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So the world’s most politically apathetic youth have finally found their voice. In doing so, they have forever altered British politics. The man to inspire them? An elderly politician widely derided by his opponents, the press, and most of the elected members of his party (paywall).

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The Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn was facing a landslide defeat in the British election held last week. Prime minister Theresa May had called a snap general election in a bid to win more seats from the (mainly older) voters who backed Brexit, and was leading by 20 points in the polls at one point.

Facing that, he looked to the young—many of whom felt burned by Brexit—to back him and deny May the mandate she was seeking. This was risky—voter turnout among young people is notoriously low in the UK.

Continue reading:  How a belittled, 68-year-old British socialist did the impossible: Get the youth to turn out and vote

4 thoughts on “How a belittled, 68-year-old British socialist did the impossible: Get the youth to turn out and vote”

  1. From the article:

    Over the last two decades, youth turnout fell from 66% in 1992 to around 40% in the 2015 general election. By contrast, Brits aged 65 have always voted in droves (turnout averages around 75%). The UK has had the largest gap in voter turnout between the old and the young in the OECD.

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    There’s no data yet on youth turnout, but early data shows that in areas where fewer than 7% of the population is aged 18-24, the swing to Labour was 2.5%. But in areas where at least one in 10 people were aged 18-24, there was a 5% swing to Labour in seats.

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