UK Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn
As Britain took stock of the stunning results of a snap election that wiped out the parliamentary majority of Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party, one narrative bubbled up to the surface: The youth had spoken. Friday's election results were fuelled partly by a higher turnout rate among young British voters who had been angry at Brexit, the outcome of last year's referendum to leave the European Union, reports NY Times.
That vote, overwhelmingly supported by older Britons, was seen by many younger people as a threat to their jobs, their ability to study abroad and their desire to travel freely across the bloc's borders. In other words, the vote by young Britons had a whiff of payback. "I was so angry about Brexit that I buried my head in a pillow and screamed," said Ms Louise Traynor, 24, a waitress in London, who had never voted before Thursday.
She said she had been angry at herself for not voting last year because "I was stupid enough to think that the country had some sense". The referendum, she said, could lead to closed borders, which threatened to tear her Spanish boyfriend away from her, and her away from the European friends she had made while working at a tapas restaurant. On Friday morning, she said, much of the anxiety she had felt about her future was replaced with excitement when she realized her vote for the Labour Party had denied May a mandate.
Traynor said Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's campaign had "injected energy" into what otherwise seemed like a stale election. "Does Theresa May care that I've been on minimum wage for three years and I'm still paying my student debt?" she asked. "No, she doesn't. All she cares about is Brexit and getting her deal." Author and Labour campaigner Owen Jones wrote in The Guardian on Friday that young voters had been "ignored, ridiculed and demonized, even. They just don't care about politics, it's said, or they're just too lazy".
He added: "Our young have suffered disproportionately these past few years: student debt, a housing crisis, a lack of secure jobs, falling wages, cuts to social security." Many youth felt compelled to vote after Brexit, because of austerity budgets and what they saw as the establishment's tendency to serve the interests of the rich. This year saw a spike in young people registering to vote - more than one million people under 25 applied.
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