I’ve had this sinking feeling in my stomach about the direction of British politics since I was 15. Silence overtook our geography classroom, in a multicultural school in south-east London, as we watched the results of the Brexit referendum. Before then, I believed everyone thought as I did: sure, there were a few racists in the country, but immigrants were needed in this country, right? Brexit shook that. Overt racism and abuse grew, and for the first time I felt unsafe in my own country.
I’m part of the generation whose first vote happened after Brexit. It’s no secret that people my age vote less than others – a growing trend since the 1990s. A few of my friends don’t know who to vote for, or will begrudgingly vote Labour simply to get the Tories out this election. One proudly proclaimed she hadn’t voted since Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and is planning to abstain. I would like to berate her, but I can’t. What options do we have? With Rishi Sunak threatening national service and Keir Starmer having a go in the Express about “yobs terrorising our town centres”, it feels as if my age group is not just forgotten but actively vilified. And it’s not just young people: this election is set to be the most unequal in 60 years, with those in the poorest areas, ethnic minorities and people who don’t own their homes forecast to turn out in the lowest numbers.
I never thought I would consider abstaining in a national election. I’m not ignorant – I’ve studied politics since I was 16. I’ve been taught voting is one of the easiest ways to express your opinions in a democracy, and I believe that. I’m definitely not lazy – I worked as a carer and a cleaner alongside studying for my politics degree, hoping eventually to make my way into journalism. The hours were long, the pay was meagre and the work was hard. Now I realise those conditions might not be temporary. Despite growing up under politicians like Tony Blair and David Cameron promising university would make ours a less unequal society, it’s hard to feel that way when tuition fees have rocketed and much of my degree was spent learning online.
I was once hopeful about politics. Under Corbyn, I believed a better Britain was possible. As a person who grew up working class, I found that his desire to scrap tuition fees really spoke to me: I would love the financial worry that I have around my university debt – now about £60,000 – not to be a constant distraction from my actual education. Nationalised railways would have meant I could afford the commute to work. What’s more, he had a clear stance on Gaza.
With Starmer, I haven’t felt remotely the same. I’ve lost count of how many times he has backtracked, sat on the fence or mentioned his mum was a nurse (we get it already). His faux relatability as a working-class person does nothing for me when he won’t commit to raising NHS worker pay above the measly £12 an hour he has promised. At the very least, Starmer could oppose the language of the far right. Instead, he claims the Tories are too lenient with their immigration policies – the exact rhetoric that first caused that sinking feeling in my stomach, only being spouted now by a party I once loved.
I don’t feel young people are asking for much. If I were a politician trying to appeal to people like me, I’d focus on the basics. Without stronger demands for real rental reform (which, to be fair, the Greens have offered), we face a life of spiralling, unaffordable rents and making landlords richer while never owning anything ourselves. Like many others, we want to access decent healthcare without waiting months or even years – and yet Labour’s solution seems to be limiting migration, when we all know migrants make up a huge proportion of the NHS workforce. It’s far too easy to write us off as an apathetic demographic when the main parties seem to be trying to lose our vote. We are engaged in politics: we protest, we volunteer, but we don’t vote, because we are offered nothing.
My generation is also incredibly internationally and morally engaged. We’ve watched a genocide unfold on TikTok with little condemnation from our leaders. My vote would have been with the Greens this election, but their call to simply “end the fighting” in Gaza fell short of the mark. If you cannot condemn a genocide, then do you really stand for anything at all?
Taking our vote for granted now could seriously hurt party leaders in the future, particularly the Labour party. Leaders should pay attention to young people – or risk losing a large chunk of voters for ever. The political scientist Timur Kuran writes that often revolutions take everyone by surprise, even those who participate in them. With all this political passion bubbling up in young people but with nowhere for it to go, I feel one is inevitable. It doesn’t have to be this way. We’re desperate for something to vote for – we just need an option.
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Shaniya Odulawa is a graduate from Bexleyheath, London
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