Is London's stranglehold on power a big turn-off for young voters?
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Version 0 of 1. “It’s a bit of a piss-take if you have an MP standing for your area but they actually live in a nice house across the park,” said a participant in a recent report on how to re-engage young people in politics. Few statements better sum up the us-and-them attitude that many have towards the Westminster elite. Voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds is at a 50-year low, with the gap in participation between the youngest and oldest voters the widest in any advanced democracy, according to OECD data. Polls regularly throw up alarming levels of dissatisfaction with the political elite – only 14% of young people feel their voice is heard at all. Among students, 87% don’t feel represented and over half say they have no faith in the current UK political system. “I think it’s really worrying,” says Jonathan Birdwell, co-author of Demos’ ‘Tune in, turn out’ report. “There needs to be some kind of reform to the way traditional politics operates, otherwise there might be even lower turnout in future.” One political event in recent times has bucked the trend - the Scottish independence referendum. Three-quarters of 16- and 17-year-olds cast their vote, with a quarter since joining a political party. While the debate over Scotland’s sovereignty continues, the debate has seeped south, to address English regional devolution. On the morning after the Scottish vote, David Cameron promised that “the millions of voices of England must also be heard”. But what kind of devolution is on offer, and could it tackle the antipathy that many young people feel towards Westminster politics? All major parties have devolution plans for the north of England - whether it’s this government’s emphasis on a “northern powerhouse”, best evidenced through the “DevoManc” proposals which will see Greater Manchester control its £6bn NHS budget from 2016, or the Lib Dems championing the ‘Northern Futures’ project – which aims to give more power to people who live and work in the north. Labour too has pledged to transfer up to £4bn to city regions, a concept which neatly fits with recent developments in the north. “There is a general sense that the north, like Scotland, feels too distant from decision-making in London and the Westminster bubble,” says Ed Cox, director of the thinktank IPPR North. Greater Manchester will elect a mayor in 2017, and new “super-council” combined authorities have emerged in West Yorkshire, the North East and Merseyside. Greater powers over the likes of transport and economic development are almost certain to follow. But will this go far enough to address northerners’ feelings of being shut out of politics? “I think what we see at the moment is that the main focus is on the economic aspect of devolution,” says Dr Arianna Giovannini from the University of Huddersfield. That view is shared by two emerging regionalist parties in the north, who will be putting their radical devolutionary views to the voters next month. While Labour has spoken about replacing the House of Lords with an elected ‘Senate of the Regions’, the likes of Yorkshire First want to go much further. They want a Yorkshire parliament. The North East party, led by ex-Labour MP Hilton Dawson, wants a regional government with powers over health, social security and education. He dismisses the new combined authorities as the “same old middle-aged men who are simply trying to accrue a few more powers to themselves and call that devolution”. But what does this mean for young people? Robyn Whiting, a 20-year-old genetics student at the University of York, was so impressed by Yorkshire First that she is standing for them in parish elections in Kirklees. The reason she’s keen for greater devolution is clear. “I was looking for jobs and internships and outside of the south there’s very few - especially in the north of England. So if I want to get a job after I graduate the chances are I’ll be moving to London. I don’t want to do that because I like living in Yorkshire.” Graduate retention is a huge issue, with rates of educated young people remaining in university towns outside London dropping following the recession. Whiting’s view is shared by Emmet Cleaver, Sheffield Hallam Student Union’s Welfare and Community Officer, who, in a sign that the devolutionary spirit has infiltrated student politics, will be taking a motion to NUS national conference to call for a full-time Yorkshire and Humberside Officer. “When you talk about the dreaded employment world after university you hear the best jobs are in London, and I just think - why is that?” he says. But can devolution tackle political disengagement? Cox says: “The closer the decision-making is to the general public, the more they can actually see that their vote counts for something or that their voice influences something, the more likely it is they’re going to get involved”. Demos’ report found that young people would prefer their MPs to be working-class and live nearer them. But Birdwell, its co-author, doesn’t believe that devolving power would be a magic bullet. “Young people are concerned about issues in their local community. Whether you can make the logical conclusion they’d be more likely to vote if there was more devolution would depend on whether the devolution, in their mind, would lead to a practical amelioration of those issues to a greater extent than currently happens.” His report recommends radical reforms to modernise the political process, including same-day voter registration and online voting. “If political parties do things right to engage young people; do more on social media, communicate policies in a language young people can understand and provide new technologies that allow them to engage more, they’ll see young people turning to those parties,” he says. Carter says he would support e-voting and pushing Yorkshire decision-making to a local level. “The youth aren’t stupid. They see they can vote on Big Brother, or on 101 other things every second of the bloody day if they want, but what they can’t do is influence policy and politics. Voting once every five years is not about democracy.” Polls suggest that the SNP could help form a new government after next month’s election, which is bound to bring the issue of constitutional reform right to the top of the political agenda. Perhaps then young people in English regions will be as energised as in Scotland and see a chance to have a meaningful say in how they are governed. “I am confident that there is a great potential to strengthen the relationship between people and politics. Ultimately that’s what real political devolution is about. Scotland is a great example of that,” says Dr Giovannini. “The general election will play a big role, but the key is to shift the frame to make sure devolution is understood not necessarily just as a way of addressing the economic issues of the north of England, but also the democratic ones.” |