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On a windy June morning, with British Trade Union flags flying behind him, Liam Kehoe and colleagues struck outside the Royal Liverpool University Hospital to demand higher wages for porters, cleaners and caterers, whose wages have not kept up with the rising cost of living, leaving many of them with money running out before payday.
Kehoe, 26, works as a food distributor in a hospital and says he plans to vote for the centre-left Labour party in Britain’s general election on Thursday, citing the state of the economy and the collapse of the National Health Service.
Recalling the life his parents built on the wages they earned as a nurse and truck driver, Kehoe says the prospects for young people are much worse after 14 years of Conservative-led government. “If you go back 30 years ago, housing was a bit more affordable, life was a bit easier,” he says. “Now it’s like you can’t buy anything.”
Polls show that more than half of voters under 35 plan to vote Labour on Thursday, compared with 27% of those over 65. The divide between young and old in politics is not new, but the extent of the division in Britain in recent years is unusual, with recent polls showing a sharp drop in support for the ruling Conservative Party among all age groups except the oldest.
Before 2019, income was the main factor in deciding whether people would vote Conservative or Labour. These days, “age has replaced class as the driving factor in how people vote,” said Molly Bloom, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, a British research institute.
In the northern English city of Liverpool, long a Labour stronghold with a proud working-class tradition, many young people said a sense that their demands are being ignored by the Conservatives has strengthened their loyalty to the centre-left party.
Kehoe and his girlfriend are looking to buy a house. “The housing market is on the verge of collapse,” he said. “The whole country is collapsing because this government is acting for the people and not for the people. They don’t care about us little guys at the bottom.”
Some young people expressed a broader dissatisfaction with a political system that doesn’t take their needs into account. Some said they would not vote at all, while others said they would vote for a third-party candidate who was more in line with their ideals, even if that party was unlikely to win more than a few seats.
Experts say much of the political messaging of Britain’s two major parties focuses on the priorities of older generations, who make up a large proportion of the electorate due to demographic migration and other factors. Older generations are also more likely to vote: Around 96% of people over 65 are registered to vote, compared with 60% of 18-19 year-olds and 67% of those aged 20-44, according to a 2023 Electoral Commission report.
Even as living standards for younger generations have deteriorated, politicians have kept some policies that support the elderly, such as the pensions “triple lock” introduced by the Conservative-led government in 2011, which is similar to the US Social Security system and ensures that state pension income increases each year by the greater of earnings growth, inflation, or 2.5%.
Age remains a big factor dividing support for the two major parties, but Bloom said there’s also a split among younger generations, with Labor polling higher among all generations except for non-university millennials and those who don’t own their own homes.
“It’s not that they’re more likely to vote Conservative, it’s that they’re less likely to vote at all,” Bloom said.
Owen Burrows, 21, who works as a porter at Liverpool Hospital, said he had no plans to vote despite this being the first general election in which he was eligible.
“I have no intention of voting because I can’t say there’s anyone I really agree with,” he said, remembering being “perplexed” when the country voted to leave the European Union in 2016.
“Given the state of the country right now and the situation surrounding Brexit, it just feels like we’re heading in completely the wrong direction,” he said.
Brexit is a big deal for many. In Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle, a former warehouse district that’s now home to a thriving creative scene, a group of young men skateboard in the early evening light, the rhythmic sound of their wheels echoing off the brightly painted walls.
One skateboarder, Joe McKenna, 26, was the first in his family to go to university and in his first Brexit referendum he chose to remain in the EU while his parents voted to leave.
“I think that was the first time I realized there was a gap between what my parents thought and what I thought,” he said. “Now, I don’t really talk about it. It happened and I think my parents know it wasn’t a good situation, but I don’t blame them.”
He intends to vote Labour in the next election, taking into account the impact of Brexit.
“I see the Conservatives as the lesser of two evils,” he said. “A lot of working-class people voted for them in the last election because they believed they would bring about change, and obviously Brexit has really tipped the scales in favour of the Conservatives.”
Housing is also a focus of discontent. Around 70% of young people in the UK believe the dream of homeownership is over for many of their generation, according to a survey by the Centre for Policy Research, a British research group. And the data backs up that view: By 2022-23, 39% of 25-34 year-olds will own their home, down from a peak of 59% in 2000.
Some younger Conservatives, like Olivia Lever, 24, said they felt forgotten in the election. Ms Lever, founder of Liverpool University’s Young Conservatives group and director of Blue Beyond, a grassroots group for young Conservatives, said no effort was being made to appeal to their needs.
“There has been a divide in the Conservative party for some time between younger and older members of the party,” she said. “This election has been about where is growth? Where is housebuilding? Where are jobs? How are we inspiring and empowering people?”
Lever said many young people “feel totally disenfranchised because politics is so old-man oriented,” pointing to a recent survey her group conducted of young Conservative Party members asking them what they thought of the current election campaign, with many saying it was “baby boomerism.”
On the other side of the political spectrum, young people on the progressive left also said they felt disenfranchised. A small camp was set up at the University of Liverpool last month to protest against the Gaza conflict, inspired by similar demonstrations in the United States.
Students and alumni expressed frustration that Labour did not immediately call for a ceasefire or condemn Israel’s actions. Amol Crofts, 21, who is studying wildlife conservation and has been living in the camp since May, plans to vote for the Green Party or an independent candidate.
“I don’t see any major party that really represents me,” she says. Young people have had to deal with the impact of Brexit, economic problems and rising house prices, she says. “This is not the country we want to inherit,” she says.
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