Well I had my wish and walked, carefree, on Westport beach. I picked up a heart-shaped stone as a memento, and gazed across at the coast of Antrim, the Emerald Isle glistening out of dissipating mist.
As soon as I’d realised I was up against 4 locals—all knowledgeable about the area, intimately connected through kith and kin, and all with experience that would be valuable to a councillor—I knew I had little chance of winning. I only hoped that at least some people would vote for me and indeed seven voters chose me as their first preference.
Interestingly, the gentleman I spoke to yesterday, who could not be more onboard with my party’s values, wasn’t one of them. He gave me his second vote and, as far as I could gather from the selection read out for their ambiguity at the adjudication stage, so did quite a few others. Adjudication happens when voters have marked their ballot papers in a different manner to the instructions, and attempts to discern a clear voting intention however expressed. So it’s not a huge sample nor necessarily representative but it may reveal, at least, a general tendency.
Noting the frequency of her name in 1st or 2nd preferences, I advised Jennifer Kelly, while we were chatting about studying Law, to prepare herself. I also noted that I rarely was in 5th place, and mostly in 2nd or 3rd, however my first preferences were scarce so the result was not a surprise to me. As the winning candidate achieved (well over) the quota on the first round, no other rounds were necessary but had this been an election of all 3 ward councillors—as happens now every 5 years—there would have been a second round and the 2nd preference of the “extra” votes for the winner would have been allotted. So I could have survived into the 3rd round and—as when I was 4th it was usually with the LibDem or SNP candidate in 5th place—I might even have scraped enough 2nd preferences to be elected last.
That’s something for the party to consider for future Single Transferable Vote elections but for this by-election I was off the hook. As I strolled along that beautiful beach, enjoying the rare Scottish winter sunshine, I asked myself what I had gained after so much effort. Here’s my thoughts:
- Hundreds of households have a card with a link to this blog and a leaflet about our party policy with a link to our website.
- Most of them also have a party Keep It Cash leaflet or a fun fake £20 note with information about that campaign.
- All over that ward, and all over Kintyre, people have now heard of Freedom Alliance (hilariously abbreviated to “FFS” on some Twitter posts) and many saw me literally wearing the tee-shirt and I’ve had conversations with a few.
- I’ve listened more than I’ve talked (quite a feat for me) and I’ve realised that the problems faced by rural communities in Scotland are largely due to the crass stupidity or plain callousness of the inexperienced urbanites in power in Holyrood, especially, and also in Westminster.
- These problems are only exacerbated by the machinations of the WEF parasites.
Finally, as our candidates are becoming known for, I acted graciously towards the other contenders, engaging those not singularly focussed on screens in enlightening conversation about political purpose and values, and explicitly thanking the election team for making this exercise in democracy (even with a 31% turnout) possible.
So, yes, it was worth it and while I did not achieve what I’d fondly hoped I did advance the cause of the resistance in terms of awareness of another option in South Kintyre and benefited from listening to people who live and struggle to maintain a livelihood in that most beautiful place.
(Photos copyright the author may be used—unconnected to commerce and without transformation—with a link to this blogpost)
Promoted by Cath Evans of Freedom Alliance, 83 Ducie Street M1 2JQ.
Last campaign post: Leafleting
Standing for Freedom in South Kintyre 
Leave a comment