Politics and power
Monday, April 6, 2015 at 11:30 It was reported last month that a "one issue" political party has been set up to campaign against EU rules on the sale of electronic cigarettes.
According to Mirror Online, 'The "Vapers in Power" group plans to field two candidates in the General Election, using money raised from a crowdfunding drive.'
As of April 1 it seems that £3,002 has been raised, enough to pay the deposits of two candidates and deliver leaflets to 80,000 households. Liam Bryan will stand in Kingswood (Bristol), Billy Marsden in Barnsley East.
"Our chances of getting elected are non-existent," said Bryan. "We hope our chances of fighting the e-cig laws are slightly higher."
He's right to be realistic.
Twenty-one years ago my predecessor Marjorie Nicholson represented Forest in a by-election in Dudley West.
According to Wikipedia:
The result was a Labour gain from the Conservatives, on one of the largest swings since the Second World War. This was the first significant sign of the changed political climate following the election of Tony Blair as Labour leader, which would eventually lead to Labour's 1997 general election victory. Labour gained nearly 70 per cent of the votes, whereas the Conservative candidate attracted fewer than 20 per cent of the votes.
Marjorie got 77 votes and came eighth out of ten candidates with 0.2 per cent of the vote.
To put this in perspective, the BNP came fifth with 561 votes.
The good news is that Majorie beat the Natural Law party (70 votes) and 21st Century Conservatives (55).
If Vapers in Power do better than that I'll be the first a raise a glass.
Reader Comments (5)
Oh dear. I'm guessing if those two get seats they'll be demanding that everyone vapes and tobacco is made illegal.
Vapers are no friends of ours and they are making things much harder for us.
The best case scenario is that that they take votes from Labour Tory or Lib Dems and allow a party like UKIP - which plans to ensure fairness for vapers, smokers and non smokers - to gain seats instead.
Thanks Simon
FWIW, although we're all about the ecig, we've tried to be pro-choice - and personally I can't be doing with the anti-smoking rhetoric I've read from some vapers. This is the first line of our manifesto: "Vapers In Power exists to uphold the right of smokers and ex-smokers to practise harm reduction using all types of ecigs including technically-advanced devices and generation one “cig-a-likes”.". 77 votes or 0.2% then - I'll give it a shot!
Pat, I think you've got your answer! I've had the occasional run-in with anti-smoking vapers and but from the sound of it Liam isn't one of them. I wish him well.
The Vapers can be, and should be, the allies of Smokers in this fight. Yes, some of them are antismoking, usually the ones who were browbeaten into quitting smoking and thus went through years of "failure" at quitting either because they didn't *truly* want to or because they'd been brainwashed into believing that quitting "the most addictive drug in the world" was virtually impossible. That negative experience of repeated failures translated into an abnormally strong antipathy toward smoking once they switched over to vaping. The antipathy also helped reinforce their self-image that they HAD succeeded because vaping was NOT smoking -- and thus they're pretty ticked off when the Antis try to claim the two are one and the same.
Smokers have the numbers, experience, knowledge, understanding of enemy tricks, strategies, and lies, and years of built in callouses against defeat that are needed in this battle. The Vapers have the numbers of involved, energetic, optimistic everyday activists that the smokers have begun to lack over the years as too many defeats have led to too much discouragement. The two groups NEED to work together, and a good number of the "leading lights" in Vaperdom realize this. Smokers should not let themselves be put off by the more radical loudmouths in the vaping movement that have let themselves fall into the trap of turning on their natural allies in the fight.
- MJM
Not all vapers are the same I'm a vaper and I've started a campaign to encourage both vapers and smokers to join together in solidarity