Why Young People Don’t Vote

Eton

Introduction

I was born in 1993 during the premiership of John Major. Therefore, I am part of the 18–24 year old demographic that records the lowest turnout at elections. In fact at the 2010 general election, it was eleven per cent lower than 25–34 year olds. But why the low turnout? Do young people just suddenly start following politics when they turn 25? Or is there more to it than that? In this book I will shed some light upon the issue of why young people tend not to vote. I am writing this at the height of the 2015 general election and political fever has gripped the country. Well, it has amongst UKIP supporters. The usual election fever hasn’t bowled everyone over this time, as the meaningless choice between Labour and the Conservatives overshadows the entire event.

Although the press would have you believe that young people don’t vote due to ignorance, I have broadened it to four main reasons. These are lies, corruption & cover-ups; broken system; disinterest, disillusionment & obliviousness; and lack of knowledge. Each one holds its own merits as to why young people don’t vote, but at the end of the book I will conclude what I believe the main reason is.

But, before beginning the book, I want to share my political beliefs with you, the reader, so that you are aware of any political bias that may come across in my writing. At the age of 21, the 2015 general election was my first. As a self-proclaimed member of the left, I was part of the Green surge and was amongst the one million others that voted for the Green Party. Although I voted for them, I wouldn’t necessarily affiliate myself with the party and I only did so because I felt they best represented my political beliefs. I was pleased with the number of votes that the Greens won, but the smell of the broken system lingered over the aftermath of the election for weeks. I am very pro-electoral reform and the introduction of a PR system, as I think many voters are.

I haven’t always been left-wing. I’m not even sure how I’d define myself. It wasn’t until about November 2014 when my political beliefs changed dramatically due to a certain comedian and his political activism. Yes, I am talking about Russell Brand. Although his message was originally telling people that there’s no point in voting because there’s nobody to vote for, it was his musings and activism on social injustice that changed the course of my political journey. Before Brand, I was the complete opposite of what I am today. At the 2014 local and European elections, I voted Conservative. My leaning was positively capitalist and I didn’t pay much attention to the left.

Before writing this book, I conducted a mini survey of a hundred 18–24 year olds about why young people don’t vote. The purpose of the survey was to give myself some context and a brief before jumping head-first into the subject matter. From the survey, I extracted quotes from numerous respondents and filtered them into the book for each chapter. Although the survey doesn’t stand up against other professional and much larger surveys, I feel it does give each chapter something extra.

Chapter One

Lies, Corruption & Cover-Ups

I don’t vote because I don’t trust politicians.

- Tom, aged 21

During my research for this book, I conducted my own mini survey through social media to find out why people between the ages of 18 and 24 vote less than the rest of the population. The survey was answered by a range of people, some of whom did vote but the overwhelming majority of whom did not. These findings do not lay any foundation for statistical evidence as the pool is far too small. However, the results do correspond with polls done on a much larger scale by professional pollsters and media companies.

I asked the respondents if they trusted politicians. Here are the findings:

As you can see, out of the 100 young people I asked, a massive 79 per cent of respondents said that they don’t trust politicians. I don’t think that this is a surprising figure and I’m pretty certain that this percentage wouldn’t decrease much if one widened the survey for all ages. The general public on the whole is disengaged and disenfranchised with politics because we are constantly being bombarded with news stories of politicians lying and cheating. Add to that, we see politicians not delivering what they promise in their manifestos or on the campaign trail. It’s no wonder that we have such hate for politicians with all the bad press and ugly stories. And the problem is, the majority of young people only see the backend of the criticism. Unlike other demographics who read these stories in the paper or see it on the TV news where they are given the full raft of information to which they can ultimately decide their own personal viewpoint, the majority of young people will only see a headline in less than 140 characters on Twitter with a link to an article that they probably won’t click. Is this the fault of the young people or the biased nature of the press? For instance, if a politician is accused of something with little evidence supporting the claim, most media companies will post a tweet slating the politician as if the claim had been proved true. Young people will see this retweeted onto their newsfeeds from numerous sources and take it as fact because they’re not receiving the entire story. Although, most of the time, the general public’s distrust is actually credible and just, and young people won’t go out of their way to vote for politicians who are disloyal or corrupt.

Nick Clegg Lied to Us

There was no other unkept promise that young people felt so hurt by than Nick Clegg’s vow to cut tuition fees during the 2010–2015 coalition. This is a direct quote from the Liberal Democrats’ 2010 general election manifesto:

Scrap unfair university tuition fees for all students taking their first degree, including those studying part-time, saving them over £10,000 each. We have a financially responsible plan to phase fees out over six years, so that the change is affordable even in these difficult economic times, and without cutting university income. We will immediately scrap fees for final year students.

We all know what happened next. On the back of gaining votes from young people who expected them to scrap university fees, the Liberal Democrats walked into a coalition with a party that firmly wanted to raise tuition fees. Not long into David Cameron’s first year, the government announced that tuition fees would rise from £6,000 to the upper tier of £9,000 by 2012. Lo and behold, this was subsequently introduced and Nick Clegg and his party received a battering from students who had voted for him on the basis that fees would be cut. This had a dramatic effect on the Liberal Democrats in the 2014 European elections, overall membership of the party and the subsequent 2015 general election. In the 2007 European elections, the Lib Dems earned a 14 per cent share of the votes and won 11 seats in the European Parliament. After the formation of the coalition and the broken promise of tuition fees, the Lib Dems lost a total of 10 MEPs and took a mere 6 per cent share of the votes. They were left with a solitary MEP in Catherine Bearder who represents the South East of England.

This decline in votes isn’t necessarily a direct result of the distrust for the Liberal Democrats, as many of the population have become Eurosceptic in their views and the Lib Dems are firmly pro-European. However, I think to overlook the distrust as a factor of their poor performance in these elections would be remarkably ignorant. There’s also a direct correlation with the Lib Dems’ performance in the local and European elections and their official membership numbers. At the time of the 2010 general election, according to their official figures the Liberal Democrats had 65,038 certified members. In the year of the introduction of greater tuition fees, their membership had decreased by almost 23,000 to 42,501 official members. The Liberal Democrats suffered a disastrous blow in the 2015 general election, losing 49 seats and dropping to the fourth biggest party in terms of seats. In terms of popular vote, the Lib Dems won 2.4 million. That’s a loss of 15 per cent since the 2010 election.

There’s no denying that this was a direct reverberation of their broken promise. The general public felt aggrieved and took the stance that Nick Clegg and his party had lied through their teeth in their manifesto. Their decline in the 2015 general election shows the mood of the country: that we are fed-up with politicians lying. The break of the promise sealed this mood and enraged the public with many even voting for the Greens or UKIP as a form of protest.

Although the Liberal Democrats’ membership is back on the rise, albeit in a position where they’re no longer considered a major political party, I don’t think young people will be as understanding as older voters because this broken pledge hit them directly. We live in a country where politicians are seen as liars and the first-time voters who supported Clegg found out firsthand that everything they had previously heard about politicians was true. The majority won’t vote again. How can they trust another politician to deliver what they promise if they’ve seen the stereotype personally cheat them?

EU Referendum Promises

In 2009 David Cameron released a video stating the need for a referendum on Britain’s involvement within the European Union. He referred back to Gordon Brown, who stated the need for a referendum in 2005 but failed to deliver. Cameron proposed that a referendum would come and said, prior to the European elections of 2009, the best way to get that referendum is to vote conservative. One would assume that Cameron, being in power after this video, would have the chance to give the people of Britain a referendum on the EU. But this didn’t happen, and instead, he used the promise of a referendum again in the run-up to the 2015 general election in order to sway voters away from UKIP. This is another example of deception by politicians, and this time it was two separate Prime Ministers, Brown and Cameron, both promising a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU and not delivering.

David Cameron made another promise whilst in opposition, again during the Brown administration. He convincingly affirmed that he would not raise VAT if he became Prime Minister in 2010. He promised this during an interview with Jeremy Paxman where he