Rishi Sunak has finally bowed to pressure from the upper echelons of the Conservative Party and flicked the switch on its life support machine to the ‘off’ position – announcing the general election 2024 will be on Thursday 4 July.
However, a better analogy than this for what will be a fruitless exercise in faux-democracy would be that polling day will see members of the public who do go out to vote shovelling shit around in a pointless display of procedure.
General election: rain on me
Sunak’s announcement was hilarious: outside Downing Street the Great British Weather was pissing on him from a great height, drenching his Savile Row suit and face as he stared glazy-eyed and submissively into the camera while Tony Blair’s insipid 90s theme tune blared in the background.
It was a fitting tribute to the current democratic landscape: a veritable piece of bad political porn that would come up if you searched ‘sissy+sunak+watersports+new+labour’ on Pornhub.
This will be the Canary’s third general election that we have actively covered. It’s highly likely that – aside from 2015’s tedious displays of centrist posturing from all involved (who remembers the Milifandom?) – this will be the most apathy-riddled one in recent memory.
2017 under Jeremy Corbyn was an election that will forever be seared onto the memories of those actively involved. It felt invigorating, exciting, and hopeful. 2019 was different. It felt inevitable, hard, and despairing.
Now, in 2024, a millennial gif perhaps sums the general election up best:
Pick-a-Tory
What a fucking time to be alive. You don’t need us to list all the ills of the main political parties – but we have a choice on 4 July between:
- Literal neo-fascists.
- Far-right Tories.
- Right-wing Tories with red rosettes.
- Centre-right Tories with orange ties.
- Sometimes Tories with some other decent people but all of them wearing green cardigans.
The Canary’s advice to you is don’t vote for any of the first three on that list at the general election.
If you really must vote for the orange ones – then only do so if it means the far-right or red-rosetted Tories might lose.
The green ones are tricky depending on who your candidate is – but they’re generally a far safer bet than the previous four.
Ideally, the Canary would urge you to vote for any smaller-party or independent candidates you have in your area.
Let’s be real: your vote might well be one of the millions that is utterly fucking pointless under First Past The Post.
4 July’s general election is likely to see one of the lowest turnouts in history – probably because voters no longer see any difference between the main candidates, and poorer people have generally felt unrepresented by UK politics, and therefore disenfranchised, since the turn of the century – even with Corbyn.
Whatever you do, the general election is irrelevant
So, don’t think anything is going to change – and don’t think that spoiling you ballot or not even voting is wrong. You are more than entitled to do that.
However, do vote for non-mainstream candidates if you can. Labour and Keir Starmer know they have this general election sewn up. We know that it means years more of hell for poor, disabled, chronically ill, and marginalised people in the UK and abroad. The Canary will spend the next six-odd weeks making sure the truth about the Labour Party is known.
But it would be nice if Starmer did not get the huge majority he thinks he will – and if there were some George Galloway-style upsets across the country.
We will work hard to make sure that happens, and that small and independent candidates get the media coverage they deserve.
So, bring on the shit shovelling – as politicians polish turds and the public move the same stinking slurry around on their ballot papers. We’ll be by your side, making sure no mainstream party is let off the hook.
Featured image via Channel 4 News – YouTube
