The Future is Ours
- Isadora Rackham
- Jun 9, 2017
- 3 min read
I don’t think the future has ever been more exciting than it is now.
A campaign of vitriol and lies has ended in the creation of something overwhelmingly positive. The Conservatives won the election! But they won it in such a way that to me they lost it really. The official statistics aren’t out yet but from what the exit polls show us, young people came out in droves. Turn out for 18-24 year olds was way up on what it has been in previous years. If you only take one thing away from the outcome of this election let it be this; young people aren’t fucking around anymore.
They’ve been mobilised and politicised. They’ve rallied around an old, white man with policies that make sense to them. And the’ve contributed to what I genuinely believe is a real success.
You know, there’s this weird stereotype about young people. That they’re lazy and complacent. That they don’t like doing things the way their parents did. That they don’t give a fuck about politics. And that’s always been endlessly confusing to me. Young people aren’t lazy? They aren’t complacent? I think perhaps some despondency about their futures has come across in such a way that they appear complacent but fundamentally I don’t think it’s true. Young people are interested in politics. Young people are feminists. Are social justice warriors. Young people are more interested in the Black Lives Matter movement and LGBTQ rights than ever before. And what’s not political about that? The problem is, for too long, their interest in those social issues hasn’t translated well into party politics. A communication breakdown has led to young people being told that they’re interests aren’t political. So much so that they’ve started to believe it.
But then a man came a long. A man that looked nothing like us. That spoke nothing like us. That dressed nothing like us. But the things he said. About women, about war, about ethnic minority and LGBTQ rights. They resonated. Young people started to see their own interests and issues reflected in the policies of a man who had been fighting tirelessly for them for over 30 years.
30 years as a backbencher without ever once really caring about the limelight suggests a patience. A commitment to a cause. And young people recognised that. They recognised it and they fell in love with it. With his truthfulness and genuine worry for the state of working class Britain he prevailed despite all the odds. The tabloids calling him a marxist sympathiser, a terrorist, an IRA sympathiser, a coward and a terrible politician did nothing to sway young people. Predominantly because young people just don’t read the tabloids. Young people don’t read the Sun or the Daily Mail. They get their news from twitter, from the Guardian and Reuters apps, from VICE articles. The age of the outrageous headline and poorly photoshopped images on front pages changing the minds of the electorate is over.
When the next election comes. And it will come - a tory government propped up by the DUP and facing masses of opposition will not last for five years - young people will be even more ready than before. The 16 and 17 years olds that couldn’t vote this election, will be able to next time round. And with their vote will come a new energy. The canvassing that won Labour Battersea and Croydon Central will be re-energised. Swing seats across the country will be full of teenagers with a goal. Teenagers with a belief in collectivism. In equality of outcome and wealth redistribution. Teenagers that are sick to death of being called lazy and complacency. Who have realised from 2017 that despondency can become something astonishingly positive if we work together, mobilise and move forward.
The future is ours and I’m really damn excited to see what we’re going to do with it.
Image sources: http://i.huffpost.com/gen/3802532/thumbs/o-JEREMY-CORBYN-900.jpg?9
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