At the beginning of the year, I wrote an article on the British right’s inability to capture the youth vote. Drawing on polling data from democracies across the Western world, I concluded that the young’s aversion to the British right isn’t the result of a universal iron law — the concept one is “a liberal by 20” but “a conservative by 40” — but a British idiosyncrasy; such a concept was not a reliable rule-of-thumb manifested through trial-and-error, but pure unadulterated cope.

As Britain enters a general election, tail-ending European elections which saw an unexpected right-ward shift among many young voters, I think it’s fair to say we are poised to be heading in a different direction, despite attempts by our commentariat to manufacture an equivalency.

According to recent polling conducted by Statista, the British right (the Tories and Reform UK) is projected to win a combined total of 9 per cent of 18-24 year olds; 4 per cent intend to vote for the Tories whilst 5 per cent intend to vote for Reform UK. YouGov’s poll of the same demographic produced similar results, showing a rough 50/50 split. This is less than half of what it achieved at the previous general election, in which the British right won a total share of 22 per cent of 18-24 year olds, roughly 20 per cent voting for the Tories and roughly 2 per cent voting for the Brexit Party. 

Even more optimistic polls aren’t exactly uplifting. Contrary to a poll attributed to Redfield and Wilton Strategies and circulated by right-wing Xwitter accounts, one which showed a post-Farage-return spike in support for Reform UK among 18-24 year old voters, placing the party in a distant second at 21 per cent, the polling company’s actual figures for the stated period puts the British right in same place as it was in 2019. At the time of writing, Redfield and Wilton’s most recent poll puts Reform UK in an even more distant second on 12 per cent and the Tories in fifth on 5 per cent.

Based on these figures, it seems the only real difference between 2019 and now is that young right-leaning voters have pivoted away from the Tories and towards Reform UK, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. As we already know, the core of the young right aren’t Johnsonites or Trussites or Sunakites, but Faragists; they’re not partisan Tories, but tactical Tories — they might vote Tory to Get Brexit Done, but many of them won’t stick around if net migration is permitted to run at roughly 700,000.

Of course, “None of the Above” is the major winner with Britain’s youth, as it has been for several years. The turnout rate among 18-24 year olds hasn’t surpassed 50% since 1997 and has only increased gradually since an all-time-low in 2001. Even as Labour takes the lion’s share of 18-24 year olds, it would be a mistake to say the young are innately or fervently left-wing as smug pessimists would have us believe.

All this begs the question: why is every politician, pundit, and poster acting as if young voters are flocking to Reform UK in droves? If the final results look like any of these projections, any success Reform UK scores with young voters will come with three major caveats: a) the party is still winning a small share of young voters, b) if it’s not shrinking, this small share of young voters isn’t growing, c) young voters are still outnumbered by young non-voters, especially as turnout among this demographic (like turnout overall) is predicted to drop.

Even if the British right exceeds its most optimistic expectations, its successes won’t compare to those being achieved on the continent. Individual right-wing parties are winning a greater share of young voters than the entire British right combined, often achieving first place or coming in close second. France’s National Rally won over 30 per cent of 18-24 year olds in the first round of the 2024 legislative elections, a close second behind the left-wing New Popular Front. The Party for Freedom (Netherlands), Enough! (Portugal), and the Finns Party (Finland) all poll at roughly 25 per cent with the same demographic. In Germany’s European elections, the centre-right CDU and right-wing AfD were tied for first among 16-24 year-olds, winning 16 per cent each. Likewise, right-leaning parties were most popular with young voters in Italy and Sweden in recent elections. The list goes on.

Occasionally, the rightward shift is characterised as a gendered phenomenon, in which young white men are said to be staging a quasi-sexual coup against the late-feminist longhouse. Whilst there are noticeable sex differences in voting behaviour between young men and women in Germany — where young men are distinctly more likely to vote for right-wing parties — the opposite is true in France, largely because the National Rally has positioned itself as the party defending women’s welfare where the centre and left are inhibited by political correctness.

Consider this against the backdrop of the last general election, in which Labour made its biggest gains among young male voters. Keep in mind: this closed the disparity which emerged in 2017; young women (in-step with their broader leftward shift, compared to the more moderate-minded men of their cohort) supported Labour to a greater degree. No matter how much English-grad analysis of current affairs tries to insert a Romeo and Juliet dynamic into voting behaviour, it remains uncertain whether young men have “had enough” of being cucked by a regime which hates them.

Indeed, this entire narrative is eerily similar to the Corbynite “Yoofquake” narrative. Over the course of the 2017 and 2019 general elections, age emerged as a crucial dividing line in voting habits, more so than sex or class. Older voters aligned with the Tories whilst younger voters aligned with Labour, leading many leftists to claim the possibility of a Corbyn premiership had inspired a once-dismayed and disaffected demographic to turnout en-masse.

However, turnout among 18-24 year olds didn’t increase anymore than had been anticipated and the majority of young people didn’t vote at all, meaning Corbyn’s supposedly youth-captivating program only managed to attract a small minority of 18-24 year-olds overall. This was mainly because the left mistook the success of its media campaign with the popularity of its agenda. It is hard to believe now, but Corbynites did sincerely believe the trending page reflected a real, major, and oncoming shift in the political landscape, a delusion which was quickly mocked when the results dropped.

Did everyone just forget about the Brexit Party’s 2019 EU election campaign?

Still, if nothing else, at least the Corbynite left could point to their success with the young people who could be bothered to vote. Not only is the British right unlikely to experience comparable popularity, it increasingly suffers from the same disconnect, believing Farage’s numbers on TikTok indicate Something Is Happening Out There. This is compounded by a profound ignorance of the social media habits of young people. Gen Z normies have been liking and sharing Instagram reels praising Hitler and insulting minorities under their own name and face for several years at this point, but Xwitter-centric revisionism would have us believe Reform UK is running a first-of-its-kind “Britanon” campaign to turn Zoomers into Faragist shocktroopers. Did everyone just forget about the Brexit Party’s 2019 EU election campaign?

As luddite dispositions and mystical expectations reinforce each other to produce a distorted understanding of technological capabilities, the antiquated belief which overstates the importance of individual pieces of media entrenches itself further into commentary. Media can shine the product, but it can’t fundamentally change it, and the success of any media campaign often depends more on the product than the product depends on the media campaign. You can only polish a turd so much. It’s for this reason Rishi Sunak was always going to have a bad media campaign, not because his social media team is bad (Travis Scott and Little Dark Age are far more Zoomer-coded than Eminem, for better or worse) but because he’s Rishi Sunak.

At least Farage, owing to his idiosyncratic persona, is enough of a meme that anything he says and does is mildly entertaining by default, even to apolitical youngsters — who, contrary to the implications of many, aren’t as impressionable as people think. On the contrary, the young are acutely aware and very cynical about media manipulation, especially when it comes to politics. The idea young people are so impressionable that they’ll vote for whoever is on TikTok smacks of typical geriatric contempt recast as praise, all so people who discovered basic right-wing talking points in 2018 can imagine themselves as part of a fresh new scene. Such is the stuff of parodies, but the narrative does give the regime ample reason to clamp down on free speech in the name of curbing radicalisation among the youth, especially since it seems like something Starmer would undertake to prove to Boomers that he’s Tough on China, etc.

As good as it looks, the willingness of young Britons to approach Farage in the street likely reflects their online relationship with him; they’re not hostile to him, but they’re not converts. They might take a selfie with him or like and share some of his TikToks, but will stop short of actually voting for him. Social media is an excellent tool for bridging the gap between the common man and those in positions of influence, but TikTok (much like Twitter) isn’t Real Life.

Of course, to a certain extent, it makes sense for right-wing parties to show they have youth appeal, especially considering the aforementioned greying of the British right-wing. Just as university societies dominated by men make an effort to gain a few female members so social events are less boring, signalling to other women their society isn’t an inhospitable sausage-fest, parties dominated by old people need to give the impression that there’s some youth presence within its ranks to attract more youngsters, both for the sake of the party’s image and it’s future. Indeed, all the more reason Farage should greenlight Reform Youth.

Even the commendable (often superior) creative abilities of complete randos with Adobe have their limits

The simple fact is that attractive solutions directed at people’s day-to-day concerns and the Machiavellian virtues of politicians are infinitely more important than the trickery of creative professionals, and the interests of young people are no different. Even the commendable (often superior) creative abilities of complete randos with Adobe have their limits. Millions of people aren’t going to vote Reform because Farage likes a good set of melons, they’re going to vote Reform because they’ve been betrayed by the Tories again on immigration; to say otherwise denies the authenticity (and longevity) of their concerns. Again, that includes young people.

To summarise, on the subject of a British right-wing youthquake, a realist would say it’s possible, a pessimist would say it’s impossible, an optimist would say it’s in early development, and an overly optimistic person would say it’s imminent.