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    Now reading: “let’s not lose momentum” — rapper akala looks to the future on election day

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    “let’s not lose momentum” — rapper akala looks to the future on election day

    Akala just did a Facebook Live from the polling booth and it was brilliant.

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    A one-time political skeptic, rapper, poet and first-time voter Akala today took to Facebook Live to deliver some powerful messages from his local polling station. Akala’s eight-minute missive delivered some urgent points to help galvanise any hesitant stragglers to get to their local polling station — pen in hand and with tactical voting in mind — regardless of tomorrow’s outcome. Voting today is about not only about choosing your candidate of choice but about making sure your voice is being heard. Whichever way the vote falls tomorrow, Akala says, the battle is just beginning.

    Here are six of our favourite points the rapper and actor made — now this is what we call a Fire In The Booth!

    1. Corbyn got ’em shook.
    “It’s clear — despite the lies of the mainstream media, despite their failure to ask the current Prime Minster very difficult questions, despite the overwhelming backing of a candidate that hates poor people, who has horrendous policies, who has run an un-costed manifesto, who has run a pathetic campaign — we’ve seen the entire establishment rally behind this candidate and [seen] the threat that any, even mild alternative, poses to a lot of people.”

    2. Whoever wins, the fight is far from over.
    “[Even if we don’t get the Tories out], I don’t want to lose this momentum that we’ve created… I think the energy that we’ve seen mobilised… the passion we’ve seen in young people, the record registrations etcetera, now needs to be mobilised. If the candidate you support wins, that candidate needs to be held to account and needs to be made to deliver on those promises, because there will be an establishment reaction to a candidate they’ve not backed, winning. So we have to force that candidate to deliver and the party to deliver on the things they have promised. If the Tories stay in — which we really, really hope they don’t and don’t listen to the polls, get out there and do what you got to do – then we have to resist. We have to organise. There’s a few things I’d like to organise – to do with schooling, to do with free school meals, to do with helping out nurses and the people that the Tory Government, if they stay in, will continue to exploit and brutalise in horrendous ways – there are ways that those of us in more fortunate positions should be helping and organising.”

    3. Win or lose, the people have spoken.
    “It’s really important that the level of support for a degree of progressive alternative is registered for history so people understand that when people are not engaging with the mainstream political process it’s not apathy! It’s absolutely a recognition that you people don’t like us, you people don’t represent us, you people couldn’t give a shit about us, so therefore we’re not going to bother wasting our time. The moment a normal, decent human being with a progressive record runs, people have gotten behind that.”

    4. If May triumphs, we can no longer bash the yanks.
    “If the Tories do win, I don’t want to hear no English people chatting shit about Americans ever again. They voted, Trump got elected and we were cussing. ‘Americans are so dumb, how can they believe the media, the media lies all the time, Americans are so stupid.’ We now have a person who has made it clear that she’s literally going to hold Donald Trump’s hand, that literally she’s going to back everything he does. We’ve had a more credible alternative — even more credible that Bernie Sanders cos Bernie Sanders is talking backing American Imperialism in many ways — Corbyn hasn’t done that. So if we still don’t take that opportunity, I don’t want to hear no more snobbiness about America. I want everyone to close their gums and shut their mouths and focus on fixing our own issues!”

    5. Your vote counts, no matter the outcome.
    “If all the young people who registered get out there and vote they really, really can make a difference whether it’s to a hung parliament, a shock victory, whether reducing the Conservative’s majority. Don’t pay no attention to the polls! Get out there, do what you got to do, we’ll see what the results are later, but regardless of what happens, lets make sure that we use this energy that’s been galvanized. We use this engagement, whether it’s the candidate that we like that wins — to force him to deliver — or whether it’s the candidate that we don’t like that wins — to resist and to organise around the credible alternative. Let’s not let this moment just pass us by.”

    6. And finally…
    “The British class system is alive and fucking well! The hatred that we’ve seen for people that are not well off — and I’m not bitter, I’m the working class boy from my ends that ‘made it’ — what amazes me is how a) people who grew up like we did can get in a certain position and vote against the very policies that helped them and b) the astounding hatred we’ve seen… the level of class hatred we’ve seen over these last seven weeks has been astounding. And if you’ve not seen it, I can’t help you. It’s just unbelievable.”

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