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The election campaign is in full swing in the United Kingdom, where young people, students in particular, are very active this year. For the most part, they want to stay in the European Union.
Some were not eligible to vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum . More Europhile and more favorable to the Labor than their elders, the young British voters could weigh on the legislative of this Thursday, December 12th. The Conservatives of Prime Minister Boris Johnson are certainly leading the polls, but the participation of young people, growing in recent years, is one of the unknowns likely to upset the equation.
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Who are the young people voting for?
In the 2017 legislative elections , 66% of 18- and 19-year-olds voted for the Labor opposition, and only 19% for the Conservatives, according to a study by the YouGov Institute. As the age of voters increased, so did the Labor vote, and the Conservative vote strengthened, with the curves crossing at 47. In the May European elections, young people voted for the liberal-democrats and the Greens, opposed to Brexit.
Because the majority of young Britons want to stay in the European Union, says our special correspondent in Bristol, Beatrice Leveille . She found herself at White Hart, a lively downtown pub where all members of the political organizations of Bristol University gathered.
" Like every year at Christmas, we organize a political quiz to fund charitable organizations, " said Fergus Yousti Nousti, president of the Liberal Democrats Students Association. What is good this year is that it falls during the election. We can take a break in the countryside and go to the pub all together, to make a pleasant political questions and answers! "
"Fear of anti-Semitism"
All together or almost, since the young Conservatives, thoroughly in the election campaign, have shunned the quiz this year. Beatrice Leveille has found Robert Porter, president of the Conservative Students Association, to ask why young people are so reluctant to vote Conservative.
" The students are not representative. They tend to vote left. They love Jeremy Corbyn! We have a lot of fans who do not like Jeremy Corbyn. There are some who fear anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom [ Jeremy Corbyn is regularly attacked on this subject , Ed] and who want to leave the European Union. And only the Conservatives can do it. "
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What mobilization?
The young people were not very numerous to vote in the referendum on the exit of the European Union three years ago. But they have enlisted en masse to participate in these elections, whose stake is again the Brexit . According to the student movement For our Future's Sake (FFS), quoted by AFP, 1.4 million voters under the age of 25 registered on the electoral lists before the deadline of November 26, an increase of 55 % compared to 2017.
This " incredible influx " makes the results of the election " all the more unpredictable, " said Amanda Chetwynd-Cowieson, co-founder of the organization to mobilize around the vote, quoted by AFP. This seems to announce a strong mobilization of young people, whose participation " has continued to increase since 2010, " said AFP political scientist Rosalind Shorrocks, University of Manchester.
Age, the biggest electoral cleavage
In 2017, almost 54% of 18-24 year olds voted in the polls, compared to just 38% in 2015, according to an Ipsos Mori study. So far, the much stronger mobilization of seniors (71% of over-65s in 2017) had set the tone of results.
Another factor at play is that students can vote in their home or university constituencies, allowing them to strategically choose the one where they feel their voice is most useful.
" Since the 2016 [Brexit] referendum, age has become the biggest electoral divide in the UK, " says Rosalind Shorrocks. " The social environment has become much less important ," she adds, noting that young women are " more pro-labor than men ".
(with AFP)
►Also read: United Kingdom: the fight for a better representation of minorities