In recovery from tactical voting

Rachel Collinson, Green Party candidate for West Ham, explains why a Green vote is never a wasted vote

Hello. My name is Rachel Collinson and I’m a recovering tacti-holic.

Four years I skidded along in the surface of politics. I used to vote Labour to keep the Tories out. I dabbled a bit with donating. I did every petition around. Then when that didn’t work, I looked around for some harder stuff. I spoiled my ballot. I voted Lib Dem to get the Greens in.

That was when I hit rock bottom. I thought things were never going to change and sank into deep political apathy.

Then one day a friend told me about tacti-holics anonymous. I finally looked up and saw the vote for policies site. The scales fell from my eyes. I realised I could no longer live that lifestyle, and decided to vote for what I actually believed in.

It’s like a new lease of life. No more holding my nose. I know that I’m building a new movement, that things can change. And Greece is proof of just how quickly they can change!

Here’s what they don’t tell you about this. There’s an interesting secret the establishment don’t want you to know about. They’d rather you stay a slave to tacti-holism, going to more extreme lengths to prop up a broken system.

The secret is: Short Money. What’s that? Well, exactly.

Provided a party has one MP (which the Green Party does) and over 150,000 votes overall (which we got last time) then that party is eligible for Short Money. More votes mean more money.

Over the last five years, this has provided Caroline Lucas MP with the assistance to introduce a stream of brilliant private members bills and amendments on the things we all want: an end to exploitation of slaves, railways back in public ownership, reinstating the NHS, closing tax loopholes and more.

My name is Rachel Collinson, and I am a recovering tacti-holic. A green vote is never a wasted vote.