BLOG 1 Young People and Political Engagement

Are young people apathetic or are we just simply drifting away from formal politics?

In the past, youth engagement in politics has been much lower than the average, as it is estimated that less than half the electorate aged 18-24 voted in 2015. However, these inequalities are now slowly decreasing. The EU referendum was the first occurrence in a substantial amount of time where the turnout gap of young voters has narrowed. Equally, as shown in figure 1, the youth estimated turnout in the 2017 general election has shown a 16% increase, with 54% of 18-24-year olds voting, compared to 38% in the 2015 general election. This is the biggest increase we have seen since 1979 (Ipsos Mori, 2017).

Figure 1: – Estimated turnout comparison in 2016 EU referendum, and 2015 & 2017 general election amongst all adults (18-65+ years old) (Ipsos Mori, 2017)

 

Figure 2: – Comparison of estimated turnout amongst all adults in 2017 general election (Ipsos Mori, 2017)

However, as seen in Figure 2, people aged 65+ were still more likely to vote than younger people, despite their turnout dropping by 3%. Although the gap has narrowed, there is still a 17% difference in the turnout of the youngest voters compared to the silver generation in the 2017 general election.

Even though we see a rise in young people voting, we are still falling behind the ‘grey generation’. One concluding result shows that these statistics suggest parties need to do something different to re-engage the younger generation into British political landscape.

In the last few years we have seen a rise in young people voting on two occasions. Firstly, in the EU referendum in 2016. This was the first time many young people would have had a chance to vote on a political decision concerning their future. Although I was unable to vote in the EU referendum due to not holding British nationality, many of my friends took the opportunity to vote on what they believed in. The voting turnout may have been high in this case because for the first time the younger generation was concerned with the significant impacts Brexit may have on their future. The younger generation has only known Britain as part of the EU, and it can be argued that they are seen as more appreciative of the success that the EU has brought to them (Henn & Sharpe 2016).

The second time we have seen a rise in youth engagement was during the 2017 general election. Sloam and Ehsan argue that we saw even more of a rise in young people voting in the 2017 general election because of the disappointment we felt after the EU referendum outcome (Sloam, Ehsan, 2017). Equally, young people aged 18-24 who voted in the 2017 general election were predominantly leaning towards the Labour government (Travis, 2018). The reason as to why Labour was so popular amongst younger generations could be put down to the political leader Jeremy Corbyn, who saw the younger generation as disadvantaged and addressed issues relevant to them. He aimed his campaign at young people and brought back a desire for change. Suddenly it seemed possible to scrap tuition fees, make it achievable to buy a house and pump more funding into health and education sectors. These are just some of the things the older generation had access to and now hold the younger generation financially responsible.

According to Quintelier (2007), young people aren’t apathetic towards politics, but rather live different lifestyles, with our lives being described as more individualistic. Most people my age may not get involved with politics because they don’t own a house, have children or a stable residence, which are some of the things politicians aim their policies at. Young people are now shifting away from the traditional forms of political engagement such as voting and party memberships. As we can see from the results in graph 2, these traditional forms of political engagement are still practised by the older generation hence the turnout at polling stations may be higher for them (Quintelier, 2007).

However, research shows that young people all over Europe are now finding more diverse and creative ways to engage with politics (Brooks, 2017). The newer and more popular forms of political engagement include social movements, online petitions and protests. Specifically, in the UK we saw a lot of younger people getting involved with anti-Brexit campaigns. Young people can also be seen as ‘standby citizens’ meaning being involved with the issues we see as more relevant to us (White et al., 2000). Therefore, it may be inferred that even though we aren’t practising ‘traditional politics’ we are still engaging with them in our ways.

Some may have the opinion that the younger generations are in fact still engaged politics, just in new ways. However, in order to have a say and make a change in this country it is important for young people to vote. This leads to the question of what the solution could be in order to get young people politically engaged this way. In order to get young people to vote, politicians need to start addressing the younger generations with their relevant policies and the issues we speak up about on relevant platforms. Jeremy Corbyn made a significant change in the 2017 general election with young people by his side. Low turnout of young people voting can be seen as a ‘symptom’ of politicians not addressing the younger generation, rather than a cause of anything else such as their uninterest in politics (Ideas, 2018).

 

 

 

References:

BBC, 2017. Why were young voters drawn to Jeremy Corbyn. [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkjR9NXlUk
[Accessed 19 02 2019].

Brooks, R., 2017. Young People and Political Participation: An Analysis of European Union Policies. 14(1), pp. 1-12.

Henn, M. & Sharpe, D., 2016. Young people in a changing Europe: British youth and Brexit 2016. [Online]
Available at: https://meandeurope.com/wp-content/uploads/EU-Referendum-Analysis-2016-Section-8-Matt-Henn-Darren-Sharpe.pdf
[Accessed 15 02 2019].

Ideas, E. Y., 2018. Encourage young people to stand in elections. [Online]
Available at: https://www.europeanyouthideas.eu/8-encourage-young-people-stand-elections
[Accessed 2019].

MORI, I., 2017. How Britain voted in the 2017 election. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2017-election
[Accessed 15 02 2019].

Quintelier, E., 2007. Contemporary politics: Differences in political participation between young and old people. [Online]
Available at: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/34387865.pdf
[Accessed 15 02 2019].

Sloam, J. & Ehsan, E. M., 2017. Youth Quake: Young People and the 2017 General Election. [Online]
Available at: http://www.if.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Youth-Quake_Final.pdf
[Accessed 15 02 2019].

Travis, A., 2018. Youthquake: why age did matter for Corbyn in 2017. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/29/youthquake-why-age-did-matter-for-corbyn-in-2017
[Accessed 17 02 2019].

White, C., Bruce, S. & Ritchie, J., 2000. Young people’s politics: Political interest and engagement amongst 14-24 year olds, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.