It’s millennial localism that will change politics
Rather than looking to the capital and Europe, the young are embracing reverse globalisation
British politics is undergoing a metamorphosis: the old world order is dead and gone, and the damage is irreversible. Centrist technocrats (who spent their working lives “revisiting the data” rather than “making mistakes”) have a hard time understanding this. Many think we are just going through a blip, and that risk-averse millennials will restore order when demographic shifts make them the voting majority – reversing Brexit and electing “rational” politicians. But in the West Midlands’ Black Country, where my own roots lie, I’ve seen hints of a different possibility. It is the millennials, I believe, who will really disrupt the system.
Like other areas of the United Kingdom, many young people in what used to be one of England’s biggest manufacturing regions voted Remain. But ask them if they’d take the train down to London to protest for a second referendum, and they laugh in your face. Instead the most civically engaged young Black Country folk that I know are busy trying to revive neighbourhoods that are fast fading to little more than a memory. Raised on their grandparents’ stories of errands to the butchers and hard-boiled “sucks” from the sweet shop, they are building artisanal small businesses and campaigning for schools to teach the local dialect. It is the Black Country flag, knotted with chains to signify the region’s metalworking history, not the EU’S stars, that flaps in the wind on their motorbikes.
On the surface, this “turning inwards” may seem surprising. We millennials were raised to be cosmopolitan Europhiles; as teens, we dabbled in Mandarin and binged on American television. In our Steinbeck-steeped English classes, “freedom” was a Cadillac’s rattle across a borderless infinitum.
But the low youth turnout at the referendum betrays the fact that many young people are not as enthusiastic about the EU project – and indeed the globalist philosophy that underpins it – as rhetoric from the Remain camp suggests.
Perhaps it’s because multilateralism has had such a bad run in recent years, from the failure to fix Greece to the UN’S paper-shuffling response to the Rwandas and Syrias. Perhaps scavenging for our first jobs in the wreckage of the financial crisis has killed some of the love for hyperconnected global systems.
Still, patriotism among the younger generation is equally lacking. All the history lessons about Hitler put many off nationalism early in life. Maybe that’s why they don’t get excited about talk of “global Britain” striking post-brexit trade deals. This is, of course, frustrating for the Brexiteers.
Instead, millennials, deep down, are localists. Priced out of London, liberated by flexi-working, and craving “realness” in a fragmented, social media-driven world, young people are turning their backs on the capital and building new communities, from Bristol to Margate – and, yes, in the graveyards of industry such as the Black Country. Youth localism is on the rise across the country, from Cumbrian Young Farmers’ Clubs running dialect competitions, and millennial Mancunians volunteering in neighbourhood food banks to young people in the East of England campaigning for more parks. According to one study, 16 to 24-yearold are more likely to want to get involved in their local communities than over-55s.
It’s a trend that can only be intensified by the move towards so-called “reverse globalisation” (which will change our lives just as much as Brexit) – in which the rise of renewable energy makes us less reliant on fossil fuels from volatile countries, moving us away from large power stations to local production; 3D printing has the potential to transform local manufacturing for small businesses; and virtual reality could eliminate the need to work in head offices in major cities, even for the most collaborative jobs.
This all makes a return to centrist, “consensual” politics less likely. The backlash against the overcentralisation of Britain and London’s cultural supremacy will only become fiercer. Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, is pushing for more devolution to the North, post-brexit. The tribal lines are already forming. Winter is coming for the establishment – and it is being brought by the snowflakes.