Labour’s unexpected surge at the election was mainly down to Jeremy Corbyn using social media to motivate young voters to get out of bed and vote for free education, right? Not so.
A post-election survey by the pollster YouGov of 52,000 people who voted in the 2017 General Election has found that Corbyn’s policies appealed not just to Glastonbury hippies and whiny Millennials but to all ages
“Given Labour increased its national vote share by nine points, it would be wrong to say that it was young people alone that helped them improve their position,” said the YouGov report. “Because older age groups are both more numerous and more likely to turn out, Labour was in fact more reliant on voters over the age of 40 than under it. More than half (54%) of those who voted for the party at the election were aged 40 or older, compared to 46% who were 39 or younger.”
Those aged 18-29 make up 19% of the adult population but the survey found they had been more likely to not vote than to vote Labour, whereas those aged 60-69 made up 20% of the adult population and were almost twice as likely to turn out.
More recently, a YouGov poll in July found that voting intentions now put Labour eight points ahead of the Conservatives, indicating that a significant proportion of the electorate has shifted towards Labour since the election. That suggests the June election was neither a one-off protest vote nor just a mobilisation of the youth vote.
Single Seats
Ipsos Mori says the increase in Labour’s vote between the 2015 and 2017 elections was skewed towards younger voters but reached across all age groups. Labour’s support was up 19% among those aged 18-24, 20% among 25 to 34-year-olds, 14% among those aged 35 to 44, 7% in the 45-54 age bracket, 3% for 55 to 65-year-olds and 2% among those over 65.
YouGov nevertheless pointed out the strategic benefit of university towns for Labour in 2017. “In certain seats – most noticeably university constituencies such as Canterbury, Sheffield Hallam, and Cambridge – it seems as though the votes of 18 to 24-year-olds were highly concentrated and highly effective at either delivering the seats to Labour or dramatically boosting its vote share. The party’s majority in Cambridge went from 599 in 2015 to 12,661,” it said.
That means Nick Clegg’s (left) loss in Sheffield Hallam was a notable example of the student voice, especially as this was the first election since 2001 to take place in term time when students could vote at either their home or term-time address.
Education Correlation
This election showed a much stronger correlation with voters’ education level than with age.
“Almost half (49%) of people with degree-level qualifications or above opted for Labour compared to 33% of those with no higher qualification than GCSEs,” says the pollster.
That divide in education levels and voting inclination was last seen with the EU referendum itself, when having a degree was one of the most significant distinctions of Remain voters compared to Brexit supporters. That suggests Labour may have benefited from many of those Remainers seeking at least a softer Brexit.
Add to that the collapse of UKIP and the return to Labour of a higher than expected number of working-class Brexit supporters and Labour’s gains in the General Election seem to have been based on more than just a successful targetting of young voters.
Labour’s rising support points to a broad-based rejection of the direction the Conservatives have taken and an increased faith in Corbyn, who now has a very real chance of becoming Prime Minister in the event of another election.
by Stewart Vickers
The post Politics: Not Just Young Want Corbyn PM appeared first on Felix Magazine.
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