9 June

It was hilarious to see the now familiar old, white, male Tories that constitute so much of the ‘Leave’ camp getting all annoyed yesterday in the House of Commons . For once though, it was only indirectly related to the UK’s EU referendum. Clearly, a lot of folks failed to register to vote on time, either because they were muppets and left it until the last minute or just forgot altogether. The resulting massive spike in traffic caused the .Gov website to crash as it became overloaded with people trying to register in the hours and minutes leading up to 7 June’s midnight deadline. Granted, it was probably mostly students who were previously too busy engaging in post-exams white t-shirt socials and wall-to-wall vomiting that were the culprits, but it’s those very people who’s long life ahead the EU referendum will affect, because most will end up working for companies like JP Morgan (or not if the UK leaves…). They have the right to vote on it and they must vote.

Of course, I’m not defending the apparent sleuth demonstrated by the latecomers. With such an important vote approaching, you’d have thought people would be keen to have their say so it surprised me that, with so many people having a strong opinion on Britain’s relationship with the EU, so many also neglected to register to vote on time. Polls mean absolutely zip if those who answer them don’t even bother voting. Voting is what matters, so I say this: Enough of the bullshit excuses – “I didn’t have access to my National Insurance number until 11.59pm on 7 June which was the earliest I could get home to my parents’ house to register as I was revising for a dance exam.” Absolute Bollocks. If a leave vote were to prevail, it’d be your fault. Dross like that will not be tolerated on the JP Morgan grad scheme either. Get your acts together people, you’ve got until midnight tonight.

Thank your lucky stars I’m not an old, white Tory though, or I’d be saying ‘tough sh*t!’ That’s right, the ‘Leave’ camp branded the 24hr extension ‘unfair.’ Unfair?! Really? This isn’t Cricket, you old bastards. It’s not a game. What were you doing when you were 19? Registering to bloody vote?! Of course you weren’t. You were having girls round for tea with your parents. You’ve had the merits of punctuality beaten into you for the past 150 years of your life. What’s more, you’ll be dead soon. Don’t you dare try to exclude the very people whose future the UK’s EU referendum will decide. It’s literally got nothing to do with you.

We cannot deny anyone a vote in this referendum simply on account of their being a bit lame. That the UK currently supports a large population of muppets is nothing new. We’ve all been a muppet. I was a colossal muppet. One of my my best friends, who I love, is a former muppet who went from playing my copy of Battlefield Vietnam (part of the ‘Battlefield’ series of computer games) all day, wearing only his pants and a plastic army helmet, to being one of the most successful and capable people I know in a matter of years. And no less loveable to boot. The fact is it’s these very muppets who will be the major tax payers, business leaders and MPs of the future – the near future in fact. They’re young and what being young is all about is sauntering around with your head in the air, pissing off old people and not being on time. It’s unfortunate they’ve left things to the last minute in this instance, but in this case the punishment demanded by a load of angry old Tories comes nowhere near fitting the crime.

Augustin Eden, Research Analyst