by Leanne Tervit
On Thursday I spent a couple of hours on a stall in Abbeyview, the scheme I’ve spent much of my life. I sat there on my wee camping chair with my phone and fags, using the Aye App to get folk registered and able to use their ballots. In that time I got a couple of folk signed up for Postal votes, and had many more very positive blethers with local folk. I explained why I believe that registering to vote and using their ballots can make a difference.
I told people how big the difference is in registration and turnout between the deprived areas and the affluent areas. I know this as fact because I stood in the council elections in 2022 and had access to the marked up registers, and seen the turnout at every ballot box.
I told them how politicians jobs and parties power depended on votes, so who are they going to look after most? Where will they campaign most? I told them of the poverty industry and how all these working groups have made a lot of middle & upper classes a lot of money.
I told them how certain policies, poverty TV and now Poverty TikTok give the impression that we are scroungers. That we are the ones costing the economy. That we get the blame, when the blame lies squarely with governments failure to tackle poverty.
A couple of things concerned me during these blethers tho. One thought a bank statement was suitable ID. Another thought a council tax letter would do. More than once I explained that mainly, outwith bus pass age, if you don’t have a passport, drivers licence or blue badge, then you will need to obtain Voter ID to vote on the day. Many weren’t aware that postal votes take that ID requirement away. None were aware that the postal votes for UK elections had to now be renewed every 3 years folks.
We need to get into our schemes in numbers. Our independence vote is there and we have abandoned them. A few were even suspicious of me! A local lassie trying to help. And nae wonder when they’ve hardly seen a campaigner since 2014.
Get aff yer phones and tablets and spend a couple of hours a week just trying to better yer own communities. We won’t do this without the votes of the working classes. Everyone needs to be on board. Nobody left behind.
The Governments and most parties don’t want us voting. They are making it more difficult for us to vote so get out and fking help folk. Because once the schemes register and use their ballots in numbers everything changes. Ffs help. Im sick of all the death, grief & suffering.
PS If anyone wants to get involved in their own areas to just drop me a message.
Contact Leanne through Indy1st: https://www.indy1st.scot/about-us
and on TwitterX at: @LeanneTervit
Read more by Leanne on BarrheadBoy ‘Schemes for Indy’: https://www.barrheadboy.com/schemes-for-indy/
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