A tale of two parties turned three

Thursday 8th June 2017 marked the most important day of many millennials future. It was the day where we could vote to have our lives improved by Labour, or to have our futures decided by an older generation that wouldn’t feel the full force of a Tory government. It was the day of the general election. Of course everyone is writing their own opinion on the events- and so am I.

SPOILER ALERT: Labour didn’t win. Despite his best efforts Jeremy Corbyn just couldn’t secure the majority vote. However his loss is not a disappointment; there are a few facts that came out of the election that can give us all hope for the future.

Firstly Labour won 262 seats, which is only a mere 56 seats less than the Conservatives.

Ultimately this meant that neither party won a majority and a coalition had to be implemented in order for there to be a PM. Theresa May was, unfortunately, approved to create a coalition with the DUP (more about them later) and thus she remains in power. However Labour still keep all of the seats that they won and therefore have the power to protest against anything May puts forward to parliament. We may not have won but that doesn’t make us powerless.

Secondly this election was the highest turnout in 25 years. Almost 70% of the country (32 million people) put forward their vote. The popularity of this election shows a budding interest in Politics in Britain. This indicates that people are becoming more educated in regards to politics and the different parties which, hopefully, made them make a well-informed decision on who to vote for. The outcome of this election was definitely not what I had hoped for, but with nearly 70% of the country voting, at least it was a democratic decision made by the majority.

Additionally two thirds of the voters in this election were 18-34 year olds, and, even though it is too early to have statistical information on the party the majority voted for, it is suggested that a large part of this age group voted Labour. Not only does this show a growing interest in politics amongst millennials, but it also shows how they are becoming engaged with the country they live in, myself included. We are beginning to think about the way we want our country to work and are backing the party that would best do this for us. After all we are the generation that will be most affected by this election so the least we could do was vote in it.

A lot of people despise Theresa May, myself included, and believe that having her as prime minister, especially now that she has created a coalition with the DUP, will only ruin our country. This being said, having Theresa May as prime minister is an amazing thing for young women across the country. She is only the second female prime minister our country has had and having a woman in such a powerful position is an example for young women that being a female should not limit what you think you can do, no matter what oppression we face- we can even run the country if we want to! She may not do well by our country with her politics, but at least she can prove how powerful women can be.

Not only is our Prime Minister a women, but this election has given more women than ever seats in Parliament. There are now 208 female MP’s thanks to this election. We are a long way off a 50% female/male even split when it comes to politics, however we are moving in the right direction. With more females in political positions this should hopefully spur forward the fight for equality and prove that we can be just as powerful as men.

So there are some positives to come out of this dreadful election. However there is one massive negative- a coalition with the DUP. Who are the DUP? Well they are the Democratic Unionist Party. A right wing party from Northern Ireland whose leader is Arlene Foster. They are against abortions, against same sex marriage, and are basically the Northern Irish conservatives. Our country is fucked with them in a coalition with the Tories.

This election has bought a lot of heartache with Jezza not winning but some positive things have come out of it. Let’s all pray for the country.