As I write, it is unclear whether the Conservatives will have an overall majority. If not, I suspect they will try to rule as a minority government, although they may try some sort of deal.
As I write, it is unclear whether the Conservatives will have an overall majority. If not, I suspect they will try to rule as a minority government, although they may try some sort of deal. In the latter case, they could well be defeated in Parliament on at least some issues. In the former, they will still be vulnerable to rebellion from their own fractious backbenchers.
Either way, let us remember that politics is about far, far more than parties, elections and polling days. We need to resist the plans for a massive extra £12 billion in welfare cuts, the privatisation of the National Health Service, the ongoing attacks on education and the welfare state, the fuelling of climate change, the sale of arms to tyrants and the plans to throw £100 billion into a new generation of weapons of mass destruction.
It is tempting to run away and hide. So I’m trying to remind myself that we can resist such policies in Parliament, through fresh ideas, in the media, through policy, on the streets, in our workplaces, in our communities and faith groups and places of education, through work with trade unions, through protests, through nonviolent direct action and in our daily lives.
Politics is about people. It belongs to us, not to politicians. The election circus is nearly over, but real politics continues well beyond #GE2015.
* Ekklesia co-director Simon Barrow has offered some further initial thoughts on change in the rolling GE2015 blog here: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/21670
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(c) Symon Hill is an associate of the Ekklesia thinktank and a tutor for the Workers’ Educational Association. His book, Digital Revolutions: Activism in the internet age, can be ordered from the publisher, New Internationalist, at http://newint.org/books/politics/digital-revolutions.
For links to more of Symon’s work, please visit http://www.symonhill.wordpress.com.