[Note added 8.5.15: This piece has just been published by A Voice for Men, the most-visited and most influential men’s rights advocacy website in the world – it’s here. The comment section should be worth reading.]

A Conservative government with a small majority has resulted from yesterday’s general election, in large part due to the collapse of the Labour vote in Scotland, where the Scottish Nationalist Party secured 56 of the 59 seats. The leaders of Labour, Lib Dems, and UKIP have resigned.

Around 05:30 today, the results were declared in the two seats where Ray Barry and I were standing. I secured 153 votes, Ray 63, and I’d like to thank the good people who voted for us.

While more votes would have been welcome, we achieved what we set out to achieve, which was to use the democratic process to break the conspiracy of silence about J4MB and men’s human rights, and show up the hypocrisy and blatant gynocentrism of the mainstream political parties.

This was perfectly illustrated in the acceptance speech of my opponent, Gloria de Piero, who said:

Whether you voted for me, or Helen, or Philip, or Simon, I promise to represent you all, and work tirelessly for you all.

So it’s only men in Ashfield for whom she won’t work tirelessly over the next five years.

On the bright side, at least she isn’t the new Minister for Women and Equalities, and Labour’s efforts to present themselves as a party for only half the population has clearly backfired on them. Miliband has suffered a crushing defeat and resigned, Harriet Harman has announced her resignation as deputy leader, save only for being a caretaker leader pending the party finding someone else to lead it, and I don’t think we’ll be seeing much more of her. She is a spent force, as is her feminist ideology.

Nick Clegg has gone from the mainstream political scene, his brief flirtation with power over, and many of his feminist sympathizing fellow Lib Dems are now without a seat at all. Most notable amongst these is Vince Cable, that white knight proponent of positive discrimination whose efforts to get more women onto the corporate gravy train of unearned seats on the boards of our major companies was contemptible.

David H pointed out that J4MB has only one fewer MP than UKIP, a party which has been around for 20 years, and which secured about 10% of the national vote yesterday. Its leader, Nigel Farage, has honourably resigned because he was unable to get elected. He is a man of his word.

While we expected to secure a higher number of votes, we must recall this was our first general election, fought with very limited funds. At least we were able to present a picture of the state’s widespread assaults on the human rights of men and boys to the electorate, getting the state to pay for the delivery of 95,000 leaflets bearing J4MB’s message, and we achieved the most astonishing breakthrough into the mainstream media which could never have happened other than by us standing for election. J4MB is fighting a just cause, and at this stage justice cannot be measured by popularity In terms of voting numbers.

It’s difficult to know what impact, if any, the mainstream media had on our results. On the one hand, national newspapers and magazines have either not mentioned us, or have been critical without – significantly – challenging the analyses or policies in our manifesto. That said, the comment streams in articles by the Telegraph, Independent, Mail, Express, and even the Guardian and Observer, have been highly supportive of J4MB, and many thousands of people have been led to our website after reading these articles. That must have caused the biased hacks to reassess their approach and thinking.

The behaviour of the BBC with respect to our standing in two seats near Nottingham was scandalous and we know they received many formal complaints, and emails to their senior executives. As far as BBC television is concerned, the Sunday Politics show broadcast not long before the election consisted only of an interview of me by a young radical feminist. An interview of Ray Barry didn’t appear on the show.

BBC Radio Nottingham didn’t invite Ray to the Broxtowe hustings, and for the Ashfield hustings the BBC vetted an all-female audience, who asked questions mainly about women’s issues. There wasn’t a single question about men’s issues in the hour-long programme, broadcast live. The presenter was a young Guardian-reading feminist, and I was placed on the panel between the two female candidates. The most insightful article about the fiasco was published by Breitbart.

A prime objective from standing in this election was to raise the public awareness of J4MB, and thereby the assaults on the human rights of men and boys. We’ve had an enormous increase in our blog hits today, the hit rate surpassing even that of yesterday. Hundreds of people have downloaded the manifesto, and we’ve secured a number of new party members. (I invite you to join them, and thereby help us fund the deposits of 50+ candidates in 2020. You can find details of party membership here. You can make single donations or set up monthly donations through PayPal, here.)

We’ll be taking some time to review why all the positive engagement we had with the voters on the streets and on the doorsteps of Ashfield and Broxtowe didn’t translate into higher vote numbers, but when you consider the earthquake of a Tory overall majority when all the media pundits were already carving up the power in a supposed hung parliament, it seems clear that people used their valuable vote to see off a far bigger perceived threat from the coalition of the left that was threatening to take the country back to the dark days of class division of the 1970s.

We believe there is another class division afoot now in Britain, against men, and you can be assured we shall be carrying on, constantly reviewing our strategy, adapting and seeking every way we can to keep men’s and boys’ issues to the fore. Public awareness of our cause is increasing steadily, and by the next general election in 2020 we will ensure it is much higher than even today. Our determination to secure justice for men and boys (and the women who love them) is stronger than ever.

I‘d like to thank all the people who’ve supported us from the outset. People have helped with manifesto development, donations, provided support of various kinds, donated goods and services, and tramped the streets in recent weeks, delivering 30,000 leaflets door-to-door. I look forward to the coming years with optimism and enthusiasm, and to a successful 2020 general election.

Yours sincerely,

Mike Buchanan

Party leader