The Youth Vote

To turn away from the issues is usually a brave move to make. Today, I have decided to construct an essay on my assessment of youth voting in this country. It couldn't be further from the devastating news of the demise of Rover at the moment, but I feel that this is an issue that has not been considered properly by the media. So because this is totally untopical, I am not bothered about lack of comments to it. I simply feel that most of this needs to be said. Before I begin, I will declare an interest: I am a student. I will come back to the particular issue of student voting at another time.

The common view is that the youth is completely disengaged from politics. If you ask someone between 18-24 in the street who they are going to vote for, they are likely to tell you that they are not voting at all. We don't like politicians - they are slimy and untrustworthy. They are not interested in our issues. They prefer to pander to the elderly. It's a different world.

All of this is broadly true. If you're a manifesto junkie, you'll have noticed the perhaps undue prominence given to the "grey vote". Everyone wants to give the pensioners a little sweetener. Down here in the youth vote, we see the grey vote as being full of people more concerned about what they get off the government rather than what a government can do for society.

A harsh line to take, and not one I fully agree with, but it is a reasonable stereotype of the youth view. Even if it is true, it's hardly surprising given that we don't vote, so therefore why should the politicians ever take any notice of us? It's a vicious circle that we have started, and it shows no sign of slowing down.

But if you press the issue further, you notice something else. When we say we're not interested in politics, we don't actually mean it. Because the word "politics" comes with so much baggage, we assume that by "politics" you mean "party politics". We are not disengaged; we are genuinely interested in what is going on. We might even have an opinion on it! We just don't approve of this adult sport of clubbing together to shove leaflets through doors. Remember, most of us have not long finished being children. It's hardly surprising that we're not taking to extremely "adult" things like politics intuitively. We'll get round to party politics eventually. For now, we are more engaged by issues...

Issues are the key. We hear stories on the news. We hear friends talking about them. Even within the family events may happen that can cause a political interest. We listen, we agree, disagree or maybe offer an alternative perspective. All the while we are beginning to appreciate the concept of politics. It's hardly surprising that so few of us vote because we're not used to this process of political socialisation. It's a new thing in our lives. As new adults, we're only just getting used to adulthood and the concept of self-determination. There could be nothing worse to our new and growing senses of individuality than to club together in so called "parties" which are anything but.

It takes time before appreciation of majority rule comes in. More often than not, we find ourselves in the minority, and so we hate it as we're told what to do. But then we come to appreciate that sometimes we hold a majority view, and our imposition of it on a minority goes against our opposition to majority rule, but somehow it is still right. And so, an understanding of pragmatism comes in; that sometimes we need to trade off points of view. Otherwise nothing would get done. That's not to say I approve of the party whip system 100%, but I accept that parties are a necessary evil of the system. However, I do not think that the three party system adequately reflects the balance of opinions in my age group.

We do care about what's going on. We just don't think the party system reflects or represents us. We have views on issues, but they aren't consistent. We have ideologies, but most of us haven't realised it yet. Only given some time will be appreciate that our own experiences can be drawn upon to produce a reasonably coherent line of thought across many issues. Then we suddenly realise - mostly to our horror - that in fact we're not quite so different to the rest of the world after all.

Youth apathy is excuseable. We're still learning. The solution of it is to ensure that we're engaged in this kind of thing before 18, but this is not ideal. After all, when you're under 18, politics is the furthest thing away from what you really want to be doing. You're still a kid. You should be allowed to enjoy whatever childhood innocence you have left without having to worry too much about bigger pictures just yet.

Amongst all this, politicians should not be allowed to ignore the youth because they don't vote. It seems obvious, but today's youth is tomorrow's mature and educated (hopefully) electorate. Politicians cannot be left to just appeal to the older voters; they must have clear and consistent policies on youth that they can talk about to start the process of electoral engagement. Youth apathy has always been here, but it is getting worse as politicians permanently focus on electoral arithmetic and decide that it's not worth their effort trying to capture a disparate group when they can talk about the state pension and capture the attention of another disparate group - pensioners - but who nevertheless have one or two uniting factors that have much broader appeal.

Politicians have a role to play. They've got to communicate with us youth voters. The Conservatives have known this for some time, and their youth organisation is legendary. But the other parties must join the bandwagon, including all the non-mainstream ones who the youth often turn to first, such as the Greens or the Lib Dems.

So next time you hear someone moaning about the lack of a "youth vote", don't just tut and complain about them not being interested. We are. We want to get involved. We just don't want to play your game on your terms. We want to come together to "play the game" on terms we can all agree on. This may require some thought and effort. It may require you to offer an initial compromise to set the example of what politics should be about.

But never just blanket dismiss us as apathetic. We're just waiting for you to lead the way.