Photo: Steve Eason

New Faces, New Voices – left politics after the election

At our event They Don’t Represent Us on 16 May Colin Revolting talked to eleven young people, and asked them “After the election, what do you hope will be the response and what to you intend to do going forward?”

They spoke about their feelings at the result, ranging from anger to despair, but also their determination to fight austerity. Here are a few of their comments, and you can watch the whole video below.

“For a couple of days it was quite depressing, then I saw the demonstration on Saturday, 2,000 young people out on the streets, I saw the 3,000 people on the streets in Bristol, organised by young kids, and I think there is the potential to start confronting the Tories.”

“Even if we had a Labour government we’d still have austerity – but a Tory government makes it a lot more stark.”

“Activism works on two fronts – getting involved in stuff, but also educating yourself and talking to people.”

“I expect to be involved in a lot of anti-racist initiatives, discussions about migrants…”

“I’m in a trade union at work, planning to get more involved, make people aware the union’s there for them.”

“At uni, I was quite affiliated with the Green Party… you’ve just got to carry on working with people even if they aren’t from the Green Party, it’s about solidarity between people with the same ideology, you just got to carry on talking with friends, a lot of the time these ideas aren’t really known about…”

“In NUS there are a lot of young politicised black people and Muslims who have come out on demos in solidarity with the Palestinian people, and against police violence and in solidarity with Ferguson and now Baltimore. I think we can build a student movement that fights for free education, but is also optimistic and fights for a better society.”

“I’m a union rep – I hope through those channels I can mobilise support, and also facilitate discussion.”

“Locally in Tottenham we’ve got estates being knocked down and mass gentrification, it’s the same social cleansing you see across the board, so I’m gonna get stuck into that and get organising with that. And there’s stuff around police violence, stop and search, deaths in police custody – and solidarity with struggles in America and Black Lives Matter.”

“We need to think up a revolutionary politics that can talk in the language of the twenty-first century, one that people can support.”