EXPLAINER: How To Register Your Protest Vote In Next Week's 2022 Anti-Democratic New Somerset Council" Elections

As we have already announced and has been reported (and wrongly criticised) by the BBC-funded Local Democracy Reporter Daniel Mumby, Somerset Independents is boycotting the 5th May elections for the New Somerset Council. You can read why on our article here.

In a nutshell, it is because the council is illegitimate - being forced on Somerset and residents were not asked. In fact, residents opposed it.

We suggest that you register a protest.

You can do this by writing whatever you want on the ballot paper.

Just make sure that whatever you do, that it cannot be seen as voting for anybody.

How Did We Get Having How We Are Governed Changed?

We've written about it many times on this website, on our Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. We've tried to keep residents informed and have fought the lies and spin from Tory County Council Leader David Fothergill and paid lackeys like "consultant" Carlton Brand.

We have exposed the costs. We have exposed the lies.

For some reason, these elections are being badged by the councils as a County Council election except the County council and all four district councils are being scrapped next year in 2023. A "shadow" New Somerset Council will be formed before it comes into effect to replace these five councils.

These changes are being forced on Somerset against the will of residents.

How do we know this? Because in 2007 there was a Referendum and 82% of Somerset residents said NO to a unitary authority, which is what this New Somerset Council will be.

Somerset Independents campaigned hard and loudly for a YES/NO Referendum but the pathetic Lib Dems and Tories on the district councils did not give you that Referendum this time. They caved in to the Tories. Lib Dem or Tory, same old story. The Greens and Labour were irrelevant, as usual, and went along for the ride.

As Somerset Independents founders Andrew Pope and Denise Wyatt told them at the council meetings, these councillors gave you a Hobson's Choice between two buckets of manure - two terrible options in a Referendum that the Conservative Government totally ignored.

Andrew Pope

Denise Wyatt

These changes are being forced on you. And many of those councillors who are doing this to you will disappear, leaving Somerset with bad councillors, bad officers and bad debts due to bad decisions in the county council and district councils. 

You won't even be able to vote them out to punish their bad decisions because the councils are being scrapped.

This is a very dangerous time for our County and its people.

These changes are being forced on you, your family, your area and everybody else in Somerset by the Conservative Government and the unrepresentative swill of councillors here in Somerset who surrendered to the Conservatives with minimal pressure.

You can protest by not voting. This will just lump you in with the majority of people who will not vote. There will be a lot of people who will not vote. The turnout will be much less than for a Parliamentary election. But your views will not be registered.

Please don't vote for the Greens, Labour or Lib Dems - they are just as bad as the Tories. Voting for them condones the pathetic response of their councillors to the Tory Government.

A Better Option - Register Your Protest

You can register your protest.

You can do this by writing whatever you want on the ballot paper.

Just make sure that whatever you do, that it cannot be seen as voting for anybody.

Every ballot paper that is in doubt will be collected up and shown to the candidates and their agents.

They will see what you wrote.

We leave it to you to decide what to write - it's your ballot paper, hard won by our ancestors including the Chartists and Suffragettes over hundreds of years.

Don't forget - Lib Dem, Labour, Green or Tory, same old story.

We would love to hear your views. Just make sure that the secrecy of your ballot is kept.

And we hope that Somerset residents will continue to work with us to continue to hold the Westminster parties to account.

Because we put Somerset first. But they put themselves and Westminster first.