SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND - As students from the University of Southampton zigzagged across campus on a recent cold afternoon, youthful activists with Britain's main opposition Labour Party intercepted them with cups of tea and a leaflet with detailed instructions on how to register to vote in December's election.
Now, as Britain prepares for its most pivotal election in decades on Thursday , Labour is targeting cities with high youth populations, hoping that they will offset losses in traditional Labour strongholds in the north that support Brexit by healthy margins. More than 60 per cent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 backed the Labour Party in 2017, while 69 per cent of voters over the age of 70 backed the Conservative Party.
Despite the surge in youth registration, the percentage of registered young voters, at around two-thirds, remains low compared with the older population. Young people also make up a big percentage of non-voters: Only between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of the population between the ages of 18 and their mid-20s voted in the 2015 and 2017 elections, compared with about 80 per cent of voters in their 70s.
While young voters tend to favour the Labour Party, the youth vote shows the same tendency toward fragmentation as the wider British left. Many have shifted to the Liberal Democrats, a more centrist party with an adamantly anti-Brexit stance, and the Greens. With so much at stake in the coming election, young people are also opting to vote tactically. The constituency of Southampton Itchen is home to students from two universities - the University of Southampton and Solent University - and many graduates stay on to work in the city, which is a major port.
"Labour is a fantastic party for the youth, but Jeremy Corbyn is a terrible leader, and no one can imagine him as prime minister," she said."And then we have the Lib Dems who say they will cancel Brexit, but they aren't going to get a majority, so people are in a pickle and are just choosing to vote tactically instead of idealistically."