Why young voters are leaving Labour for the Greens ...Middle East

Sir Keir Starmer staked his political vision on the country’s young people in a personal interview over the weekend.

“Young people have been collateral damage for the failure of past governments and I intend to turn that around,” he told The Observer.

Starmer unveiled a mew scheme to get 16-24-year-olds back into with the offer of employment but polling experts told The i Paper Labour’s support among young people is being stripped away by the “eco-populism” of the new Greens leader, Zack Polanski.

While Labour was the most popular party among 18 to 24-year-olds in every YouGov poll this decade until last year’s election, its support among this group has since plummeted.

Between July last year and this month, Labour have fallen from 47 to 22 per cent among this cohort, while the Greens have surged 29 points to 43 per cent.

Ed Hodgson, deputy director of research at More In Common, told The i Paper these voters have lost trust in Labour after feeling Starmer’s “change” agenda has fallen short.

He said: “They voted for change and they voted for something different, and things just don’t feel that different.”

‘These voters were never attached to Labour’

While young voters are concerned about issues including the cost of living and global events such as the conflict in Gaza, this group of voters are defined by their distrust for the main political parties.

Hodgson said: “A lot of these voters were never that attached to Labour. While they are the same as the rest of the country in thinking things aren’t great at the moment, the thing that makes them different is that they’re quite nihilistic.“They don’t think things can get any better because – they might say – they’ve not seen a politics that works before.”

Having positioned himself as a “populist outsider,” Polanski can appeal to this group’s belief that things can’t be made better within the current system, Hodgson said.

“There’s less attachment to those two established parties, because they haven’t developed habits of voting for one party or another all their life. So they’re much more open,” he added.

Lauren Herd, a recent graduate who voted for Labour last year, said she feels alienated by Labour’s attempts to rival Reform on issues such as immigration.

She said: “They’re fighting [for] the swing voters in the middle rather than nurturing the influx of voters that they have already got from this recent election.

“If you don’t have a strong vision, then you truly have nothing, and that’s where I think Greens come in.”

A large part of the Green Party’s appeal comes from its distinct messaging, Hodgson said. Polanski has praised New York’s recently elected socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and the British politician’s social media strategy shares the Americans’ direct, sometimes comedic, tone.

Hodgson said: “If you read Zack Polanski’s tweets, you get the impression that he’s writing [them], whereas if you read Keir Starmer’s tweets, they don’t even try to make that impression.

“Young people want that direct communication they’re used to on social media. This is a group of people who mostly get their news on Instagram or TikTok – that very face-to-face form of communication that Polanski and Farage are both quite good at.”

Young graduates want change

Young people’s fixation with current affairs is a misconception and these voters care most of all about their personal finances, Hodgson said.

Green voters are the most debt-ridden and least wealthy voting demographic – due largely to student loans, according to More In Common.

The National Union of Students warned last month that Labour’s freeze on the salary threshold at which student loan repayments are triggered could push many new graduates into poverty.

Graduates are turning to the Greens because they are struggling to make ends meet or cannot find a job at all, Hodgson said.

‘Labour has left young workers behind’

While graduates turn away from Labour, so too do young workers. Ollie Probert-Hill, a 19-year-old hospitality worker, told The i Paper he feels Starmer’s government is abandoning its young voters.

Probert-Hill said he voted Labour because of their pledges to strengthen workers’ rights but feels let down after the Government reneged on plans to give employees day-one rights to challenge unfair dismissal.

He said: “The job market after university isn’t the best for a lot of people, so a lot of ex-students will be going into hospitality.”

“If they keep rolling back rights for us it just says a lot about how they treat workers, especially young workers.”

While he is still weighing up the Greens and Your Party, Probert-Hill said he “definitely” won’t vote Labour again.

Hodgson said: “If you look at Green voters and Reform voters, one thing they have in common is that they have the highest levels of dissatisfaction with their personal finances.”

The Green Party and Reform UK manifestos in last year’s election both included pledges to tackle student debt.

Are young men voting Reform?

Pundits had speculated that young men have been drawn towards Reform UK’s emphasis on taxes, crime and immigration, but Hodgson believes this has been overstated.

“I think that story has been slightly overhyped,” he said, “young men have never voted for Reform or UKIP or that sort of party. They’re voting for that party a bit more than traditionally, but so is the whole of the country.”

Polling expert John Curtice agreed, telling The i Paper there “has never been any evidence to support the claim that Reform does especially well among younger men.”

Men are more likely than women to vote for Reform in any age group and the party has more support among older people, Curtice said.

But, though Nigel Farage’s party are ten points behind Labour among all young men according to More in Common, young men without degrees are far more likely to support Reform.

Is Green the only alternative?

Following their inaugural conference Your Party – founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana – could emerge as an alternative home for young voters leaving Labour.

But YouGov and More In Common told The i Paper the threat it poses to the Green Party is at risk of being overstated.

Willingness to vote for Your Party is falling, with only 4 per cent of those interested in Corbyn’s outfit considering them exclusively and 85 per cent open to voting Green instead, YouGov said.

While the Green Party’s surging popularity came after its shift from a co- to single-leader model, Your Party will struggle to “speak clearly” to young voters after opting for a collective leadership model, Hodgson said.

Joe Calvert, a 24-year-old former Labour voter, told The i Paper: “Your Party is a joke in my opinion. Whilst there needs to be a strong left-wing voice in British politics, the infighting has really put me off.

“It feels like a party that’s not going anywhere, especially when the Greens are shooting up in the polls and have a left-populist leader.”

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Having lost faith in the two-party system, young people are unlikely to forgive it any time soon. Their “high need for chaos” – according to political science jargon – means these people are the most willing to risk their votes to send a message, Hodgson said.

“There’s this real sense of frustration with those voters that, for a lot of them, it’s the Greens or no one.”

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