Alas it’s July, and the events of this week will hopefully pave what more is to come, in a positive and sufficient manner.
2016 in Britain, where it feels like democracy is taking a step backwards and BBC Parliament is the modern reality-TV. Young people are taking a deeper interest in politics and when discussing this with friends recently, there has been a 50/50 reaction in considering whether that’s to do with what’s currently going on in our country, or purely our age; we do wonder, where is this drive coming from? Following this increase which is of course positive, there is a coexistent wave of scrutiny towards ‘young people becoming interested in politics’, which although on the surface seems unfair, is not completely when only about 30% of people in our age group turn up to vote.
Yes, the referendum was a pole from which democracy was meant to be a key pillar. However, these stats tell me that 70% of young people have been led to believe that politics and voting is not important – to what extent is that democracy?
Although I am not a fan of using terms of social breakdown, it is clear that the Tory Party do not care about the working class, hell they don’t even care about the middle class, and those who think they do are families in denial of claiming their not so upper class status. Trying to convince a Tory that they shouldn’t be Conservative is hard, and coming up with a solution that suits all is even harder, but it is everyone who feels the backhand of Parliament pushing us to the ground.
Having just turned 21, it has been incredibly disheartening to put so much faith into a party, into politics, only to have what you desire and want so deeply, to not happen. And this feeling is not independent of pro-Stay, Labour supporters but is open to everyone in the country from different angles of perspective, and for this reason I believe it is not wrong to blame the government.
When blaming the Conservative Party for dividing the nation, there are many different slants of light to consider, but when politics is becoming more ‘popular’ perhaps it is worth thinking about how both major parties in Parliament are ‘glamorising’ the issue.
I do believe that for a lot of people, being ‘Conservative’ has its perks, perhaps less so within my social circles or age group, but it would be stupid to not consider that the country is full of people who are not interested in politics who are ‘Conservative’ for a number of reasons, be it; they’re worried about what their posh friends would think if they were remotely liberal; they’re scared their peers would consider them ‘working class’ for caring about the everyman, ignore their policies, if you want to give off the illusion you’re rich – become a Tory!
Having said that, I also believe in young people there is a certain glamour in being pro-Labour and left-wing, which in lots of ways is great – but actually not so great when the extent of caring about politics is absent-mindedly sharing some guardian articles onto your newsfeed. The sad difference between the two brackets of people I’ve just discussed, is that one of them bothers to register and turn up to vote.
I suppose what I find most annoying about this attitude is that if you do not really care about politics, then you do not care about how its outcomes affect you.
My observation from the 2015 election and the EU Referendum is that, right-wing parties have focussed on targeting groups of people who have up until now, not ‘believed’ in politics. Although there is nothing wrong with doing that, I will admit I believe it’s an attitude that parties and groups such as Labour and Momentum haven’t tried to adopt; and without sounding ignorant, those who were swept along with the ‘right’ wave I believed were promised a lie, which has left a very vulnerable group of people in the pits of conservative manifesto, without any new or true information about politics.
When the government addresses a vulnerable group within society, all forms of authority present, will pretend that they have no authority. You see, it has become increasingly easy for us to light-heartedly shrug off disappointment from our government, given to some extent everyone is aware that the Tory party focuses on stealing from the poor and giving to the greedy; however, when they tell you that the reason you’re unhappy is not because of them, but because of an equally if not more vulnerable group within society, it becomes dangerously seamless to shift your finger from that power to what; the LGBTQ+ community? the immigrants? the refugees? the coloured? the poor?
Let us not forget… the government is meant to work for us. We shouldn’t have to work for them – especially when we are not getting results. So, under this government, the everyman must pay his taxes, you don’t know, he might have to pay bedroom tax, his benefit is being cut, his ‘disability’ is no longer deemed a ‘disability’ – and still there is no money for the NHS? Yes, sorry. It’s gone on the cabinet’s bonus because you know, they tried bloody hard, and maybe next time we’ll actually benefit the everyman.
