How to Topple the Tories’ Melksham-Devizes Safe Seat Next General Election

Tuesday before Christmas I’m in New Society. I gazed across to a table by the window, recalling an optimistic response from local Labour candidate Rachael Schneider-Ross when I quizzed her if she felt she had a chance in this Tory haven, in 2019. “Never say never,” she replied, predictably, it was not to be.….

This time, though we’re talking local politics I’m not with a candidate or anyone affiliated with a political party. I’m with Anne Graham of the Melksham & Devizes Primary, not a school, rather a school of thought with an ambitious yet strategic plan to topple Conservatives from this supposed safe seat in the next general election; cross fingers, toes, whatever you’ve got spare!

In interviewing candidates, I’d always ask if they felt a coalition was a possibility, never with a positive response. If there no unification within the alternative parties, everyone here against the monopoly of Conservatives is divided. Anne and her colleagues in the Primary, Mike White, Felix McGrath, and Claire Gwilliam, call it “splitting the vote,” I call it “divide and conquer.”

“All my life,” she explained, “I have never once voted for anybody who’s become my MP. I think the current electoral system needs changing, though I don’t think that’s going to happen. But when you look at this constituency and other parts of Wiltshire, the number of people who don’t vote for the Conservatives outnumbers those who do.”

This is correct in the Devizes constituency for 2019, only when considering adding the 30.6% who didn’t vote, reducing Danny Kruger’s 63% win to 43.8%, which Anne was keen to point out with pie charts. Another displays the predictions for the next general election, estimating Conservatives to take only 20.8%. Though they’re still winning, if combined, the votes of the other big three weigh in at 37.6%.

Without a united strategy to challenge this plummeting majority while the iron is hot, there’s confusion as who would be best to strategically vote for to overthrow the Tories, virtually a two percent difference between Lib Dems’ and Labour’s predicted results; herein lies the issue. Yet more concerning is this general frustration that it’s unsolvable, and the idea there is no point in voting at all if it’s always a foregone conclusion.

“That’s a really important group,” Anne expressed. “There’s about a third of people who don’t vote, particularly an issue for people under thirty, something like a third of those people are not even registered to vote. If you look at the numbers of the people who don’t vote in this constituency, if all those people voted and they didn’t vote conservative, that would change the result drastically.”

The Melksham & Devizes Primary offers a possibility we should view as an opportunity, a silver lining, provided enough people gets behind it. Its beauty is you’re not signing up, aligning, or devoting to anything. All they ask is we’re conscious of it and take heed of their valid, professional, and in-depth research.

Anne puts a leaflet in front of me headlined “let’s be clever and vote together,” and graphically depicting fish. Akin to the most haunting of Bruegel’s images, Big Fish Eat Little Fish, yet unlike the doomed fish in the painting, the smaller fish in this diagram are joined within an even bigger fish. Diagrams are all well and good, but is this possible in reality? Is it possible to overturn this historically Conservative seat, and exactly how does the Melksham & Devizes Primary intend to try? I asked Anne, and by the end of our chat I felt more confident there’s a real chance than ever before.

“I think the only way to outnumber the Conservatives is to make tactical voting public,” Anne continued, “basically to get people to coalesce around one of the alternative candidates, the Green, the Lib Dem, or the Labour, based on the best person for this constituency. Maybe that’s a local person, somebody who’s got experience, somebody who’s young and dynamic, whoever people think is the best person. And then to publicise that, saying if you want to vote tactically, we’ve asked through public Q&A sessions to decide who you think is the best placed person to represent the constituency. The majority say it’s this person, so we would recommend if you wanted to vote tactically, you vote for this person.”

My concern: I may not personally agree with this “chosen one”, and in knuckle-dragger’s inane flaw of fighting far-right government with an even further right party, are they invited? Though my initial plan to play devil’s advocate backfired, upon Anne showing me the rightwing-free graphics, we’re clearly only talking middle-of-the-road and left parties, and now I’ve nothing left but to nod in agreeance; I like this idea, and even if I didn’t, a bad plan is better than no plan… even Baldrick had a plan!

I wanted to confirm they’re not asking for anyone’s allegiance or association, as in signing your name in blood that you will vote for this chosen candidate no matter what. They’re only asking people to sign up to the website so they can distribute this information, which, cometh the day, we will gladly publish the result of their findings.

“We’re looking for people who want to be kept involved in some way, though”, Anne extended. “People who would like to be actively involved – because I think there are a lot of people out there who are alienated – feel like their vote doesn’t count. And the other thing is that people are unaware of the new requirements on voter ID.”

We chatted politics for some time and discussed our reasoning for mutually feeling the Conservatives have lost their path of vison, are out of touch and unsuitable to govern. “I’m very wary of party politics because I don’t like the factional way people fight; I’m more cooperative,” Anne stressed.

I believe such reasons are widespread yet obvious, and going into them here is a distraction from the objective, to highlight the Melksham & Devizes Primary; it was merely to confirm we’re singing from the same song sheet. Though my personal opinions are unprofessionally formed, on the basics I know and consume, Anne’s interest in politics is more specialised. She recalled her inquisitive childhood, telling me of her mum driving around, how she’d ask her, “who designs this one-way system, who says this goes here, who puts these street signs up?!”

Anne studied for a degree in public administration. “From there I’ve worked a lot in the public sector. I’ve worked for some of the big accountancy firms. So going into the public sector, I’ve worked inside local government, and I’ve worked inside the NHS. My whole interest when I was doing my degree was around value for money and the accountability when you pay your taxes. How is that money being spent? How do you know it’s being spent to best effect? How do the policy decisions that politicians make then get translated into the budgets and financial plans that cascade down from the vote in the Houses of Parliament to the town council and the county council?”

Enough backstory, it’s only to show Melksham & Devizes Primary aren’t randomly pushing a pin into a map. “My starting point”, Anne reverted onto the subject, “is predictions from an organisation called Electoral Calculus. They’ve predicted the general election result correctly for something like seven out the last eight. What they’re currently predicting is a Conservative majority of about 2,000. So, if people carry on doing the same old thing, we will get the same old results, because no other parties are predicted to exceed the number of Conservative votes. However, if you could combine the people who would vote for the Lib Dem and Labour together, you’ve got over 24,000 people. Combine them with the Greens, you’ve got a potential majority of over 12,000. It’s possible, I think. The only way to make a difference is to do something different.”

“So, for me, trying to run this primary model is the ‘doing something differently,’ because I am really frustrated that nobody’s done this. Why is nobody doing this? Why are people not out there, shouting and making a fuss? Why are the parties not working together? And quite often, the answer comes back to, well, the Lib Dems were in coalition with the Conservatives, and they let you down, which is exactly what you just said.”

She’s right too, I did suggest this when discussing the Tories coming back to power in the Cameron era, casting my vote to LibDems, who sold it to the Tories. But on a local level I’m back in support of LibDems, alongside Labour and Greens, and I don’t know which way to turn. I’m only adamant the Conservatives need to be taught a lesson. “In my opinion”, Anne said, which is bang on the money, “we need to think about what’s best for this constituency, the people who live here, and try to get past the someone did this, and she said that, and they did this, and they did that, yeah? The top priority: you change something.”

“I’m no friend of the Conservatives,” she continued, “I disagree with a lot of their policies. I think they’ve done a lot of damage to the country in the past thirteen years, particularly they’ve underfunded public services, you can see it day-in day-out. You only need to drive around the area to see potholes, and the reason there are potholes on the roads is because they’ve underfunded local government. That goes under the radar because people don’t understand the government and how it’s funded. The only way in this area is to somehow get people to back a candidate against the Conservatives.”

Anne reverts my attention to the graphs, “This graph shows good gains for the Lib Dems: this number has been getting progressively bigger. But there are other polls which put Labour ahead of Lib Dems in this area, so it’s not clear cut: Labour and Lib Dems are always close.”

The other factor is the moving of the constituency boundaries. To maintain a greater chance of winning more seats, the government has shifted the goalposts, splitting their safe seat in Devizes, which Michelle Donelan is eager to sit upon. “If now is not the time, I don’t know when is”, Anne expressed. I was keen to ask how they get this message out.

“So, we’ve been out with democracy meters, asking questions, what people think about, is the NHS safe in conservative hands, for example. And then people put stickers on the board, like they did with the Brexit campaign. We’ve done one in Devizes and in Bradford on Avon so far, and we’re planning to take it to Melksham”. They also plan to go door-to-door. They have a website which, “explains how it all works, and then we will organise some public question and answer sessions before the general election. We invite the candidates. This is not Hustings. This is not us trying to interfere in the democratic process. All these people stay on the ballot. We invite the public to come and talk to these people. Ask them questions. See what you think. Who do you think is the best person for this constituency?”

Melksham & Devizes Primary plan to live stream the events too, and record votes on who should be this chosen candidate. “The question is not who do we recommend,” Anne concluded, “rather, who do the public think is the right person for the constituency? [The recommendation is by] the people who’ve come to the events who’ve asked the questions in public.”

The papers she gave me optimistically conclude thus: “lose separately or win together.” I wish it was this cut and dry. Anne tells me they use a model from South Devon primary, and there are others too, one in East Wiltshire, where Danny Kruger will be standing. I gave thought to the surprise result in a 2021 North Shropshire by-election, a one hundred and seventeen year Conservative stronghold which fell to Lib Dem candidate Helen Morgan. Anne pointed out that that constituency was far more yellow than red, whereas here the vote is much more evenly split.

“Those constituencies have an obvious second choice”, she explained. “A lot of the political system …and the way that elections are framed in the mainstream media where the constituencies are marginal… there’s a lot of focus. The mainstream political parties will focus their energy and their attention on marginals because those are where the elections are won or lost. We have a situation where we are not marginal and our vote is evenly split, so neither Labour nor the Lib Dems nor Greens are targeting this seat, so they are not putting any significant resources beyond what they normally do into this constituency. They’re just ignored, ignored from their [central offices]. Well, that’s not good enough. Then everyone here thinks, ‘oh, there’s no point voting because they (Conservatives) just will always be in’. And then you’ll get people who do go out and vote for the other parties, but [they will vote for] whichever one they may think is best, and so split the vote. So the Conservatives always win. It’s the definition of madness, isn’t it? If you always do as you’ve always done, you’ll always get the same result if you don’t do anything differently.”

This caused me to visualise an animal in a cage, disturbingly trapped and perpetually sauntering back and forth. “Yeah, that’s a good analogy”, Anne agreed. We shouldn’t hold hope for a fictious David and Goliath scenario: only if we have multiple Davids will this work; only if we take the data, collate opinion, and stand united to strategically vote will anything ever change. So, here’s your starting point: join in on this website and Facebook Here, to follow the progress of Melksham & Devizes Primary and, when general election time comes around, consider the strategic option they present.

Thanks to Anne at Melksham & Devizes Primary for taking the time to explain. We had a nice chat. I reckon it’s a great idea, but it is something I doubt the mainstream media will be willing to publicise, that’s why we’re here! Dunno about you, but I’m sick to the back teeth of the underfunding, the ignorance and self-entitlement, the disregard for important social and ecological matters, the partying while people died, the supporting of xenophobia and genocide, the daily scandals and utter selfish thievery from the ones supposed to govern us, the ones we pay to serve us; change is a necessity now, let’s hope this works, I don’t type two thousand words for the love of it, mate!!

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