The problem is alienation, not apathy - The Guardian
Labour's traditional voters feel their concerns are being ignored
There are lots of theories about low turnouts in elections. Pundits and politicians speak confidently about apathy, results being a foregone conclusion, cynicism generated by media coverage and out-of-date voting facilities. So when fewer than half of those eligible in my constituency of Barking chose to vote at the last general election, I decided to dig deeper.
Barking is one of Labour's core seats. It is the 24th most deprived area in Britain, with the lowest take-home earnings in London. It has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the country and one in three households live in social housing. But it has benefited from a Labour government. Standards in our primary schools are dramatically better. Child benefit, the working family tax credit and the minimum wage have all raised family incomes. So why did voters stay at home?
With the help of Deborah Mattinson of Opinion Leader Research, we ran focus groups and a telephone survey, talking to people who had voted in 1997 but not in 2001, as well as those who had never voted. We concentrated on women with young children, but we also talked to men to see whether their views differed significantly.
The people we spoke to were not apathetic. They were not disengaged from political issues. They were passionate, clear and angry about their issues and the impact they had on their daily lives. But they believed that their concerns were not seen as important to the political class.
They felt unrepresented and disengaged from the politicians. For many the decision not to vote was the only way of expressing their frustration. In the words of one woman: "If enough people don't vote, they may start thinking - hang on, maybe we ought to change the way we've been doing things."
Issues in a Labour area like Barking are different from those that appear crucial in middle England. Poor housing has the biggest impact on the lives of the people we spoke to, but it is perceived as having disappeared from thenational agenda.
Although there was some feeling that schools had got better, the lack of facilities for young people, the lack of open spaces for play, the arrival of a considerable number of asylum seekers and the breakdown of community networks all combined to make voters feel that the quality of their lives was awful and nothing had changed since Labour came to office.
Their anger was heightened by the optimism some had felt in 1997 and their subsequent disappointment. In the words of one woman: "The small fish that understand people like us forget us as they go up. Once they've got their big wage and their house, they don't care about everybody that they've left behind."
This wasn't apathy. Nearly two-thirds believed politics did affect their lives. Some 60 per cent agreed with the statement: "I've got ideas on how things should be improved in my area and I'd do something if it was possible for people like me to get involved in politics." These non-voters expressed anger, but they were full of positive ideas about what should be changed. They just felt that nobody with power listened to them.
So how can we bridge the divide which has grown between the voters and the political class - local and national politicians, journalists and media pundits? We must start listening to what people are actually saying, not what we want to believe they are saying. We need to work with people from where they're at and not from where we want them to be.
That means relocating the political emphasis away from Westminster. People relate to politics through their everyday lives. An extra 10,000 teachers or 20,000 nurses matter to the Westminster village, but they don't touch the people of Barking. It's not about disaggregating national statistics to the local level. It's about locating national policies in the local context and responding to different priorities. We should experiment with new ways of involving the public in the business of government: local citizens' juries, surveys and questionnaires, consultation when people use a public service.
It would be wrong to ascribe low voter turnout to apathy. But even the most innovative changes to voting practices will not bring people back to the ballot box. It is we who need to change. We ignore the messages at our peril. We need to listen to the words of one participant in our survey who voted in 1997 but stayed away in 2001: "Coming in here and speaking to you ... I'll be going on and on because it makes you so angry to talk about it and there's nothing you can do about it." If we fail to respond to that voice in what we do and how we do it we could find even fewer people will bother to vote next time.
Margaret Hodge is Labour MP for Barking and higher education minister.
