The Conservatives have a youth problem. Latest polling says around 12 per cent of 18 to 24 year olds would vote Conservative in the next general election, and even amongst 25 to 49 year olds the figure is just 13 per cent. For context, just before the 2019 general election, the figures were 18 and 30 per cent respectively. In the 2017 general election, the age when someone went from being more likely to vote Conservative than Labour was 47; in 2019 it fell to 39. Now? It is probably in the mid-50s. 

Obviously, things have not always been this dire. The Junior Imperial and Constitutional League, the forerunner to today’s Young Conservatives, could boast 100,000 members in 1914, before the impact of World War One. In 1949 the Young Conservatives could boast 160,433 members (perhaps because it became known as “the best marriage bureau in the county”) and was often described as the largest youth movement in the free world. Even as recently as 2006, Conservative Future was the largest political organisation on British campuses! 

Young people are no longer moving rightwards as they age

In normal times, this decline might not have been much of an issue: the oft-quoted (incorrectly so, it turns out) Churchillian maxim that “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain” has been the Conservative’s lodestar. It doesn’t matter that the young are more disposed to left-wing politics, the view goes, because once they get their first proper job (and their first proper experience of taxation), once they move into their first home and develop a stronger stake in their community, and once they start a family, they naturally become more Conservative.

This has typically been the case. There is one problem, however, for the Conservatives: that relationship has broken down. Young people are no longer moving rightwards as they age. Millennials — those born between 1981 and 1996 — are actually getting more left-wing as they age. At age 20, Conservative support amongst Millennials was around seven points lower than the national average — similar to Gen X’s level of support at that age. However, at the age of 40, whilst Gen X’s support for the Tories remained seven points lower than the national average, 40 year old Millennials’ support was more than 15 points lower than the national average. 

Conservative strategists should be under no illusion that this could present an existential threat to the party. Even if demographics are not destiny — and the post-Brexit general elections of 2017 and 2019 showed how traditional patterns of support can be rapidly eroded — alienating a 15-year-wide cohort of voters will make every election for the next 50-or-so years much harder than it has to be. 

Of course, it doesn’t have to be like this. In 2010, the Tories trailed Labour by just one point amongst under 25s, and led by five amongst 25 to 34 year olds. Across Europe young voters can, and do, vote for right-wing parties: in the second round of the 2022 French presidential election, 39 per cent of those under 25s voted for Le Pen. Although we see the same pattern of younger generations getting more left-wing over time happening in America, north of the border in Canada polls show the Conservatives winning 25 per cent of the 18 to 29 vote.

This is, perhaps, where the British Tories can learn something from their friends across the pond. Our Conservative Party has clearly decided to throw their lot in with pensioners, NIMBYs and homeowners, opposing each and every development proposed, regardless of the merits of what is already there. Car wash sites become “essential community services”, and shabby brownfield instantly assumes great environmental worth because a bat once looked at it.

The NIMBY Tory captain is Theresa Villiers, who led the charge to remove house-building targets for local authorities. She has admitted to having numerous conversations with people who cannot afford a home — who cannot live the life their parents could — yet remained untouched by the inherent unfairness in the system. This callous approach will only serve to turbo-charge the Tory decline amongst young people. Why vote for a party who won’t support your own aspirations?

The Conservatives are pouring gas on the fire

Many of the issues facing young people (and I’m using the word “young” very loosely here, given that it’s so widespread now) are all perpetuated by a lack of housing: high rents, stagnant wages, an inability to buy a property (especially, for many, around the areas where they grew up), and so putting off starting a family. Wonks call this “the housing theory of everything”. In choosing to use the state to heavily restrict the availability of land, coupled with a byzantine planning process that ensures anyone and everyone can hold up developments, the Conservatives are pouring gas on the fire.

The Canadian Tories get this; their current focus on affordable housing shows they are taking the concerns of aspirational young people seriously. Benjamin Disraeli, the founding father of one nation conservatism, realised a core truth of politics: a divided society will not survive. In identifying the two nations existing in Britain, his genius was to provide a policy platform from and of the right, in opposition to Marxism, and in order to dampen down the revolutionary spirits of the working class and win their support. It worked.

Now, Labour leader Keir Starmer is offering exactly what is needed — to build on the green belt to alleviate the housing crisis. Conservatives ought to take a leaf out of Disraeli’s playbook, and realise the party risks losing an entire generation. There needs to be a Conservative plan for housebuilding, which will involve annoying some of their current electoral coalition.

There is a glimmer of hope for those of who do not want to toss the Conservative baby out with the housing bathwater: Michael Gove. Gove made headlines recently by admitting that there aren’t enough homes in Britain and refused to rule out building on the green belt. A new civil war is brewing amongst the Conservatives, between the Sunak-Villiers faction and the Goveians, and it is vital for the long-term health of the Conservative Party that the Govians win.

Today, we are again two nations: the owners, who have a property, and the dreamers, for whom home ownership is a fantasy. The Conservatives can choose the owners over the dreamers, but they should not expect their vote.