The Election Result: How The F*ck Are We Here?
Well, the results are in from the UK’s third general election in five years and the Conservatives have secured a record majority in the House of Commons – their best general election result since 1987. Whether you’re from a big city or tiny hamlet in the shires of the West Country, the reaction from young people across the UK is largely the same; utter disbelief, mild panic and a low-level anxiety regarding future job, housing and travel prospects. Happy Friday everybody.
This morning in the office I’ve heard things like ‘well that’s my future fucked’, ‘might as well say goodbye to the NHS now’ and a personal favourite ‘maybe we should start dealing to cover our GP appointments next year?’. Another good one was ‘anyone want to start a GoFundMe page for visas’, which I thought wasn’t a bad idea personally – after all, the Left love the idea of a collective, so what better way to show solidarity to an ideal than a collective exodus to Finland or New Zealand? Both places seem nice.
On a serious note though, all I’ve thought about since the exit poll announcement was this – how the fucking fuck are we here AGAIN?! Who in their right mind is voting for this Dickensian fever dream that’ve we’ve woken to? We had Tory MPs going door-to-door literally saying ‘I know austerity has hit you hard and we’re sorry, but vote for us and we’ll spend the next 5 years catching us up to where we should be right now and also the other guy.. the jam and marrow guy? Yeah he’s a terrorist’. HOW is that acceptable?! And WHY has the UK, one of the most freely-educated, socially liberal and technologically-advanced nations in the world managed to completely forget the not-so-distant past SO spectacularly and vote the One Nation brigade in for another five years?!
Now, if you’ve been on Twitter or Facebook at all since 7am, there is a plethora of opinions about the result. Everyone has an opinion on social media, but elections are the sure-fire Facebook status / 150 character rant generator. The most popular ones that I’ve seen are that ‘this is the media’s fault for being too bias’, ‘it’s Corbyn’s fault for being too soft’ and not ‘playing politics’ (being ‘economic with the truth’ in the words of the BBC) and of course the tagline that we can sign off 2019 with; ‘The British public just want to Get Brexit Done’. But after maybe a solid hour of staring blankly at the results and trying to piece it together, I came to the conclusion that this vote wasn’t just a political statement. It wasn’t just about ‘Getting Brexit Done’ and it really wasn’t about how much everyone loves Boris the scruffy underdog and his unforgettable ‘um… *blank stare* ah… well, um, I think’ catchphrase…
This election was simply an exercise in utilising the sheer power of paid ads. If we take anything away from this election, it should be that the way in which social media creates an unregulated, unverified ocean of information that almost every single person of voting age spends their free time consuming. In its current untethered, primal form, social media is looking like the biggest threat to democracy we’ve faced globally since the rise of fascism. A recent study showed the sheer level of disinformation that the main parties are publishing; the highest being a staggering 5000 out 6749 paid ads from Tory HQ being labelled as ‘misleading’ by the independent fact-checking service Full Fact. Democracy campaigners have even branded this election ‘the dirtiest on record’, with so much disinformation from foreign powers that entire teams have been put together at the big social media companies just to combat UK election fake news. Most worrying however is the unbelievable amount of money that went into these ads on Facebook - an eye-watering £15 million was spent on political ads published by the official party pages in just the last 14 months alone. What’s clear is that a serious amount of time and resources are being put into posing statistics and policy pledges to fit each party’s narrative. Paired with advertisements on unofficial fake news pages, as well as hyper-sensational endorsements by newspapers and public figures, this has been undoubtedly the most difficult and complex election in the UK’s history.
I suppose my take away from this campaign is that we all need to fact check the information we find ourselves privy to on social media much more carefully. Fact check this article and fact-check all political stuff that you see on social media before attempting to form an opinion based on it. And please try to get your parents and older relatives to fact check what they see online more carefully. Because I do fear that being ‘economical with the truth’ has reached a new height (or low, depending on your view) and is about to become an order of magnitude more divisive than we can currently imagine. By not picking apart and detailing the disinformation from the 2019 UK election, we’re setting a disturbing precedent within social media that is going to allow billions to spent on misleading adverts in the upcoming 2020 US elections; which will change the face of democratic decisions in the West for years to come.
Written by Saul Bell
Saul is professional musician and business owner based in Bristol, UK. Whilst pursuing a career in corporate finance in the day, Saul also manages the record label and events collective Echo World alongside upcoming beat producer Saaaz, hosting an exciting selection of unique and colourful one-off events alongside monthly radio shows on Noods Radio and Keakie Music in London. You can find out more about their work at @echoworldco on Facebook, or at @echoworld.co on Instagram.