WHO CARES: Don’t moan about your next MP if you don’t bother to vote
I tried to resist, but there is no excuse that I can come up with as to why I shouldn’t write about the recently announced General Election. I know, it will be wall-to-wall coverage across all media, but it is very important and even if you don’t think politics is for you, your life will be directly affected by the outcome whether you vote or not.
“Why vote when they are all the same in the end?” is often the way folk look at it.
There is some merit in that opinion as all the parties have become more centrist in many ways. Also, the majority of the folk who end up in parliament have made money in a previous business or corporate role and are therefore somewhat removed from the people they are hoping to govern – although most not as far removed as our current multi-millionaire UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
However, my view has always been that if you don’t vote, you forfeit your right to complain about anything the politicians decide to do. You may feel very strongly against the policy announcements in this early part of the campaign such as the re-introduction of a form of National Service.
But if you don’t vote and the relative party is elected, then you haven’t given yourself the opportunity to stop that happening. The more people who chose not to vote, the more the those who are at the extremes in society can push their agendas while encouraging febrile debates that do generate voting patterns.
In addition, we now have the influence of social media algorithms with their sole purpose being to flood your feeds with ‘more of the same’. The result of this is that people who are prone to following political feeds on these sites are dragged further and further down the rabbit holes of certain thought patterns or conspiracy theories that reinforce their own ideas and make them believe they are the majority view as they don’t see any opposing arguments and opinions.
We are also not able to easily debate or assess the validity of the positions of the parties as the representatives that are put in front of us on news and discussion programmes are media trained to within an inch of realism and prepared specifically to transmit only the message that the party wishes to get out, not the truth necessarily.
I get that the last few years in particular have gone a long way towards making UK politics so ridiculous to behold that it has become difficult for the likes of Have I Got New for You to effectively satirise it. But we pay these people and fund all the services that are provided by the Government.
If you worked for a firm and it was being badly managed, you’d spend a lot of time in the tearoom demanding change or you’d leave. This is the opportunity for everyone to effectively take that step with the management of our country. Oh and make sure you are eligible – remember you need photo ID to vote this time, and get yourself registered for a postal vote if like me you are going to be away on holiday on the 4th of July.
Have your say on 4th of July, or you’ll not be part of the solution, just a bystander to what follows.
Karen is Mum to an autistic son in his twenties and campaigns for the rights of unpaid carers to be supported in their caring role and involved in the decisions that affect their lives and the lives of the people they care for. You can find her on X and Instagram @Karen4Carers.
