Inside the Tory effort to win back the young: 'We’re not even allowed to use the word cool now'
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Version 0 of 1. In a tucked away corner of Conservative conference is a room with a zanily-coloured sign hosting chat about what young people need while the rest of the party buzzes around it. It’s not a shadow of the teaming, throbbing World Transformed festival organised by Momentum at Labour’s conference. It’s not even a poor relative of events run by the defunct Conservative Future group. But it does say something about the state of the relationship between young people and the Tories, and it’s a message that has party chiefs in a cold sweat. They know the average age of a Tory member is now 60-odd, that the party lacks young legs to tread streets campaigning and that two thirds of under-40s backed Jeremy Corbyn at the election. But they think the crisis could be even worse. There is a deep fear several generations of Britons will never give the Tories a second look and, even more appalling for Conservatives, will abandon the idea that free markets are what you build a country on. You can see it in Theresa May’s bid to make her tuition fees ‘freeze’ the big conference opening announcement, and in Eric Pickles’s call for a “vibrant youth wing” as part of his post-mortem of the election. But even those tentative moves have met with muted approval in Manchester. The idea of a youth wing run from CCHQ even has senior ministers cringing. One cabinet level source told The Independent: “The problem with this kind of thing is, that if you make a group and say this is cool. It automatically is no longer cool. “We’re not even allowed to use ‘cool’ now, my daughter told me not to. “In fact, it’s not even the word anymore, there’s some other word now.” Stephen Canning, a councillor and former deputy chair of Conservative Future, shut down in the wake of a bullying scandal, is one who fears a generation is about to grow up without knowing the arguments for capitalism. He said it was positive his party is paying more attention to younger members, but added: “I think they need to look at whether it would also be better to put more trust in young people and the grassroots to build and deliver something for themselves. “Momentum was not an organisation created by Labour HQ, it grew up outside the party and was driven by its members. You can’t build a movement – you have to grow one.” And that’s just the problem enthusing young Tories. The challenge in making non-political young people, or left leaning ones, see the Conservatives differently is even bigger. Scottish leader Ruth Davidson, an avid supporter of votes at 16, is clear about the breadth of the challenge. “I think one of the things that we [must] do is we speak to young people of voting age…not as if they are separate species,” she said at conference, pointing out voters under 30 have the same hopes and interests as everyone else. “We have to get an awful lot better about how we can convey our messaging too, so actually, the messaging and the way that we convey it. “Our social media policy is not good enough, our provision in terms of how we broadcast what we are trying to say, isn’t good enough. And speaking just within the traditional media is not going to help that.” The idea that to reach young people, the Tories must reach out beyond their old Fleet Street friends comes up again and again. When Ms May finally decided to move on tuition fees she made the announcement on the pages of the Sunday Telegraph, not known as the choice for students. “It is obviously the case that young people consume news and information through publications and platforms other than the Sunday Telegraph,” said Ryan Shorthouse, director of the Bright Blue think-tank. “It would have been wise to use some of those platforms and publications which young people are reading.” The tuition fees offer itself was welcomed. It had been campaigned for by Bright Blue, but with a dose of realism - “will it change the world, will it mean that young people suddenly flock to the Conservatives? No,” said Shorthouse. “They need bolder offers to young people. And I think what you got in the Tory manifesto last time was a lot of taking money away from pensioners, for example on the triple lock, the new social care policies. “They thought somehow that by taking away from older people that would attract younger people, it was nonsensical. You have to offer something bold, concrete and positive.” He suggested scrapping or cutting stamp duty for first-time buyers in a “Tory move” that would save thousands of pounds for people struggling to save for a house. But beyond the policy offer there is a wider battle looming that the Tories need a plan for, about young people’s place in a capitalist country. Labour is already ahead of the game in convincing young voters that the answer is an empowered state and a more socialist society, in part because of its clear and easily saleable policies – free tuition fees, free adult education, more money for the NHS and government house building. Senior Tories admit Labour’s narrative is attractive – one in which young people have lost out to the capitalists and corporations, in which only the state is powerful enough to ensure they have the life chances their parents had. One told The Independent: “We know [Corbyn] can’t pay for it, but neither can we. He can promise the world from opposition, but in terms of spending we can only offer bare bones. “We cannot win a bidding war with him to buy the youth vote, and we shouldn’t try to get into one.” Electoral strategists always say winning over voters is about making them think your values are their values, and that’s where the Tories want to take the fight. They know Corbyn can mirror young people on equality, on helping the downtrodden and his Labour is currently closer to them on social values – caring for animals instead of hunting them, for example, or eschewing Trump’s America. Critics also say the Tories fell further behind with young voters when May came to power and ditched David Cameron’s socially liberal Toryism for something more rightwing. Shorthouse is one of them. He said: “The Hard Brexit vision, the hard line approach on immigration, the scepticism of human rights, specifically wanting to repeal the Human Rights Act, criticism of ‘citizens of nowhere’ and that internationalist outlook – that will have collided with the liberal centre-ground views and values that a lot of young people had.” May has made an effort at conference to refocus her agenda on the ‘burning injustices’ in society, with a major review expected next week into how ethnic minorities fare in modern Britain likely to appeal to young voters’ egalitarian sentiments. Bright Blue’s polling shows other areas where the Tories could win back ground – revealing climate change is the second highest issue for under-40s, second only to health, and is actually the top issue for 18 to 28 year olds. But whether May can go further on social liberalism or the environment while the right of her party has a firm hold on things is a question yet to be answered. She will say in her conference speech on Wednesday that it is for her Government to take the fight to Labour. But if she wants to win back young voters, there may still be one or two battles to win round the cabinet table. |