And so, the first non-football-related blog is written. I was kind of hoping that it would happen after the Euros, but this is too important not to write. If you follow this just for the football, I’ll understand if you skip this one. But if you live in the UK, I will asked that you don’t and humour me.

Some of my peers have been sharing posts saying that people shouldn’t vote and that younger voters should boycott this parliamentary election. Respectfully: piss off.

Now, I do understand why people may not think it’s worth voting in this general election. Labour is projected to romp home to a massive majority (457 seats with a 264 majority), so that takes the jeopardy out of it. Many candidates who have been representatives of their seats for years have been replaced, causing a massive fissure between party and people. The mechanisms of parliamentary politics and the Westminster machine make it either very difficult to get anything done or seem that both the Conservatives and Labour are the same party in a different colour. Maybe neither party focuses on issues you are worried about.

I understand those issues, but I repeat myself: piss off.

While it would be fantastic for community action to be the main focal point of political action, any community-level group will have to interact with the state and government. That’s not going to change anytime soon. So it would be beneficial to have to interact with a representative who might somewhat be sympathetic to your action.

Secondly, parties respond to how people vote and who votes. Guess who has the highest turnout? The elderly. Guess who the parties construct their policies and manifestos for? The elderly. Younger people march and make petitions, we volunteer and share across various platforms. That’s a really important part of democracy and it’s only going to be more valuable. But at the end of the day, the parties are looking at the breakdowns of voter turnout and voting intention. Do you want to know who gets this? The Greens. Reform. That’s why they’ve had a spike in youth interaction – they know that the main two parties have a monopoly on the majority of voters, so they construct policies that will get youth voters to turn out and vote for them.

Thirdly, many of the candidates removed from their seats by the parties (in many cases ex-parties now), are running as independents. They may not win, but they can get a large enough chunk of the vote to make the parties second-guess themselves.

Which brings me to an extra point: you can spoil your ballot. The voting rules are you must put a clear marker beside your preferred candidate. If you don’t do this, if you make a mess of your sheet or if you leave it blank and still put it in the ballot box, your vote will count for no one, BUT IT WILL BE COUNTED. And parties will look. A vote spoiled is a vote not for them. It can affect how they construct policies. Don’t believe me? Would we have had the Brexit referendum if UKIP didn’t appear to be such a threat to the Conservatives a decade ago? Would Green policies be as ubiquitous if people didn’t vote for them?

Moreover, Sinn Fein MPs don’t take their seats in Westminster. Their voters know this, yet seven MPs were elected in the last election and they are projected to maintain that number. Are you going to be so patronising to say that their votes don’t count, that their MPs don’t represent their values?

It needs to be said that you may not vote, but others will. And you’ll have to live with that. Just because you don’t vote doesn’t mean that it’s all called off. Parliament will meet, manifestos will be turned into policy, and the world will keep going. You can’t just go off-grid.

Finally, and I really need to stress this, the past 14 years have not been normal. This is not how governments should function. Everyone from the experts to the layman can tell you that. This Conservative government has been unequivocally, historically shit, unable to deal with political and economic issues of its own making, as corrupt as any dictatorship or junta, and more interested in benefitting themselves than us. Labour will almost certainly win, and some sort of normal boring governance will return.

But we need to be a part of that. There is not going to be a world-changing revolution. The only time England had some kind of revolution it was reversed after 10 years. Britain has never had a revolution. At every major European revolution (France, 1848, Russia) Britain has been the unaffected constant. Not to mention that Britain is nowhere near the conditions needed for such a seismic upheaval. We can’t revolt our way out of this one.

In the next election cycle, we will be the target demographic, the 30-45 year olds. We need to vote now, we need to lay out our intentions now. If there’s a green candidate you like, vote. If you like your candidate from the major parties, vote. If you want Reform to rip up the book, vote. Want to further the cause for your respective nation’s independence or protect the union, then vote. If there is someone you really, really don’t want to win even though you hate everyone else, then hold your nose, close your eyes, beg for forgiveness and vote. Because I will. And so will millions. They probably won’t vote how you want them to, but they’ll still do it.

Do not be silent in the determination of your future.

Seat projections courtesy of https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html – accessed 22.06.2024