EVERY SINGLE VOTE COUNTED!

For those people of the Medway Towns who voted LibDem in the recent EU Election, every single vote that they cast, counted!

On the face of it, we came a very disappointing fifth in the overall voting results of Medway alone, but under the proportional representation system of voting that was employed, when added to all the other LibDem votes cast throughout the South East Region, we managed collectively to secure the only LibDem MEP in the entire country, Catherine Bearder.

What then for the Local and General Elections of 2015?

The voting system will be the grossly undemocratic 'first past the post' one. This is where the pecentage of the popular vote is not translated proportionately into the number of parliamentary seats or councillor seats won. This is why, out of 55 Medway councillors, 37 of them are Tories, making decisions behind closed doors and ignoring true democracy altogether. E.g. local Tory councillors have publicly admitted that "Consultations are not for the purpose of working with the public to arrive at decisions, they are to advise the public of the decisions we have already made!" So much for democracy, especially 'local democracy'!

However, this outdated electoral system is no reason not to vote, and ironically, because the Local and General elections for 2015 will fall on the same day, the voting turnout is likely to be much higher than the 34.19% turnout we recently experienced nationally in the EU Election.

UKIP are crowing over their EU election result, but in reality, they secured less than 10% of the eligible vote. Over 90% of the electorate did not vote for UKIP, and that is why it will be so vitally important for every eligible voter to cast their vote in 2015, to ensure this country and this local authority do not tumble into the abyss that UKIP would otherwise steer us into.