Why UK? Do young citizens feel forgotten by politicians?

As the British Staff Union flag fluttered behind him on a stormy June morning, Liam Kehoe crashed with colleagues outside the Royal Liverpool College Health facility Higher pay hasn’t come easy for porters, cleaners and catering group staff . Their salaries have not kept up with the increase in the cost of living, and many said they are living paycheck to paycheck.

Mr Kehoe, 26, serves food at the clinic. As Britain’s general election approaches on Thursday, he said he planned to vote for the centre-left Labor Party because of business conditions and the crumbling size of the state carrier nationwide.

Bearing in mind the salaries his parents earned as a governess and a truck driver, Mr Kehoe says the next 14 years of a Conservative-led government could send young people away from far worse prospects. was given. “If you go back 30 years ago, homes were a little more affordable, life was a little easier,” he said. “Nowadays, it seems like you can’t afford anything.”

Polls suggest the majority of citizens under the age of 35 plan to vote for the Labor Party on Thursday, followed by 27 percent of citizens over the age of 65. The divide between young people and the disabled is nothing new in politics, with the level of cleavage widening in Britain The ruling Conservative Party has recently suffered a sharp loss of all but its oldest incumbents, according to recent polls Is.

Before 2019, the most important consideration was whether the public voted Conservative or Labor as a source of revenue. Recently, Molly Broom, an economist at Answer Bottom, a British research institute, said, “Age has replaced class as the defining way in which people vote.”

The northern English city of Liverpool has long been a Labor stronghold with a proud working-class tradition. Many young people said their loyalty to the center-left party had grown stronger to the point that the conservatives ignored their wishes.

Mr. Kehoe and his girlfriend are trying to buy a house. “The housing market is on its knees,” he said. “The entire country is being ruined because this government is for them and not for us. “They don’t care about us, the little people at the bottom.”

Others expressed widespread dissatisfaction with a political gadget they said did not take their wishes into account. Some young people said they would not vote at all, as others would vote for third-party candidates who had negligible chances of winning various seats but whose ethos were more in line with theirs.

Much of the political messaging of Britain’s two primary events focused on the preferences of the generations used, as they generate a larger percentage of citizens, partly as a result of the nation’s transformation, Mavens said. They are also more likely to vote: About 96 percent of people over the age of 65 are registered to vote, compared with 60 percent of 18 to 19 year olds and 67 percent of 20 to 44 year olds. 2023 election fee record.

Politicians have adopted some insurance policies that help the common people, while the younger generations have to face the deteriorating needs of life. For example, the pension “triple lock”, introduced by the Conservative-led government in 2011, guarantees that the size of the revenue departure source – indistinguishable from Social Security in the US – grows every year through the same optimal benefit expansion. , inflation or 2.5%.

Ms Broom said the pace of voting remains the most important dividing factor for the two main political parties, with the categories even in younger times. There is a good swing in Labor’s polls across all generations except Millennials, who have not graduated from college and who do not own a home.

“It’s not the fact that they’re more likely to vote Conservative; It’s the fact that they are less likely to vote,” Ms Broome said.

Owen Burrows, 21, a porter at a Liverpool clinic, does not plan to vote now, even though this is the first general election he is eligible for, he said.

“I can’t say there’s anybody I really agree with, so I wouldn’t really be inclined to vote,” he said. He recalls being “appalled” in 2016 when Pastoral voted to exit the ECU union.

“With the situation the country is in right now, and the whole Brexit situation, it feels like it’s gone completely wrong,” he said.

The threat of Brexit is looming over many people. In Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle, a former bank district with a thriving creative scene, young men skateboard in the evening glow. The rhythmic roll of their skateboard wheels is echoed by the brightly colored partitions.

One of the hottest skate boarders, 26-year-old Joe McKenna, was the first person in his community to go to college. In the Brexit referendum, his first vote, he opted to remain, provided that one of his parents voted to leave.

“I think that was the first time I saw the difference between what my parents think and what I think,” he said. “Now, we don’t really talk about it, because it’s happened and I think they know it’s not a good situation. But I don’t blame them.”

With the Brexit fallout in mind, he plans to vote Labor in the next election.

“I see them as the lesser of two evils,” he said. “A lot of working class people voted Tory in the last election because they reassured them there would be change. And, obviously, with Brexit, it affected a lot of opinion towards the Conservative Party.

Housing is another focal point of discontent. Nearly 70 percent of young Britons say they believe their dream of home ownership is over for many hours, according to the study by the Center for Policy Research, a British research team. And the information supports that view: Twenty-nine percent of 25 to 34-year-olds owned their own property in 2022-23, down from a high of 59 percent in 2000.

Even some young conservatives, like 24-year-old Olivia Lever, said they felt forgotten in this tide of campaigning. Ms Leaver, founder of the College of Liverpool Young Conservatives and director of Blue Past, a grassroots team for young Tories, said there had been a lot of struggle to meet the wishes of young people.

“In the Conservatives, for some time, there has been a divide between the younger members of the party and the older members of the party,” he said. “With this election – where is the development? Where is the house built? Where are the jobs? How are we inspiring and empowering people?”

Ms Lever said many young people are “completely disengaged from politics because it’s so focused on older people,” pointing to a recent survey of young Tories conducted by her team, in which they were asked about the tide of marketing. Was asked to describe. Campaign. Many replied: “Boomer-ist.”

On the opposite side of the political spectrum, young people identifying with ardent leftists also described feeling disenfranchised. At Liverpool College, a small protest against the war in Gaza began the previous day, inspired by the unprecedented demonstrations in the United States.

Scholars and modern graduates there expressed disappointment that the Labor Party did not immediately call for a ceasefire or condemn Israel’s actions. Amor Crofts, 21, who is studying Natural World Conservation and has been camping here since May, plans to cast her ballot for a green or far-right candidate.

“I don’t see any major party that truly represents me,” he said. He said young people have been left to grapple with the consequences of Brexit, financial problems and the skyrocketing prices of space. “This is not the country we want to inherit,” he said.