The UK General Elections – My Experience

As some of you may know, the UK elections took place last week Thursday (4th July) which saw the Labour Party emerge as the winner of the elections.

I have not participated in an election before – whether in the UK or in Ghana but I wanted this to be my first but unfortunately, I was not able to vote (story for another day).

With the emergence of a new government, there are a lot of expectations especially in the times that we are living in – climate crisis, increasing poverty & inequality rates, the falling standards of the NHS among others. The Labour Party has a lot of work to do! However, they cannot fix all these problems and many more in a year or two or even in the next 5 years – only with a magic wand can they achieve that. However, with a landslide victory such as this, I am looking forward to seeing the policies that they will bring on board across all sectors of the economy and how that will positively influence the lives of UK residents.

As an activist with the ONE Campaign, I engaged the Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (PPCs) within my constituency, who were 7 in total – I emailed all 7 of them introducing myself to them and asking them how their government plans to increase the UK’s role within international development. I only received a reply from one – the Liberal Democrats PPC, Dominic Griffiths.

Following that, I attended an election hustings – an event where you get to hear from the PPCs, their manifestos and also get to ask questions! I did not manage to ask a question due to the time limit but it was interesting to hear from the candidates which in a way influenced who I was going to vote for. Shortly after the event, I spoke to Dominic Griffiths and thanked him for responding to my email and had a brief discussion with him with a colleague present as well.

Fast forward to last Friday, I was selected as an audience for the BBC Question Time in London – just a day after the elections. The panel discussion was led by BBC journalist, Fiona Bruce with representatives from Labour, Conservatives, the Reform Party and Liberal Democrats. It was just an hour long conversation which got heated with lots of people wanting to ask questions (as expected). I fortunately got to ask my question but did not get my question answered due to time and also the conversation focusing mostly on Gaza (which is understandable). Shortly after, I was interviewed by one of the BBC team wanting to know my thoughts which I provided.I left there with a bit of mixed feelings especially with some of the submissions of the panelist but that is to be expected especially when it comes to politics. However, for me, I am always mostly concerned about the country first before political parties and I hope the Labour Party under Sir Keir Stamer leads the country to a more than satisfactory level on all fronts! Fingers crossed!

Thank you for reading today’s post. Stay tuned for the next!