Youthquake: The Rise of British Young Left Cosmopolitans at the 2016 EU Referendum and the 2017 General Election

For over twenty years, scholars have lamented the decline in youth turnout in British elections. However, recent developments give grounds for optimism, suggesting that young Britons are neither anti-democratic nor innately anti-election; instead, they will vote if they feel that there is value in doing so. This is evidenced by the recent “Youthquake”, represented by both the surge in young voters’ turnout at the 2016 EU referendum and the 2017 General Election, as well as stark generational differences in voting patterns (with young voters most likely to support Remain in 2016 and Labour in 2017). Drawing on three unique datasets of Millennials born in Britain between 1981 and 2000, we explore youth attitudes to, and engagement in, these two electoral contests. We identify the emergence of a large group of young cosmopolitan-left citizens. Building on the recent work of Inglehart and Norris (2018) and our own book (Sloam and Henn, 2018), we assert that their politics is defined both by material interests (exacerbated since the 2008 financial crisis) and an outward-looking cosmopolitanism and acceptance of cultural diversity. However, drilling more deeply, we also find distinct differences between different youth groups based on educational attainment and (perhaps surprisingly) gender. We ask what was it about Brexit that alienated young Britons. Why were they attracted to Labour under Corbyn? And finally, what do these findings tell us about recent and future trends in political participation in the UK and beyond?