Young people are making a difference in politics, and the youthquake is evidence of this, so let’s stop denying it ever happened.
The term “youthquake” echoed through the media after The Conservative party lost their majority in the 2017 general election. Here it finally was, the 18 -24 year olds had made a difference; and people were talking about it. Apathetic no more, the young people were claiming their ground in the political world. As a young voter myself I can’t deny that I was pleased, it was refreshing to hear that our votes mattered and had made a notable difference. In January, The British Electoral Study (BES) released a new set of data that argued the youthquake was in fact a myth; and that seemed to please a lot of people. Whether this data be true or false (this will be discussed later), it is time to stop denying the political engagement of young people. We are here, we are making a difference, and we aren’t going anywhere.
This youthquake that we heard so much about after the general election came as shock for so many reasons. People for a long time now have thought of young voters as individualistic and apathetic to politics. Housing, pensions and job seeking for young people aren’t problems for the policy makers so young people simply do not engage (Sloam, 2007).
What isn’t acknowledged nearly enough is the fact that young people engage in so many more ways than we are given credit for. Young people are the more likely to wear badges, protest, participate in online debate, and take part in demonstrations (Sloam, 2015). So, maybe it isn’t that we aren’t engaged, but instead we are transforming politics, moving the conversation to online platforms and through social media campaigns making politics more accessible (Keating & Melis, 2017).
Fig. 1 – Graph showing the change in voting by age since 2015. Graph Provided by Ipsos MORI.
This is exactly what Jeremy Corbyn did in his 2017 campaign, he reached out to the masses with a grass roots campaign that focussed on an increase in positive social media posting and celebrity endorsement. This is something The Conservatives failed to master, and is arguably why they lost their majority (The Guardian, 2017). So, this just seems to me to be even further evidence of the youthquake. Young people are thought to engage more in online politics; Labour’s campaign seems to nail online engagement; young voters turned out more to vote Labour. You don’t need to be a genius to see the link. We can see this plain and clear in Fig.1, votes for Labour went up a whopping 20 points, even with margin of error this is a huge shift (Ipsos Mori, 2017)
What else sparked this youthquake we wonder? Politics has had some of the most shocking results in history over the past three years. When The United States of America elected a reality TV star as their president and Britain left the European Union young people marched all over the world. Was Brexit the final straw for the disengaged youth? 57% of 18 – 24 year olds said they would definitely vote, compared to 46% before Brexit (Intergenerational Foundation, 2017).
For the sake of argument it does seem only fair to look at the data released by the British Election Study that claims to have debunked the myth of the youthquake.
Fig. 2 Graph showing relationship between age and turnout in 2015 versus 2017. Graph Provided by British Election Study.
The graph above is the basis for this discrediting of the youthquake. BES suggest that there is no evidence of a surge in youth engagement, and in fact the 35 – 45 year olds are where Labour got their votes. Maybe off the back of this we rethink what we mean by “youth voters”. We live at home with our parents for longer, it’s taking us longer to buy a house (if we ever do), and finding a job is more competitive than ever; “compared with past generations, it takes longer for youth today to attain various markers of adult status” (Flanagan et al, 2011, p1). So here I argue that the 35 -45’s count as a youth vote too, whether we go with Ipsos MORI’s results or BES at least there is some shifts within the younger demographics, it gives us hope for a world that isn’t run by the baby boomers forever.
So, let the deniers be silenced. The politically engaged youth are here and making change, be that through protesting, posting online or turning out to vote. Get used to it.
Bibliography:
British Election Study (2017) “The Myth of 2017 Youthquake Election” [Online] Available: http://www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-impact/the-myth-of-the-2017-youthquake-election/#.WozXLqhl_IU [Accessed: 20th February 2018]
Flanagan et al (2011) “Political Incorporation and the Protracted Transition to Adulthood: The Need for New Institutional Inventions” Parliamentary Affairs. Vol. 65. P29 -46. Available at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.916.4539&rep=rep1&type=pdf [Accessed: 20th February 2018]
Intergenerational Foundation (2017) “Youth Quake: Young people and the 2017 General Election” [Online] Available: http://www.if.org.uk/research-posts/youth-quake-young-people-2017-general-election/ [Accessed 20th February 20118]
Ipsos Mori (2017) “How the voters voted in the 2017 General Election” [Online] Available: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/2017-06/how-britain-voted-in-the-2017-election_2.pdf [Accessed: 20th February 2018]
Keating, A & Melis, G (2017) “Social media and youth political engagement: Preaching to the converted or providing a new voice for youth?” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, [Online] Vol. 19 No. 4, P.877 -899. Available: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1369148117718461 [Accessed: 20th February 2018]
Sloam, J, 2007. “Rebooting Democracy: Youth Participation in Politics in the UK”. Parliamentary Affairs, [Online]. Vol.60 No.4, 548 – 567. Available at: https://academic.oup.com/pa/article/60/4/548/1581141 [Accessed 20th February 2018].
Sloam, J, (2015). “Voice and Equality: Young People’s Politics in the European Union”. West European Politics, [Online]. Vol.36 No.4. p 836 – 858. Available at: https://contentstore.cla.co.uk/EReader/Index?p=XERvY3NcMzUzMTNcRENTLTFhZDNlZGQ0LWI1YjgtNGZjYy1hYTJmLWE2ZWRiMTk0MDM4ZS5wZGY=&o=UERGRG93bmxvYWQ9VHJ1ZSZLb3J0ZXh0RG93bmxvYWQ9RmFsc2UmSXNXZWxzaD1GYWxzZQ==&id=81de2009-854a-e611-80bd-0cc47a6bddeb [Accessed 20th February 2018]
The Guardian. (2017) “Labour won social media election, digital strategists say”. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/09/digital-strategists-give-victory-to-labour-in-social-media-election-facebook-twitter. [Accessed 20th February 2018].