SO THAT exit poll appears, and the sound of left-wing jaws hitting the floor is deafening. That sick, clenched feeling in your stomach appears, your heart’s going a mile a minute and it’s all the worse because you know so many people are feeling the same. In your mind’s eye, you see the queues for foodbanks, the packed GP waiting rooms and those made homeless by the bedroom tax. You despair at this country, at all those voters blithely turning the graphics that awful, snooty shade of blue, and you cry. You Google “left-wing country, somewhere warm.” Your Scottish mates invite you to move up. You think about it, seriously.

When I realised on Friday morning that even the exit polls had underestimated just how crap it all was, I was passing London’s St Pancras Church. There was a man sitting there with all his possessions next to him in wet boxes, eating sandwiches out of a bin bag.

Now I don’t know about you, but I think as long as that man and millions like him are eating leftovers out of the rubbish, talking about fleeing the country and leaving him to it is almost as bad as voting Tory. It might seem hopeless at the moment, but there are some basic things we can all do to work through this. Wallowing in political self-pity or booking the next flight out of here is not going to feed the hungry.

1. If you’re in work — or even if you’re not — join a trade union.
The more union members there are, the more chance we have of fighting zero-hours contracts, low wages and other shit. It’s a pernicious right-wing lie that unions died the moment Thatcher closed the mines. There are six million union members in this country — more than the membership of all political parties combined — and the movement is alive and well. It needs members to keep it going, it needs you to get behind its aims, and you need it to fight for your rights. Find out which union to join at www.tuc.org.uk/join-union.

2. Get involved in community activism too. Housing groups, foodbanks, local strikes, local progressive parties. Work for the vulnerable.
If council tenants are occupying homes they’re about to be evicted from, join them. If your foodbank needs volunteers and donations, get on it. If local workers are standing outside their office, factory, depot, or fire station waving placards, then don’t just take a photo and tweet about it, stand there next to them. If you save one person from eviction, one job from redundancy, if you feed one family with your donation, you are stopping the Tories.
If there’s no community activism going on, start it! Find your local foodbank at www.trusselltrust.org/map and find your local renters’ group at www.generationrent.org/get_involved.

3. Sorry, but we’re going to have to be tireless.
Fighting the cuts is going to be hard. But we have to do it. So get ready for a long fight. We’ve got a fixed-term Parliament so we’ve got at least five years of long, hard slog. Don’t expect miracles, don’t expect to overthrow David Cameron by Christmas. Believe in your ideals firmly enough to fight for them for a long time. And make sure you’ve got a good supply of coffee to get you through it. Join the End Austerity Now national demonstration on June 20.

4. Don’t be tied by party lines.
For the movement which invented solidarity, the left wing doesn’t practice it that often outside of its gangs. Labour, Green, Tusc and even Lib Dem progressives must work together to oppose what’s going to happen. We’re all on the same side now. Arguing over Clause 4, making jibes at the Greens being muesli-munchers or carping on and on about tuition fee promises won’t solve anything. If you need to bite your tongue at a slight difference in politics to get something done, then bite it right off.

5. Find a way to preach to the unconverted. We need them on our side.
How many of us woke up on Friday morning baffled that the country wasn’t voting the same way as the people we choose to be friends with and the people we follow on Twitter? Solidarity creates silos as well as strength. We have to actively seek out those we disagree with and talk to them, to explain what we’re fighting for and against. We cannot be arrogant enough to assume support.

Finally, through all of this, be kind. Be very kind. Be kind to your comrades, who’ll get as tired and as angry as you. If you can, be kind to those you argue with, because compassion changes more minds than anger, even though it’s harder to muster. Be kind to the poor, the disabled, the immigrants, the workers and to anyone who’s a bit different. The government won’t be, you see.

• Rebecca Winson is a writer and an activist for GMB Young London.
• This article first appeared at classonline.org.uk.