Time and again we are asked to trundle down to the polling station and choose between a couple of carbon-copy candidates from the lets-accommodate-big-business party. They campaign with near-identical policies on issues that bare bugger all relevance to ninety nine per cent of people, while ignoring the issues that have communities by the throat. Enough, is surely enough.

Be it local government or general elections, the story is the same. The politicians we get carry on as they please, discarding election promises while ignoring their complete lack of legitimacy.

The ‘popular landslide’ of Labour’s 1997 election victory was not supported by over two thirds of Britons eligible to vote. In West Bristol Labour’s MP (Valerie Davey) rode in on a quarter of possible votes. In 1999, not one of the councillors elected for Ashley or Easton wards polled more than 19 per cent of the electorate – hardly a democratic mandate to rule.

On May 3rd Bristol will yet again be chided to get it’s backside down to the school halls in order to sanction one, or other, of a bunch of power seeking, exclusively white-skinned, soundalikes. If recent turnout trends keep on track, two out of every three of us entitled to vote won’t bother. After all, is there any real point in skipping Cory to ‘X’ a box in favour of a slap in the face, over a kick in the teeth? Exactly.

That is... until now. This May, instead of not voting, why not vote for nobody. After all, nobody cares about what you think, nobody will make a difference in your community, nobody will stick by those manifesto pledges, nobody will salvage the NHS, the schools....... you get the picture. The idea is not just to make a mockery out of the election (though that is obviously part of it), but if we can produce more spoiled ballot papers with ‘Nobody’ scrawled across them than the official winning candidate - then Nobody gets in and nobody has a mandate to push their version of big business-friendly / community-bashing policies through.

Can we take on the Blairite loyalists for his seat in the big-house? Maybe/maybe not. We can however, take on local government. In Bristol, Nobody is targeting Ashley (St Pauls, Montpelier, St Werburghs, bit of St Andrews) and Easton (Easton, Greenbank, Whitehall, Moorfields, Netham) wards. Trevor Riddlestone (Lib Dem) secured his soon-to-be-contested Ashley seat in May ‘99 with 1147 votes - that’s 13.5 per cent of the ward’s electorate (Muriel Cole’s Easton seat was won with a similar 1410 votes/17 per cent of the electorate).

If more people go to the ballots on May 3rd and spoil their paper with a Nobody/None of the Above vote than vote for the winning candidate, we will declare the victory illegitimate, and the ward in question an autonomous zone. We will then be free to set up popular local assemblies, overturn central/local government jurisdiction, and start establishing some genuine people-driven, community-centred democracy in Nobody’s wards.

Though born in Easton and Ashley, the Nobody campaign knows no boundaries and carries no card. Wherever there is disillusionment with the sham of British electoral politics, Nobody is ready to make a stand. After all, Nobody will make a difference.

Nobody
South West of England, February 10 2001