Yep, I have missed that nuance to what he's saying.
I guess it depends to what degree someone has to actually represent my views before being worth my vote.
there's very few who have actually got anywhere in the UK, and none that are absolutely perfect.
The greens are making waves about being anti-austerity, anti-neoliberalist, caroline lucas (their one MP) talks a good talk, but their only council hasn't exactly given a lot of cause for confidence that they'd be much better if in power.
I've been following the stuff a former member of UK band the happy mondays has been up to in Salford launching a party called
the reality party to stand himself and a few candidates elsewhere, his heart's definitely in the right place, and he's been quite active in supporting anti-fracking campaigns and other campaigns. There are also various other small leftwing parties of various hues standing candidates in different contituencies.
Round me, the closest to my views in policy terms would be the alliance for green socialism, but unfortunately they're also pretty much useless at campaigns and obviously stood no chance, so last time I voted and did a bit of campaigning for the lib dems in an effort to ensure the tories didn't retake the seat, and at the time their manifesto policies had some reasonable stuff in it. As killer B alluded to, that didn't exactly work out very well as they ended up in coalition for the tories and immediately ditched virtually everything that had made me consider them worth giving a chance to.
I think it's a bit different over here as there often are quite a few options on the ballots for MPs, and often will be a pretty left wing candidate from one group or another. If brand were shouting from the rooftops for people to vote in droves for whichever candidate made most sense to them rather than the 'vote labour with no illusions' / anybody but the tories option then that'd be a bit more interesting - if that actually is his message, then I don't think that's what's coming through from the media coverage (including the articles he's written that I've read).
UKIP have effectively risen at the opposite end of the political spectrum by breaking the same sort of fears of people wasting their vote with a UKIP vote, plus appealing to those who otherwise wouldn't have voted. I think a major opportunity has been missed in the last few years for a real left wing party / coalition to be formed / emerge form the shadows to do the same on the left, particularly given that there was 10% or so of the electorate who'd voted lib dem because they'd viewed them as being left of centre, who were / are looking for a credible alternative to vote for. The greens are now benefiting by default from this, but whether they really will prove to be different to the lib dem experience is fairly questionable - there's certainly lots of suspicion of them from the rest of the left.