Not to Labour the point...

Below is a blog post I wrote back in May and decided not to publish, mainly because I was so upset by the abuse I got the first time round that I felt it wasn't worth the hassle. Since the main political parties in the UK and in Scotland are now having their conferences and the leadership elections are coming up in Scotland, and because I'm now kind of over it, I thought I'd go ahead and throw it out there.

I no longer live in Scotland so I don't get a say in what the Scottish Labour Party do, but I really hope the party and the people in it have learned something from their actions both before, during and after the election so that they have a chance of winning back trust from the Scottish people. I will be watching from Oxford with baited breath!

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I have been referred to in the past as a "core Labour voter" - the kind of voter who will always put my cross in the red box, no matter what. I called myself "core Labour" too. I believe in Labour values, so why would I ever vote elsewhere?

Then last year, I heard that Scottish Labour had drafted a policy called "Carry a Knife, Go to Jail", a divisive, populist policy in favour of mandatory sentencing. It is a policy which, if implemented, would create a profile of the 'type' of person likely to be jailed for carrying a knife; a stereotype based on a stereotype.

I could go on about why I hate it - the reasons are many, but that's not the point. Let's just say, it was an eye-opener.

It was at this point that I started to get a real interest in Scottish politics and I quickly realised that though my core values had remained static, I couldn't necessarily say the same for my party; at least in terms of policy (or lack thereof) and especially in terms of the running of their election campaign.

As a result of some very careful thought, on 5th May I changed the way I voted. I wanted to vote for the candidate in my constituency whose ideas, attitude, passion and belief best reflected my own. I was voting for a representative, not a party; and I think it's important to make that distinction, especially when you still have the opportunity to vote for a party on the regional list, as you do in Scottish elections.

With that in mind, I gave my constituency vote to Alex Cole-Hamilton. A Scottish Liberal Democrat, yes, but that's irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. He was incredibly vocal during our "Write to Mike" campaign and contacted us regularly to give advice on how best to make sure Mike Crockart MP kept his pledge and voted against increased fees at Westminster. Hugely supportive from the off, a real advocate of student issues and a thoroughly good guy in my experience. He also shares my distaste for mandatory sentencing and pledged at a hustings in Edinburgh that he would never, ever vote for it in parliament, so we're clearly on the same page.

When it comes to voting for parties, rather than individuals, I voted Labour on the Lothians list. Even though I'm not hugely happy with Scottish Labour (and judging by the SNP landslide we've seen I'm certainly not alone), I'm still attached to my Labour values and at this moment in time I wouldn't have given my vote to any other party.

So there's a difference, isn't there? My preferred party is still Labour, the party of which I am a member, albeit a critical one. My preferred constituency candidate, the individual who I felt would best represent my views, was Alex Cole-Hamilton and my different votes on different ballots reflected this distinction. I was very well aware of what I was voting for on the two separate ballots.

Imagine my horror then, when I received a barrage of personal attacks via Twitter on Thursday afternoon and most of Friday, for daring to talk about my vote publicly. The people dishing out the abuse were fellow Labour Party members, who felt that I had betrayed the party and even some who thought I'd betrayed students. (They are also people who would have been more than happy for me to talk about my vote publicly had it been for their preferred candidate.)

Never mind that I disagree with a core Labour policy on knife crime.

Never mind that I still voted for the party on the list, despite this.

Never mind that it is my vote and I choose how to cast it when voting for an individual to represent me.

Never mind that Alex campaigned against increased tuition fees and still speaks out against them.

Never mind that he signed up to NUS Scotland's 'Reclaim Your Voice' campaign and all of the Higher Education commitments that came with it.

With that in mind, I'm struggling to see how I could have "let down the students I represent" in choosing Alex, even if being a Sabbatical Officer mandated me to vote for certain party members in parliamentary elections. (It doesn't.)

Worse still, those criticising me felt that it was okay to do so in as rude a way as possible and that I should just expect it because I'm a Sabb. As though being a elected means I give up my right to freedom of thought and opinion. Of course I have to vote in the way that a handful of students tell me to, and if I don't, I should be prepared to lap up the bile they throw at me unquestioningly, because it's all par for the course.

Personally I'd argue that if these people spent as much time thinking about what went wrong, or what our party might need to do to fix the mess in which it finds itself in Scotland, or thinking about how they were voting, and what they were voting for, then our party would undoubtedly be a better one in a much stronger position and may have fared better at the polls.

I am deeply hurt that I was told 'Student Leaders' in NUS would be "crucified" for "voting Lib Dem" - something which I neither believe to be accurate nor appropriate to say on Twitter and which misses the point that this was a constituency vote, not a vote for a party. I am also hurt that I was branded a "Failed Vice President" for choosing to vote for a fantastic candidate, rather than blindly for the candidate who carries the same red card as I do.

I'm really grateful to the vast majority who got in touch and told me that they admired my actions and my thinking, even if they disagreed with my conclusions, and I'm really proud of myself for sticking it out and fighting my corner.

For me, this is not about party politics or even about my vote in and of itself. I felt the need to spell out precisely why I fought long and hard against the few who criticised me, not just because I wanted to defend myself and the person that I voted for, but because I really want politics to get better.

I want the people who were campaigning for Scottish Labour to start thinking about what they are supporting and to ask themselves why. I want every voter in Scotland to question the purpose of having both a constituency vote and a regional vote and to think about how they might best use it.

Most importantly, I want every single member of every single Students' Union in the country to recognise that their Sabbatical Officers are theirs to hold to account on the issues that directly affect their interests as SU members. They do not (and never will) have the right to dictate how they vote in their own constituency elections. I am more than happy to discuss the reasons for my voting the way I did (as I have done here) but I will never do so in my capacity as a Sabbatical Officer because the two issues are unrelated.

Yes, I do expect to be criticised publicly for things I do in my private life, but not because I think it is right. Expecting undue criticism is entirely different to accepting it, and that is something I will never, ever do.