There’s Going to Be an Election – Here’s What You Need to Do

Right, well, here we are again. General election avenue. Ballot box city. Exit poll central. That’s right, there will be an election the 12th of December.

Just like waking up in a panic in the dusty bed of a random after a “big one”, you have to ask yourself: how the fuck did we get here? Essentially, Brexit has left Parliament in a crisis. With no clear majority nor a good enough deal, the Conservatives have failed to pass their withdrawal agreement bill, resulting in a stalemate. Despite saying that he would rather “die in a ditch” than not leave the EU on the 31st of October, Boris Johnson has called a general election. The reason for this? To put the deal to “the people” rather than Parliament, but also in order to try and secure a larger majority in Parliament, which would make it easier to push any future Brexit deal through.

Johnson’s first attempt this week to get a general election fell flat on Monday when Labour abstained, saying that they wouldn’t vote for an election until a no-deal Brexit was off the table. This is because Johnson originally proposed the 12th of December as an election date, meaning that if the Conservatives won, they could still push through a no-deal Brexit by the 31st of January – the EU’s new extension date.

On Tuesday, the Liberal Democrats put forward a new date for the general election, which wouldn't leave enough time for any party to get a no-deal Brexit through before the 31st. Jeremy Corbyn said that as Labour's "condition of taking no-deal off the table [had] now been met," they would vote for a general election.

A Labour government before January? Christmas could come early this year.

Are you a student? Have you moved to a new house? Are you in halls? Have you never voted in an election before? Do you like rights? Then you need to register to vote. You can register to vote here. Do it now. Don’t read anymore. Literally, do it and then come back here.

If you are a student, you can be registered at your parents' address and a term time university address, but you can only vote at one of them.

It's up to you. A good way to decide where to vote is to check if one of the places you’re voting in is a swing seat, which you can check by looking at the past election results. If your parents live in a safe Labour seat, but your uni house is in a place where there’s usually a small number of votes between parties, then it might be worth voting at your uni address. Find how your constituency voted in the past here.

Register for a postal vote. It is like a rule of the universe that everyone forgets to do this, so do it super early because the deadline to register for a postal vote is before the date of the general election.

You have to do this by post, which is annoying but, again, extremely necessary if you like having rights. You can register for a postal vote here.

You can also elect someone to vote for you (like your mum). This is called 'voting by proxy'. You can register a proxy vote here.

You literally cannot complain about a system if you refuse to try and change it. Registering to vote gives you a say in the country’s future, people have literally died for your ability to do so, and also, it’ll fuck over the Tories. Who needs more reason than that?

@RubyJLL