Whether you’re just waking up or you powered through the night (like us!) with the help of C4′s Alternative Election, we thought we’d bring you a bleary-eyed recap of the election last night.
Firstly, and most importantly, the UK has a hung Parliament. What does this mean? The UK Parliament has 650 seats on offer, meaning a party needs to win 326 to earn majority rule. The Conservative party , despite receiving the most votes, will not reach the magic number of seats when all results have been declared. In order to retain power, the Conservatives will need to enter a deal with other parties – it is most likely they will look to work with the DUP, who won 10 seats in Northern Ireland.
Keep an eye on the news throughout the day because it’s possible that Theresa May will have to resign. As Prime Minister, May called this snap election to increase her mandate ahead of Brexit negotiations. The aim was to increase the Tory majority in government. At one point, the Conservatives were predicting a 100 seat majority over Labour. The Tories didn’t achieve this – in fact, they didn’t achieve a majority at all. This is quite definitively a loss for the Tories, even if they will not lose power. It is expected that May will resign from her position as leader of the Conservatives, although the situation is complicated by the impending Brexit talks.
Something we’re very excited by: young voters turned out in their hundreds of thousands! Voter turnout was up all around the country, most notably in university towns and the major cities. This has been an election in which the youth vote was captured, but severely doubted by the pollsters. We want to thank each and every young voter out there for heading to the polls and making their voice heard on Thursday. If you ever wondered whether your vote could really make a different, just look at East Fife: 2 votes separated first (SNP) and second (Lib Dem).
The UK accepted Jeremy Corbyn as credible opposition. Elected almost by accident as a Margaret Beckett ‘prank’, Corbyn has faced near constant fights for power within his own party, but the election result clearly shows the support of the UK public for a more left-wing Labour party. Even as the polls closed, the remnants of the centrist Blair government were plotting leadership challenges against a Corbyn they’d predicted would fail – taking 40% of the vote and gaining 30 seats on 2015, Corbyn has put his opponents to bed. For now.
In Scotland, the SNP lost a significant number of seats. We’ll be fair: in 2015, the SNP rode a wave of nationalist sentiment into Westminster, winning almost every seat on offer above the border. They were never going to emulate their successes of two years ago, and 35 seats won is well removed from the wilderness in which they struggled pre-indyref. Losing multiple seats to the Tories, however, was probably not on the cards. Ruth Davidson had one heck of a night.
The award for the expected struggle of the night goes to UKIP, who won no seats whatsoever. A single issue party, maybe this was to be expected – after all, they’ve achieved their current aim of extracting the UK from the EU (or started to, at least). Other parties wiped out at Westminster are the SDLP and the UUP of Northern Ireland.
So that was the General Election 2017 in a (fairly mouthy) nutshell. Obviously there are hundreds more little stories we could have shared – the Tories losing Canterbury for the first time since 1918, perhaps? Or maybe Clegg losing his seat in Sheffield Halam? The return to a two-party system, even. Maybe next time, eh?
Trump can’t stop lashing out with ignorant tweets. He knows nothing of diplomacy, government, politics, history, terrorism, current affairs, world cultures, or geo-politics. He is a complete and total amateur with no knowledge and no common sense. Complex matters can’t be resolved with angry tweets. He destroys everything he sticks his orange nose into.
It’s because Sadiq Khan is a Muslim, and a Muslim in a position of power doing a tremendously good job, and the small-minded orange racist just cannot stand it.
Please get out and vote on Thursday. Theresa May and the Tories are counting on you to just not be bothered and stay home instead. No vote is a vote for the Tories in this election. It’s a vote for cuts to schools and hospitals and a cut to the taxes of the wealthiest people in society while the poor, sick and disabled are left to freeze and starve. No vote is a vote to take food away from children to give tax breaks to the rich.
Prove them wrong on Thursday. Make them regret their arrogance. Do something radical and VOTE.
UK people, you’re all registered (if you’re eligible), right?
Okay, so the election is next Thursday, June 8th.
Have you got a polling card? That will tell you where to go to vote. Look it up. Find out how to get there. If you’re able bodied, it’s probably within walking distance of your home. If you’re not, pre-arrange transport. If you’re struggling to sort transport, contact the candidate you want to vote for, because most candidate’s support campaigns are arranging transport. They want you to vote!
Plan exactly when you’re going to vote. Book out the time in your diary or your calendar or set up a Google alert, whatever works best for you. If you plan, you’re more likely to do it.
Your polling station will open at 7am. That means you can go on your way to work or college in the morning, if it’s convenient.
Your polling station will stay open until 10pm. So if you forget until you’re home for the evening, you can still go and vote! As long as you’re in line by 10pm, you can still vote.
It’s really easy. You don’t have to take your polling card with you. You don’t have to give your voting number to the campaigners outside the polling station. You don’t need ID. You just need to go to the polling station listed on your polling card.
When you get to the desk inside, give your name and address to the person waiting. They’ll mark you off on their list – that stops anyone else being able to vote by claiming to be you. Then they’ll give you a voting paper that lists all the candidates standing for election in your constituency, next to the names of their parties. (Your voting paper won’t list Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn, unless you live in their constituency.)
Take your voting paper to one of the little booths – in our polling station, these are tables with sheltering hoods built over them so no one else can see what you’re writing. There are pencils in there. (You can take your own pen if you want to, but honestly, all the stuff about people erasing your vote and writing in a vote for another candidate is just scaremongering. People counting votes don’t have time to change votes.)
Mark a cross in the box next to the candidate you want to vote for. Don’t write rude things or draw rude things next to candidates you don’t like – any mark other than the one next to your chosen candidate could mean that your vote is spoiled and won’t be counted. (If you want to spoil your vote, you are free to do so. I’d really rather you didn’t, but it’s your choice.)
When you’ve made your mark, fold the paper up and put it in one of the boxes that are there to collect votes.
And that’s it! You’ve exercised your democratic rights! Go you! Time for the pub.
If you’re using the terrorist attacks in London to try and push your political ideas or islamophobia, fuck right off.
No, we do not need guns in the UK. The availability of guns wouldn’t have helped the situation, but made it 100 times worse. Those terrorists attacked people with knives. Imagine the absolute fucking carnage if they’d been able to shoot.
No, the policy of ‘keep calm and carry on’ does not demonstrate our weakness. It’s the ultimate act of defiance against terrorism, which by it’s very definition attempts to disrupt our lives and make us too afraid to continue. I agree that action must be taken, but our refusal to submit to fear is one of the things I am proudest of about our country, and in all honesty, what else is there to do? Action is being taken against terrorism – MI5 stop dozens of terrorist plots each year. But if we can’t eradicate the cause of this hatred and violence, terrorism will never end. We can’t catch every terrorist. Someone will always slip through the cracks.
No, Muslims are not the problem. Muslims are not terrorists. Terrorists are extremists, whose actions have nothing to do with the faith that they falsely swear allegiance to, for Islam is a religion of peace, and Islamic extremist is nothing but a perversion of that. Having seen Trump’s tweet about his ‘Muslim ban’, I have never been more furious. That ban is not an anti terrorism measure, but a policy of racism and islamophobia, and I speak for the majority of Britain when I say that we want nothing to do with it.
Now is not the time to argue, to profess ignorant political ideas or to perpetuate racism. People have died. Have some fucking sympathy. Let us grieve.
There were armed police in the center of Leicester today. Ideally I’d be able to write more about how I feel about that, but…’disappointed’ is the only word I can muster up about it.
This….. is possibly the first time I’ve seen female-on-male abuse excused because the offending party had promise/skills. (Not that that’s remotely a good thing)
– register to vote – if you won’t be available to vote on 8th june, apply for a postal vote. make sure you check the deadline and send it off in time. – make sure you vote.
– reminder that this election will fall slap bang in the middle of a-level and university exams. register for a postal or proxy vote if you’ll be too busy or distracted on the day.
– the deadline to register to vote is 22nd may, do it now if you haven’t already
