Out for Corbyn, get in the way?
tion systems.
At this election, much media attention has been paid to young people becoming increasingly politically engaged thanks to factors including Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.
Many of Labour’s manifesto commitments were geared towards young people, including notably the proposal to abolish tuition fees in England. The Welsh Government did not commit to abolishing fees in Wales, but neither did it say it would not do so.
YouGov survey results from the beginning of June showed that 71% of 18- to 24-year-olds intended to vote Labour, compared to 15% who planned to vote Conservative. Figures relating to other age groups show that 46% of 25- to 49-yearolds planned to vote Labour, as did 33% of 50- to 64-year-olds but just 19% of those aged 65 and over.
Former Labour special adviser David Taylor said: “An uplift in the proportion of young people would, of course, be good for Labour, but it would not necessarily be transformational.
“Young people, including students, tend to live in urban areas and big cities where support for Labour is already good. You can therefore have a situation where Labour piles up big majorities in inner-city seats, while in more marginal areas there often aren’t so many young people to seek support from.”
Even though turnout in the Brexit referendum was slightly less polarised by age than in the 2015 election, still turnout among those aged 18-34 was some 10 points lower than average.
Social scientists think the trend could be reversed by more education and an overhaul of the electoral system.
Research has shown that more civic education in schools can increase political knowledge and engagement and so encourage future turnout. Equally, automatic voter registration systems of the kind they have in many other European countries would be of value, it is suggested.
The radical option, of course, would be to make voting compulsory, as it is in Australia, for example.
For some, it is unreasonable to force people to vote. Those who favour making it compulsory argue that it should simply be seen as another duty to the state, like paying taxes.
There are vested interests in maintaining the status quo, so we can’t expect a change to mandatory voting soon.