to cast a vote for any of the current crop of politicians. And that for a number of reasons.
My practice is to go to the voting booth and spoil my vote – write a message(s) in every corner of the paper where I can squeeze a few words because each candidate has to be shown the spoilt papers to agree that they ARE spoilt. So, at least they are “getting the message” as to why some of us cannot possibly vote for political parties with downright evil policies – such as extending the abortion law to include newly born infants. We look back in horror at the Jewish Holocaust – but what if that had been a policy publicised, in advance? Would it have been OK to vote for that party just because they were good on employment, housing, whatever, and because it’s important to use our vote? Jack Watson says that abstaining is not neutral but neither is voting. Abstaining or spoiling a vote, however, is moral, given the intention to avoid facilitating evil. I had no hesitation in voting for Brexit. After months of discussion and debates, that came out as a clear “good” – something which would improve life for us here in the UK. There was no question of promoting any evil-doing.
In contrast, however, future generations will look back in horror at the fact that we encouraged – by our vote – the state sanctioned murder of the unborn and/or the newly born. I’ll never vote for that and if it is mistakenly interpreted as not caring about those who gave their lives for the right to vote, so be it. I doubt very much if those who gave their lives for the right to vote ever imagined that those votes would be used to promote what Pope John Paul II called “the culture of death”. That this issue (as the euthanasia issue) is seen as a minority concern, something on the side-line, speaks to the fact that the UK has lost its moral compass. Activists will fight for the right to life of convicted murderers and terrorists, while shrugging off voting for politicians who favour the murder of the unborn/newly born. That represents the total collapse of any national conscience.