Tag Archives: Politics

THE FALL OF ROME (and other inevitabilities)

May 23, 2025 Leave a comment

It couldn’t be any clearer, in light of Trump’s re-election in the US, Israel’s ongoing western backed genocide in Gaza and the UK government’s craven capitulation and complicity with regard to both these things, that supposedly democratic elections in ‘The West’ are really just symbolic exercises in the manufacture of consent for the continuation of long established colonial / imperial norms.

One of the primary concerns of colonialism/imperialism is the need to pacify and subdue the domestic population at all times. This is achieved through various means in the modern age (distraction, confusion and division being key) but consistently, throughout history, all empires have relied on a domestic illusion of freedom and fairness to aid this. The lie of western democracy is a text book example of that.

‘The West’, with the US at the helm, is an empire. The US was literally founded on genocide and slavery. It eventually absorbed what was left of the British empire, then later what was left of the attempted Nazi empire, then set about getting Europe and as much of the rest of the world either on side or unable to mount any kind of viable alternative to US aims. The original founders undoubtedly deluded themselves that their brand of conquest and enslavement was somehow noble and just, and that they were creating something virtuous and progressive. Most ethno-supremacists do.

In reality, they were simply creating a slight variation on the age old theme of top down, authoritarian, hierarchical power (masquerading as freedom and enlightenment) – and called it ‘democracy’. That’s all western imperial ‘democracy’ is and all it has ever been. Plutocracy and oligarchy better describe the political systems that typify empires and their colonies: government of / for powerful vested interests.

The logical starting point (and systemic leverage point) for installing true democracy remains inclusion of a mechanism that allows citizens to formally reject all that’s on offer at elections and withhold their consent, AKA: None of the Above (NOTA) / VETO / Re-Open Nominations (RON).

No such mechanism exists in any modern ‘democracy’. There are token symbolic informal versions (Nevada still has toothless NOTA for certain elections, for example), but nowhere has an actual formal and binding veto option that can affect the result ever been implemented. There’s a reason for that: it would be a game changer. NOTA UK’s definitive white paper explains this in more detail.

But we have bigger problems than that right now. Inevitably, as empires burnout, start to crumble and lose control of the all important imperial narratives, they become more overtly authoritarian and fascist. That’s what is happening in ‘The West’ now. Complete with industrial scale, western empire backed genocide.

This was all inevitable. The architects and current managers of western empire will have anticipated this years ago. The first Trump presidency will likely have been seen as a trial run to see how far they can push overt authoritarianism and still maintain an illusion of democracy. What they will have learned is that the more fragile that illusion seems, the more people cling to it and believe it will save them.

So – who better to usher in the inevitable final dark days of western imperialism than Trump 2.0? While it’s singularly most important proxy Israel slowly unravels under the weight of it’s contradictions, taking out an entire people along the way? It writes itself from there. With plausible deniability and ‘lone wolf’ / ‘rotten apple’ fallacies baked in.

If humanity is to survive the collapse of this unprecedented nuclear armed empire, the western civilian population is going to have to collectively figure out all the ways it’s been lied to for decades, fully unravel the illusions (and delusions) that living in the shielded heart of a brutal empire naturally fosters, and then, somehow, dismantle and take control of the levers of power. Dismantling the lie of western democracy will be key to that and NOTA / VETO would have to be a central part of any emerging system.

Personally, I think that human survival instinct, alongside the exponential democratisation of technology that is occurring, indicates this shift could very well happen in our lifetimes. Whether it happens in time to save us from ourselves remains to be seen.

I’d say it’s about 50/50 currently. It could be worse…

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
22/05/2025

NOTA UK will, as always, keep banging the drum for inclusion of NOTA / VETO on ballot papers, as much as our extremely limited resources allow. If you’d like to support our efforts, please consider making a one off or regular donation via our paypal.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/inclusion-of-an-official-none-of-the-above-option-for-all-uk-elections-2

DONATE TO THE CAUSE HERE:
https://tinyurl.com/25cfed94

NOTA UK online:
https://www.notauk.org
https://www.facebook.com/groups/notauk
https://twitter.com/NOTAcampaign

‘Plausible’ Genocide… and other red lines

April 22, 2024 Leave a comment

There’s a myriad of reasons why it must be possible in a true democracy to formally reject all that’s on offer at an election in a way that can affect the outcome if enough people do so.

But the refusal – and/or inability – of an entire country’s political system to even try to stop a blatant ‘plausible’ genocide is surely the most extreme example imaginable.

And that’s exactly where we are in 2024.

In all my nearly fifteen years of advocating for a formal and binding None of the Above option on ballot papers, I’ve always been very careful to ensure that this advocacy is politically neutral, as NOTA is, by definition, politically neutral.

But this issue isn’t about politics, or left and right. This is about right and wrong.

Rafah is the supposed ‘safe’ city in southern Gaza that has become home to 1.5 million civilians, most of whom have been displaced by Israel’s six month campaign of bombing in the Gaza strip.

This giant refugee camp, that has now also been deliberately starved and bombed from the air by Israel for weeks, is now reportedly being quietly subjected to a brutal ground invasion also, against the advice of even Israel’s staunchest allies.

Make no mistake – this is a blatant genocide that the political systems of the US, UK and all NATO countries are currently openly facilitating by, at best, refusing to oppose it or, at worst, actively supporting it with weapons and logistics.

And yet these enablers of genocide all still want you to vote for them at their respective upcoming elections… 🤦

As things stand, if you vote for any UK party or candidate that isn’t explicitly calling for an immediate end to this genocide, you will effectively be endorsing it.

But in the UK, if you don’t vote (assumed apathy), or spoil your ballot in protest (lumped in with those spoiled in error), it makes no difference.

Regardless of low turnout or number of spoiled ballots, the party with most votes per constituency, and most parliamentary seats nationally, wins. As if they have a real mandate and the backing of most of the country, even if they don’t.

That’s outrageous at the best of times. In the current climate, it’s something else. It’s actually incredibly dangerous.

In my humble opinion, as a pro-democracy campaigner of old, if we tolerate this our children will be next. And it is beholden on all who recognise the terrible wrongness of the current paradigm to fight for a better world.

SIGN THE PETITION

NOTA UK online:
https://www.nota-uk.org
https://www.facebook.com/groups/notauk
https://twitter.com/NOTAcampaign

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
20/03/2024

ONWARDS & UPWARDS

November 7, 2023

Hi all. I wrote this two years ago, it definitely warrants a re-post: https://nota-uk.org/2021/09/26/the-future-of-nota-uk/

With the farce of another general election looming in 2024, we will of course be looking to put our campaign for actual democracy and meaningful electoral reform on more people’s radar in the coming months. NOTA is neutral by definition. So our campaigning has to be also. True neutrality and independence means that we have no sponsorship and zero formal funding. Everything we do, we do in our spare time and using our own resources.

But that model is becoming less and less sustainable in 21st (18th?) Century Britain with the sky-rocketing cost of living. This week, I’ve literally had to divert funds from supporting my family to renewing our website domain to keep the site and it’s wealth of NOTA info alive. That’s not sustainable.

The only way this campaign and movement can survive is if YOU the supporters of actual democracy and meaningful electoral reform want it to. Sharing our social media and website posts helps a lot, especially our definitive white paper.

But please also consider setting up a regular donation via paypal if you can: https://tinyurl.com/ypaq4xma

Thank you. Onwards x

SIGN THE PETITION

NOTA UK online:
https://www.notauk.org
https://www.facebook.com/groups/notauk
https://twitter.com/NOTAcampaign

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
07/11/2023

THE FUTURE OF NOTA UK

September 26, 2021 Leave a comment

Hi all, just thought I’d check in with some thoughts. I’m going to go ahead and assume that most people reading this on our site and profiles will recognise a) the total absence of any meaningful true democracy in the UK, b) the urgent need to do something about that and c) how crucial inclusion of NOTA on ballot papers will be to any kind of fightback.

The primary barrier to building this movement has always been mass awareness of how central NOTA is to the concept of democracy, and this basically comes down to funding. NOTA UK has built the current awareness, and achieved the things we have over the years (see here: www.notauk.org), with virtually no funding and in our very limited spare time – all involved should be very proud of that.

But if we want to break through that barrier and go to the next level, we will need proper funding and a full time committed team. The problem then becomes keeping it truly independent and free of outside agendas. History shows us that this is usually far from straightforward.

Basically, as things rapidly go from bad to worse in our faux-democracy, I’m extremely open to working with anyone who is qualified and equipped to help us secure the resources and personnel we need to take this forward, while necessarily remaining fiercely independent of outside ideological or anti-democratic agendas. Email is stan(at)nota-uk.org

NOTA UK online:
https://www.notauk.org
https://www.facebook.com/groups/notauk
https://twitter.com/NOTAcampaign

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
26/09/2021

NOTA UK: Ten Years On

May 1, 2020 Leave a comment
Firstly, thank you to everyone who has supported our campaign for real democracy over the years. If you’d like to make a donation you can do so here: https://www.paypal.me/notauk
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Ten years ago, I set up a Facebook page called ‘The None of the Above Movement’ to try to find out how many people shared my view that democracy in the UK is a sham – a Hobson’s Choice between two parties of the establishment with no way to register any kind of meaningful protest against that system at the ballot box.

Within days it had over 6000 followers – most of whom were culled in a Facebook update a couple of years later, forcing us to start again with a new group.

Since then, I have worked with various people to hone our vision of the one thing, above all else, that many of us feel our electoral system needs in order to be fit for purpose: a formal and binding bonafide ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) option ‘with teeth’.

We’ve lobbied parliament, managing to get a select committee to include NOTA as a reform in and of itself in it’s 2015 recommendation to government for a public consultation (the committee was promptly scrapped after that year’s general election). I’ve appeared on various media platforms to try to raise awareness of our campaign and the need for NOTA. We’ve created a video series outlining the case for it. We’ve seen the Green Party of England & Wales develop a manifesto policy to include NOTA on UK ballot papers. All of this has culminated in our extensive and definitive NOTA UK white paper, published last year.

Brexit and the rise of Jeremy Corbyn – both seeming to represent genuine resistance to the status quo to different people – have made it very difficult over the last three or four years to cut through with our message.

As I write this – in lockdown due to Covid-19, witnessing the Labour and Conservative parties once again tearing themselves apart over their allegiances, their PR people and supine media spinning and propagandising everything as usual while people die in their tens of thousands, knowing that the undemocratic system I felt the need to rail against in 2010 remains exactly the same, if not worse – it is clear to me that now, more than ever, we need to come together and start banging the drum for real and lasting democratic reform once again.

NOTA is just one, albeit it crucial, part of that process. Recent years have revealed to me beyond doubt that, quite aside from NOTA’s absence, democracy is completely impossible when outright lying, amplified by totally unaccountable media and virtually untraceable dark ads online, is legal. The genie that Cambridge Analytica let out of the bottle is clearly never going to go back in, while a two horse race voting system in a multi-party landscape remains, in my opinion, a nonsense (although I remain critical of the Make Votes Matter campaign and their reliance on Proportional Representation to solve all of these problems).

I’ve written at length before about why I consider a formal and binding NOTA option on ballot papers to be the logical start point for full democratisation of any system of government (read our white paper for the low-down on that).

To summarise, properly understood, NOTA is an essential game changer that cannot be argued against without arguing against democracy itself. It’s achievable because it’s a democratic pre-requisite. If enough people understood that and were calling for it, it should only be a matter of time before its continued absence became politically untenable.

Once in place, NOTA wouldn’t have to ‘win’ any constituencies to be effective but if it did, it should trigger by-elections wherever that happened. But even if NOTA came second or third, any party that polled worse than NOTA would have serious questions to answer. The knock on effect of this would be that all parties would have to take stock, listen to what NOTA voters are saying and adjust their policies accordingly. Leading to a political landscape in which further democratic reform and the maximisation of the common good ought to become inevitable.

NOTA has never been about ‘not voting’ or encouraging people to try to ‘wreck’ the system. Once NOTA is in place, we wouldn’t then set about trying to persuade people to use it. If you believe a party deserves your vote, you should vote for them. But millions of people don’t and they are currently completely unrepresented. NOTA would give them a voice for the first time in history.

On the ten year anniversary of me embarking on this journey, I am committed more than ever to taking this campaign forward. But I need your help. We have no funding, no friends in high places. If you’d like to support this campaign, please consider making a one off or regular donation here to help fund the following:
  • PR costs (publicist, media co-ordination)
  • Campaign materials (social media ads, video content, leaflets)
  • Website maintenance/upgrade (domain costs, admin)
  • Time spent lobbying MP’s (emailing, phoning, meeting in person)
  • Travel costs (to meetings with interested parties, potential media appearances etc.)

Additionally, if anyone with experience of co-ordinating large scale campaigns shares our vision and wants to get involved, please don’t hesitate to contact me at stan(at)nota-uk.org

We’ve come a long way. But there is much work to do. Join us.

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
01/05/20

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You can find out more and support our campaign for formal, binding NOTA in the UK by following the links below and signing our petition:

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NOTA UK website

‘Vote Blanc’ vs NOTA

May 8, 2017 Leave a comment

voteblanc

At the 2017 French presidential election, a record number of people made use of the ‘vote blanc’ option, a way of rejecting all candidates put forward at the ballot box.

This rise occurred in conjunction with the lowest overall turnout in a French presidential election for nearly fifty years. Clearly, more people than ever felt that the candidates on offer represented a Hobson’s Choice that many could not bring themselves to make and chose either to stay at home, spoil the ballot paper or cast a blank vote.

From our point of view, while this is telling, it’s very important to realise that the ‘vote blanc’ option in France is very different from the formal and binding ‘None Of The Above’ (NOTA) option we are proposing should be added to ballot papers in the UK, and indeed all countries.

The crucial words are ‘formal’ and ‘binding’. Currently, blank votes in French elections are not counted as valid votes. They are counted, but not in a way that can ever affect the election result. For this reason, while they are seen as distinct from spoiled ballots (which can of course be counted as spoiled in error), they are no more useful as a measure of voter discontent in reality.

In order to be truly meaningful, any option that allows a voter to register their rejection of all that is on offer and withhold their consent at an election MUST be formal and binding, as the act of endorsing / consenting by voting is formal and binding. It MUST be counted as a valid vote and, if applicable, be able to void the result and trigger a second election if it ‘wins’.

At NOTA UK we are campaigning for just such a formal and binding NOTA option and nothing less. We have made representations to parliament and are actively lobbying the Green Party of England & Wales to promote their currently low key policy of getting RON (Re-Open Nominations) on ballot papers to centre stage in their manifesto for the upcoming UK general election. We have also suggested that they commit to using the more self-explanatory NOTA acronym and adopt our proposals for dealing with the logistics of a NOTA ‘win’.

Mechanisms like ‘Vote Blanc’ and an increase in people using them is a significant step in the right direction. But until such time as they can materially effect the election result, they remain examples of faux-NOTA or NOTA-lite, symbolic token gestures that do nothing to empower those disillusioned enough with the political system to want to formally reject all candidates and parties put forward at election time.

You can support our campaign for formal, binding NOTA in the UK by following the links below and signing our petition:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
NOTA UK website

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
08/05/17

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Open Letter to the Green Party re: GE 2017

April 29, 2017 1 Comment

Dear Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley,

I wrote to you last year, and then again in reply to your response, but have yet to receive a further response from you. In your first reply, Caroline stated:

“…the Green Party fully backs having a “re-open nominations” (RON) option on the ballot paper and I’d agree that a “none of the above” (NOTA) option is in the same spirit. It’s not possible for us to campaign on everything and I don’t think we’ll be doing anything proactive on this in the immediate future, but I’ll let the campaigns coordinators know about the open letter and your calls.”

I’m writing to you again now as it strikes me that with a snap general election coming up and talk of progressive alliances (that could, in theory, see the Green party forming part of a coalition government after June 8th) the time may well be now for you to do something proactive on the issue of NOTA / RON.

If you were to bring your NOTA / RON policy out of the shadows and in to the limelight, putting it at the heart of your election manifesto, this would, in my view, not only do wonders for our cause but also be a sure vote winner for your party among those who would dearly love to see a formal and binding NOTA option on ballot papers in the future.

I sincerely believe that to not do this at this time would be to miss a trick.

I also still feel strongly that the policy would carry more weight with the general public if you reworded it favouring the often used and self-explanatory NOTA acronym over the more jargonistic RON.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this and hopefully taking an important step forward with you towards real electoral reform in the UK at this upcoming election.

Your sincerely,
Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
29/04/17

NOTA CAMPAIGN: 2017 General Election Strategy

April 20, 2017 Comments: 5

NB: This is a hastily arrived at assessment of the state of play. More detail to follow!

So, the largely meaningless binary ‘choice’ season has been brought forward with Theresa May’s announcement of a snap general election on June 8th 2017. As with any election, this will inevitably lead to increased interest in our campaign to get a formal and binding None of the Above (NOTA) option on UK ballot papers. It therefore presents an opportunity to further establish the urgent need for electoral reform as a mainstream talking point in the coming weeks.

So here’s my initial strategy thoughts from a NOTA point of view. Clearly, the chances of getting NOTA on ballot papers by June are zero and we will need to take the fight to the next government. As I see it, with the First Past The Post system being what it is, there are only really four possible outcomes at the upcoming election with some more likely than others:

1: A Tory government, either with a majority or as a minority government – LIKELY
2: A Labour government, either with a majority or as a minority government – LESS LIKELY
3: A coalition government with the Tories in the driving seat – POSSIBLE
4: A coalition government with Labour in the driving seat – POSSIBLE

Neither an outright Tory government or a Labour government are likely to be open to the idea of introducing NOTA any time soon. Currently, the only pro-NOTA party in a position to possibly end up in power in some small way after June 8th is the Green party, who have an official policy to get a form of NOTA (RON – Re-Open Nominations) on ballot papers. Clearly, the Green’s are not in a position to win the election outright and form a government.

So from our point of view, the best possible strategy, it seems to me, would be to support the so-called ‘progressive alliance’ with a view to getting a ‘rainbow coalition’ government with the Greens and others in a position to influence the Jeremy Corbyn led Labour party.

With that in mind, I propose that NOTA UK and its supporters spend the coming days and weeks:

a) lobbying the Green party to bring their pro-NOTA policy to the forefront of their manifesto, rather than hide it in the shadows as they have up to now, in order to show that they mean business when it comes to electoral reform and representing the currently silent majority

b) lobby the Labour party to commit to the progressive alliance being put forward and

c) lobby all other parties that could possibly wind up in a ‘rainbow coalition’ government to publicly declare where they stand on the issue of NOTA and electoral reform in general.

As stated, this is a swiftly arrived at strategy for the benefit of those asking what our plans are. Much more detail and rationale to follow! Feel free to share.

NOTA UK is a volunteer run organisation, if you’d like to donate to our campaign you can do so via the paypal button at the top right of this page. For an overview of our campaign and its aims check out our explainer videos.

You can also support the campaign for formal, binding NOTA in the UK by following the links below and signing our petition:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
NOTA UK website

Onwards & Upwards!

Jamie Stanley
Founder NOTA UK
20/04/2017

Meet Cambridge Analytica: the Big Data communications company responsible for Trump & Brexit

February 2, 2017 Comments: 3

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In September 2016 at the Concordia Summit, a man called Alexander Nix (above) gave a ten minute presentation called “The Power of Big Data and Psychographics”.

It was essentially a demonstration of the extent to which his company Cambridge Analytica is now able to harness the power of ‘Big Data’ (the online and digital fingerprints we all leave behind) to influence global elections.

The company boasts “a revolutionary approach to audience targeting, data modelling and psychographic profiling”  that has made them “a leader in behavioural micro-targeting for election processes around the world”.

If you’re still reeling from #Brexit and #Trump and wondering how on earth we got here, you really need to watch the video of this talk:

In it, Nix explains how his company used this cutting edge combination of technology and psychological profiling to propel Republican nominee candidate Ted Cruz from total obscurity to being the main rival to Trump. At the end of the talk he reveals that, in light of Cruz pulling out, one of the two remaining contenders in the race for the Whitehouse is now using their technology.

That contender, it transpires, was Donald Trump.

It further transpires, according to an investigation by Das Magazine reporters Hannes Grassegger and Mikael Krogerus, that Cambridge Analytica’s services were also hired by Nigel Farage’s ‘Leave EU’ campaign.

Much more on the company, the origins of the technology and details of how it was deployed during the EU referendum and US presidential election can be found here.

The upshot is this: for a price – literally millions – this company can, and does, use the vast amount of online data that exists on us all, in conjunction with advanced psychological profiling methods and existing social media algorithms, to profile, target and then push the buttons of millions of people in order to get them to vote – or not vote – however their paymasters want them to.

And that’s exactly what they did. This is not a conspiracy theory. There’s really no mystery to it. This is what modern ‘democracy’ has become.

It appears that in both cases, Cambridge Analytica profiled and targetted people who are susceptible to propaganda and well presented political messages, then ruthlessly exploited them, resulting in a spike in engagement on polling day among their paymasters supporters and a drop off among supporters of their opponents. Many a Remain and Clinton supporter has since bemoaned the fact that they didn’t vote for the simple reason that they believed the result to be a foregone conclusion.

What this means, above all else, is that neither Brexit or Trump’s victory were results of an organic movement to ‘take back control’ from the establishment as they are routinely portrayed. They were largely bought about by cynical, calculating, undemocratic mass manipulation of the general public via targetted psychological online profiling.

In spite of the non-racist, honourable intentions of many of those who backed Brexit and Trump, there can be no doubt that these election results have empowered the far right, to the point of it being able to rebrand itself as ‘Alt-Right’ and swell its ranks.

So, in a very real sense, this company and these campaigns (in conjunction with the programming of much of the mainstream media over many years, of course) could be said to be largely responsible for not only the results of these two crucial elections but also the rise of the so called ‘Alt-Right’ and the ‘Fake News’ / ‘Post Truth’ hysteria that has ensued since those results were announced. Without this intervention, it is entirely conceivable that the extreme fascist views of the far right would still be firmly in the fringes. Instead, they are now very much in the mainstream, barely concealed in the rhetoric of its most prominent cheerleaders.

What a pity these tech geniuses never use their powers for good. Imagine if, rather than just selling themselves out to the highest bidder with no concern for morals or ethics, they were to put their efforts behind genuinely progressive, pro-democracy campaigns.

Like ours.

MAYBE THEY ALREADY ARE…

I greatly doubt it.

Seriously though, it’s bad enough that our electoral systems are fundamentally undemocratic and ensure that only representatives of the same political class can ever get in, and that the partisan, deeply biased and hugely powerful mainstream media actively seek to control the electorate and directly influence our elections.

Now, on top of all that, unless you are aware of the dangers and take steps to avoid them, the apparently free and open internet is now also fully at the mercy of powerful undemocratic forces seeking to steal our elections.

Needless to say, we’re up against it. And needless to say, the need for truly democratic reform of our electoral systems and systems of government has never been greater.

Legislatively, much more needs to be done, clearly, if for the right price an Orwellian communications company can be drafted in to ensure an election victory for whoever can afford them, regardless of any moral or ethical concerns. But a formal, binding None of the Above (NOTA) option on ballots remains the logical, systemic starting point for this process. Find out why here.

NOTA, properly implemented, is a democratic pre-requisite, representing as it does the essential ability to be able to formally withhold consent and reject all that is on offer at an election, if deemed necessary, in a way that can affect the result if enough people do it. This mechanism, in its fully fledged form (as opposed to the token gesture, watered down versions in India and Nevada, for example), is currently absent both in the US, the UK and indeed everywhere, when it should be central to any and all systems claiming to be truly democratic. When understood this way, you cannot argue against NOTA and still be pro-democracy, meaning that all the while there is a need to present the various systems we have as paragons of democracy, even if they aren’t, NOTA is 100% achievable.

Introducing a form of NOTA is already UK Green Party policy. We now need to get this essential, transformative reform seriously recognised and firmly on the table across the board. In my view, as a matter of urgency.

With this in mind, I implore anyone reading this to familiarise yourself with the current state of play and recent articles on our website and start the all important conversations with your friends and families about how coming together and campaigning for NOTA presents a golden opportunity for us all to meaningfully push things forward at this surely critical time.

You can support the campaign for formal, binding NOTA in the UK by following the links below and signing our petition:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
NOTA UK website

If you live in the US, you can support and help draw attention to the need for a formal, binding NOTA option on ballot papers here.

Onwards…

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
02/02/17

UPDATE: 14/02/17 – Cambridge Analytica’s Trump and Cruz campaigns were specifically bankrolled by  billionaire Trump backer Robert Mercer. It transpires that prominent Trump advisor Steve Bannon was, until recently, also on the board of the company. It is now reportedly being lined up to handle all of the Trump administration’s digital communications, meaning it will be working closely with many departments across government. A detailed and extremely worrying analysis of what all this means for the future can be found here.

UPDATE: 27/02/17 – When I originally posted and shared this blog, many people instantly dismissed it as a ‘conspiracy theory’. Understandable, perhaps, as you’d think something like this would be headline news. Well, it’s not quite there yet, but elements of the mainstream media are finally reporting it. This excellent investigative piece appeared in The Observer on 25/02/17, confirming the story and revealing even more details.

UPDATE: 16/07/18 – Needless to say, this article has now been fully corroborated by the high profile media revelations of recent months. We now know that both election results were arrived at fraudulently. Yet Trump and Brexit trundle on while the fascist alt-right continues to be the primary beneficiary. It’s almost as though that was always the objective… buckle up!

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Trump: Don’t despair, don’t get angry – get wise and organise!

November 9, 2016 Comments: 2

https://nota-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/41351-6a00d83451bc8b69e2019aff686334970c.jpg

An estimated 55.6% of eligible voters voted in the 2016 US election that saw Donald Trump elected as the next US president. That is an abysmal turnout, but an entirely understandable one, given the state of the candidates and the level of debate in the run up.

It also transpires that Clinton, much like Gore in 2000, won the popular vote nationwide but, due to the First Past The Post (FPTP) voting system and the vagaries of the 100 year old electoral college system, lost out when it came to securing the all important 270 delegates.

Naturally, there is now much belated talk, again, of electoral reform and the ‘state of democracy’ and, inevitably, the focus has fallen on efforts to introduce a more proportional voting system. This is a red herring plan, in my view, that would involve tearing up a tried and tested system that directly benefits the two main parties of power and that can always be presented by them as ‘democratic enough’, even if plenty of people disagree.

But there is a much simpler, much more achievable and much more immediately transformative reform staring everybody in the face. One that actually already exists in some form in the US, setting out a clear precedent and an opportunity for expansion.

Does anybody truly believe that many of those who turned out and voted for Trump or Clinton, having opted for the perceived lesser of two evils, did not do so through gritted teeth? We’ll never know how many for sure, but I’m willing to bet that a great many of them would instead have made use of a formal & binding ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) option on the ballot paper / voting machine had one been available.

It also stands to reason then, that many more of the over 100 million who didn’t vote at all would surely have considered doing so if they’d had the opportunity to formally tell all candidates and parties where to go in a way that could’ve affected the result if enough people had chosen to do so.

One US state, Nevada, already has a form of NOTA, but unfortunately it is a non-binding kind of faux-NOTA that cannot in any way affect the result and is therefore of little interest to disillusioned voters, some of whom are campaigning for it to be made binding and extended across the rest of the US. This is an initiative that we must whole heartedly support.

In my view, there is absolutely no rational argument for keeping a formal, binding NOTA option off the ballot paper in a world where pseudo-fascist populism and yet more neoliberal Wall Street / City of London puppetry are the only available options (if you agree, please help us to help you by signing this petition on the 38 degrees website and sharing this post).

But we cannot make this argument and take it to the mainstream without serious numbers and serious support. I have, more than once, tried to impress upon various organisations such as 38 Degrees, Make Votes Matter, Unlock Democracy and the Electoral Reform Society the importance of our campaign and why NOTA should be the priority of all progressives and democratic reformists.

Surely this point has now been made beyond all doubt. Donald Trump is the next US President, after all. Have another go at trying to let that sink in for a minute.

NOTA, properly implemented, is a democratic pre-requisite, representing as it does the essential ability to be able to formally withhold consent and reject all that is on offer at an election, if deemed necessary, in a way that can affect the result if enough people do it. This mechanism, in its fully fledged form, is currently absent both in the US, the UK and indeed everywhere, when it should be central to any and all systems claiming to be truly democratic. When understood this way, you cannot argue against it and still be pro-democracy, meaning that all the while there is a need to present the various systems we have as paragons of democracy, NOTA is 100% achievable.

A form of NOTA is already UK Green Party policy. We now need to get this essential, transformative reform seriously recognised and firmly on the table across the board. In my view, as a matter of urgency.

With this in mind, I implore anyone reading this to familiarise yourself with the current state of play and recent articles on our website and start the all important conversations with your friends and families about how coming together and campaigning for NOTA presents a golden opportunity for us all to meaningfully push things forward at this critical time.

Again, you can support the campaign for formal, binding NOTA in the UK by following the links below and signing our petition:

Facebook
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NOTA UK website

If you live in the US, you can support and help draw attention to the need for a formal, binding NOTA option on ballot papers here.

Onwards & Upwards.

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
09/11/16