I am so angry and depressed and frustrated and furious right now. Last night was our local council elections here in the UK. The area I live in has been Labour for decades, and though I was voting Green, I genuinely thought that the worst case scenario would be that the area remained Labour.
But no, last night, my area, and the areas around me, all became Reform councils. For those outside of the UK, Reform is run by Nigel Farage. Reform used to be called many other names, including the British Nationalist Party. It is, without any attempt to hide it, a nazi party. And that's what people voted for. It is the equivalent to voting for Trump, except it's worse because you have all the stuff going on with Trump as evidence for why you shouldn't vote for Reform.
I have literally felt like I could cry all morning because it has made this area feel dirty, it has made my home feel dirty, like it's marked everywhere by this blatant racism or just plain moronic brainwashed privilege. My area has a lot of Asian (primarily Chinese) residents, and how must they feel knowing the town they live in has voted against them?
But you know what makes me even angrier? How little Reform won on. The political constituency in which my town is based has a voting age community of around 13,000, but only 34% of those residents even bothered to vote. So Reform won with 1543 votes. Just 1543 people voted for Reform out of 13,000 and that was enough to get them elected because 66% of people didn't even bother to vote, who are so braindead and uncaring, naively believing themselves secure in an imaginary privilege (the area is primarily working class), that they felt politics didn't affect them, that it wouldn't matter who they voted for.
I asked a neighbour down the road, who is about 28 years old, in passing, whether he was going to vote, and not only did he say no, but he laughed at me as if it was the most ridiculous concept. I do not hesitate to say that I blame the non-voters as much as I blame the Reform voters, and honestly I feel if you didn't vote you can get the hell out of my life as much as any Reform voter can.
I remember when I was a kid how we were taught and reminded how important it was to vote, because it wasn't that long ago that we couldn't. It wasn't that long ago that working class people couldn't vote, it was even less time since women couldn't vote, and even less time than that since working class women couldn't vote. So voting was not only having your say, but it was celebrating something our ancestors and predecessors fought for, not taking for granted something that for so many centuries we were denied.
Where the hell did all this apathy come from? Because the Reform voters sure as hell aren't apathetic. The racists are the ones who are always at the polls to ensure their racist candidates get in, so why isn't everyone else rushing to the polls to outvote them? Why is the apathy strongest among the people who claim to be left leaning? Your vote counts, so whoever or whatever created this subconscious influential campaign of apathy to convince whole swathes of people that their votes don't matter and that politics don't matter have obviously done a fucking fantastic job, because you have people out there thinking voting is a laughable concept.
And because of that, my area, until the next election, is under a racist council that believes people who don't have children should be taxed more, that we shouldn't have an national health service, and that there should be 'detention centres' for migrants from which they can't leave unless the government decides to permit it.
Fucking hell.
I'm not even exaggerating when I say I would celebrate if someone was bold enough and capable enough to fucking guillotine the lot of them.
(The only silver lining is Green Party, which I voted for, had moved up to third place in our area, after always coming sixth or seventh in previous years, so SOMETHING positive is happening there. But I genuinely believe one of the Green Party's biggest hurdles is not the vile antisemitism slander being thrown at their Jewish party leader (because, after the Corbyn slander, is anyone really falling for that anymore?), or even getting people to listen to their policies (which are amazing), it's getting people to realise their vote actually counts. Because there are people who agree with Green but don't see the point in voting. Apathy is the primary hurdle to overcome; nothing can be achieved until that villain is beaten first)
