WHY NOW: The crisis of our politics and democracy has never been clearer. Enough is Enough

The 2010 Election marks a new low in British Politics.

Most people find themselves in the difficult position of not knowing who to vote for or even why they should bother to vote at all.

If it seems hard to tell the difference between the policies of the major parties, it is because they all represent the same small group of people and their interests. It has become increasingly clear that once they have our vote, the current group of parties and politicians don't care about us or our opinions.

In the last few years we have seen governments around the world pick our pockets to pay the bankers.

All the major parties, including those like Labour who pretended to be on the left, put profits before people. Our politicians have the nerve to tell us that this is all for our own good, while continuing to pocket huge expenses and live comfortably in first, second and third homes.

A self-serving media generates scandal when they need to sell papers or boost viewing figures and then gets back in bed with the major parties. The media doesn't listen to us and the politicians only listen to the media and themselves. The media is failing in holding politicians to account and failing to allow the voices of us, the people, to be heard.

In Britain we have seen billions that could be spent on healthcare or schools going to line the pockets of the very people who have caused the latest crisis. Even in the so-called good times, we have seen poverty going up, massive increases in personal debt as people desperately try to keep up with the celebrity lifestyle that we are all supposed to want. In this society fixated on luxury goods, we still force people to sleep on the streets. Those of us lucky enough to have a roof over our heads are forced to work harder and harder for less and less, with the threat of unemployment and the cutthroat competition of the 'flexible' labour market forcing us to accept ever more precarious and unfavourable conditions of employment.

No party is committed to really dealing with the environmental challenges that we face nor to tackling poverty at home and abroad. No party is committed to helping us create communities, societies and governments that help us to live the kind of lives that we want to live - instead they are happy to impose a system that doesn't work for us and only serves them.

It is time for a real change. 

It is time to clear the ground for a new kind of politics and to allow new parties and new politicians to emerge.

Its time to put people first and make the state serve us.

It is time to stop them getting away with it. 
Its time to take back politics for us. 

Labour have sold out their principles and sold us down the river. They have shown themselves to be incompetent, sleazy and now they look exhausted, dead on their feet.

The Tories, led by the very privileged, public school elite who benefit from the current arrangements will only continue down the same path and probably make it more vicious than ever.

The Liberal Democrats barely seem to know what they stand for. Knowing that they won't get elected should have emboldened them to actually come up with some radically different policies. It didn't. They stand for the same system as Labour and the Tories.

The Greens do have some good ideas, but they don't have the quality of people to put up a decent slate of candidates, let alone form a competent government.

The three main parties have a huge amount in common - a huge amount of bad things. One of these is that they all tell us to vote as if it were our duty.

Its time to tell them that if there is nothing worth voting for, then we will not vote.
Democracy should be about more than choosing the least bad option.

If we think back to our history where people have fought and died to defend democracy, it is disgraceful to think that this is what we have to show for it.

We need to clear the ground and clear them out.

Don't Vote in 2010

-The Extra Parliamentary Opposition-

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