Engaging Those Who Don't Vote

The overall national turnout for Thursday's local elections was around 36%. In my ward New Town it was worse, around 29%.This means that 71% of the electorate did not feel inspired, engaged or motivated enough to vote for anyone. The winning candidate has the mandate of less than 20% of the electorate to represent this ward as over 80% of voters didn't support her. Its just that they supported the rest of us even less. All of this shows that there is a massive problem, especially in local and European elections, in terms of voter disengagement and apathy. Many people feel that politics is a dirty word, politicians corrupt and 'in it for themselves' and political promises are regularly and inevitably broken by candidates.
The causes of the current climate of disengagement are complex and inter-linked. Statistics regularly show that the main disengaged voter groups are the 18-24 age group and sections of the working class. Regarding the latter, part of the problem lies in the social composition of the 'political class', particularly on a national level. The House of Commons is still overwhelmingly made up of middle-aged, middle-class white men. Political parties choose leaders from a narrow range of public school Oxbridge types who look good on camera and exude a degree of confidence such as Cameron and Clegg. While this is fine for presentation purposes, it means that the party leaders have a major problem in comprehending the attitudes, outlook or fears of the average voter due to having never had to walk their walk.
The traditional route of working class people into politics was via the Trade Unions. Often this was coupled with a protestant nonconformist drive to make a difference within the community. Since the Thatcherite revolution of the 1980s, both the unions and civil society in general have declined in favour of an atomised individualism in which working class people lack a political framework provided by community activities. This is not helped by the current cultural climate of popular culture, 'I'm a Celebrity...', 'Britain's Got Talent' and the trashier aspects of the internet all of which show choice acting as a form of entertainment social control and easily digestible ignorance.
Furthermore this even permeates down to a local level. When I attended the count at Colchester's Charter Hall on Thursday night, I gazed around the room and apart from a few of the Labour and UKIP people it looked very much like a middle-class social club. While the groups were temporarily divided on political lines, it would be easy to imagine them all chattering away together at some dinner party afterwards, their temporary mild political differences forgotten. Part of this is also due to the Blair factor. As a result of Tony Blair turning the Labour Party into a centre (and some would say centre-right) party and David Cameron softening the Conservative Party position on social issues such as gay marriage, the main parties all occupy much of the same political space. When voters complain that politicians are 'all the same' it is because they are, well many of them. There is an old revivalist hymn which contains the lines:

Dare to be a Daniel,
Dare to stand alone,
Dare to have a purpose firm,
Dare to make it known.

In the current political climate, each line should have the word 'Don't' placed at the start of it. Politicians such as Mrs Thatcher and Tony Benn certainly dared to be Daniels, however with the passing of that generation the uniformly bland, slick and nonthreatening (at least in outward appearance) dominate.  Part of the appeal of UKIP, and it should be the appeal of the Greens as well, is that they are partly outside of this cosy club and not afraid to tell it as they see it and rock the boat.
Regarding younger voters, 18-24 year olds, it is a real tragedy that the group of people who most need to vote do so the least. The reason that they get tuition fee hikes, face the prospect of working until 68 or older and face sky high rents and house prices is because the political class see them as an easy target. It is easier to take money off those who don't vote than the baby boomer generation who do. The young have been well and truly shafted by the coalition government, yet many don't see it because the consequences lie years down the line for them and very few 18 year olds like to think of themselves as ever being old or even middle-aged. In my day both college, university and youth culture were more politicised than today. CND groups  run by the Vice-Principal, packed out NUS meetings, the Smiths and Billy Bragg railing against the establishment in their lyrics. It all seems a very long time ago.
So how do we turn this around and engage the disengaged, many of whom need a green alternative to the major parties? Well certainly we need to publicise our wider social policies beyond the environment via high profile local campaigns. We should be present at every demonstration against hospital closures, tuition fee rises and similar key issues. We need to lead the campaign against rising rents and show how the green economy will create thousands of jobs. Above all we need to change the perception that we are Lib Dems lite, the 'nice' party who like the environment and are soft and nonthreatening. We need to ruffle a few feathers in the political establishment.