How not to destroy your relationships this General Election

Sitting down for fajitas one night, I expected the dinner conversation would cover the usual subjects…

I was ready to moan about Kent’s terrible cricket season. A new shop had opened on the High Street. Presumably there would also be something incomprehensive that had happened on TikTok.

Then, my 16-year-old stepson surprised me.

‘I was looking at the election today’, he said. ‘I saw this really good video.’

I nearly fell off my chair.

You see, my stepson is your typical teen. He loves a bit of social media and is currently focussed, rightly so, on getting through his GCSEs. 

Politics is definitely not the most important thing in his life right now.

Just to hear him chatting about the upcoming general election in any way – regardless of the fact that he can’t vote this time around – was ace. Perhaps this was the start of a beautiful new chapter of my life!

However, there’s just one problem – the star of the video was not a candidate whose thoughts, policies or ethos match mine.

Plus, it’s not like he’s been engaged by a policy or a vision for the future. Nor has he decided that this is the best person to steer our country into a better place because of a winning manifesto. 

No. He’s drawn to this candidate because of their antics on TikTok. 

Now what do I do?

I’m 43. How am I supposed to convince my teen that this candidate isn’t cool? That they don’t have, erm, ‘rizz’ – when I’m clearly the last person to know about those things? 

Anyway, who, at 16, takes advice on vibes from their elders? I know I certainly didn’t.

As an undiagnosed, bipolar teenager, I was very, very cross, and constantly in search of a cause.

Eventually, I chose animal rights. I went vegan in 1998 and was angry all the time – especially with people who wore leather, used products tested on animals and ate meat.

There wasn’t much discussion to be had with me. To me, there was right and wrong – and most people were wrong. 

I wasn’t interested in talking to those ‘wrong’ people – and this included my parents. Everyone at school. People on the Tube.

This was a quarter of a century ago and my mother still flinches when a disagreement comes up between us.

As I grew older and got into teaching I realised that had to change. 

I might have hated teaching Jane Austen but my job wasn’t to pass on my dislike of Mr Darcy’s whimsy, it was to enthuse, engage and encourage discussion in the classroom.

My views could still be my views, but not everyone was going to think the same as me – and that was OK. 

Politics had always been my real passion though. So, when I was 28 and married with a child, I quit teaching and got a job at the Houses of Parliament, leading sessions with young people visiting on school trips. 

Again, there was no space for my opinions in that job. These were young people on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Parliament. Ranting about austerity wasn’t right. 

More time passed, I had (more) children, moved to a small town by the sea and went back to teaching – now delivering whole school political education. I discovered that verbal wrestling over a subject can be fun and enlightening.

Following a breakdown due to my bipolar disorder in 2014, I dropped out of full-time employment. However, I wanted to continue down this path of debate. So, in 2015, I set up Simple Politics – a way of following politics that talks about the whole thing like a friend.  

The idea was to follow the progress of new laws through Parliament and keep people updated about things they care about.

In 2016 I launched my newsletter – a take on what’s going on designed to help people understand and form their own views. I think 12 people opened the first one.

We must all be open to hearing views different to our own

But then, the EU Referendum popped up, followed quickly by the Brexit chaos, the 2017 election and the 2019 election. 

Polarisation, division and anger seemingly fuelled everyday conversations in the office, the pub and online. 

In 2018, Nigel Farage turned up at a fisherman’s protest in my home town of Whitstable where the protestors burned a boat, while a group of Remainers showed up in force as a counter protest, waving EU flags.

I saw people shouting and swearing. I saw people spit at each other. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the argument, nobody was going to be persuaded that day.

But Simple Politics was doing it differently. 

I tried to keep things calm, informative, helpful, not taking one side or another.

I like to think I have made conversations better across the country, but I also know we’re as divided as ever. 

We’re in our echo chambers. We’re hostile. We’re defensive. Real, human connection gets lost.

It’s human connections that matter, though. That’s all that ever matters.

Which brings me back to my stepson.

It’s possible that his interest in this other candidate was partly to push buttons. He knows my political opinions, what could be more fun than praising another lot?

Still I knew I had to make it a conversation so that, if nothing else, he’d be better informed come his first time at the polls.

‘No lectures, Tatton!’ I reminded myself. ‘This isn’t about you! It’s all OK. We’re just chatting.’

I started by asking what they (the candidate) were up to online? Then asked my stepson why and what he liked about it. And slowly we started to talk about the policies, the stuff that matters.

‘Do you know what they’d like to change in the country?’ I said. ‘Is that something you’d like? What do you want to change?’

Slowly, we found the specific things we disagree on, but we also found things we agree on. And by the point that our fajitas were done and the TV went on we were OK. Better than OK, I think. Closer.

Has it set him on a path to political nirvana? Maybe. Probably not – but the key is that it’s OK to disagree. It would be boring if we agreed all the time. We must all be open to hearing views different to our own.

My father and I don’t see eye to eye. And I’m almost certain I’m going to vote a different way to my partner, but that’s fine.

I even hosted a raucous election event with candidates from all sides the other day – that was tricky, but we got through, and we all learnt something about other people.

The important thing to remember is that there is no one solution to this country’s woes. Nobody has the monopoly on morality and your views don’t make you better than anyone else.

So the next time your uncle says something preposterous and clearly wrong, find out where it comes from and why. Listen. Question. Discuss.

It’s about exploring, not fighting. You never know, you might get closer. You might bond.

Maybe.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.