Corbyn: man of the [young] people?

Newcastle, August 2015: Jeremy Corbyn attends a young-ish political rally.

Corbyn: man of the [young] people?

Say what you will about his policies; Jeremy Corbyn appears to have done the impossible – make teenagers enthusiastic about something. However, is Corbynmania really sweeping through the UK’s young people?

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The rise of Jeremy Corbyn within the Labour Party went wholly unpredicted. Beginning as a rank outsider who was struggling for nominations, he slowly climbed the polls, eventually winning with an unprecedented mandate of 251,417 votes. One of his more vocal supporters, Owen Jones, columnist for the Guardian, proclaimed that “a movement is born… across the nation, in every village and town you can see this movement emerging.” Corbyn, in his victory speech, attributed his success to the enthusiasm of young people, who were written off by many as a “non-political generation”. In half a year, the number of full Labour members doubled to 370,658, whilst their average age fell by 11 years; this suggests that “Jezza”, as the youth refer to him, has indeed invigorated the under-25 untouchables. However, despite the heavy presence of the younger generation at his campaign rallies, and the swelling of young Labour membership, many critics, both inside the Party and out, were not convinced.

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, speaking to the Financial Times, argued, “the new members tend to be younger, more educated urbanites, the kind of people who used to vote Green,” – in other words, Jeremy Corbyn has not, in fact, motivated non-voters to vote. Rather, he has simply adopted several Green voters. Bale backs up his argument with statistics; Hackney North, an increasingly gentrified and trendy area of London, saw membership rise from 981 to 2,963 full members, with an additional 1,734 paying the £3 fee to vote in the Labour Leadership elections. This is compared to an average of 68 new members per Scottish constituency – Corbyn’s message appears to be resonating best with a very selective group of young voters: hipsters living in London.

However, this argument fails to take into account the huge rises that Corbyn has seen across other areas of the country: the South West, for example Bath, where 682 members have joined since May, or Camborne and Redruth, which saw a 750 member growth; the South East, where constituencies like Colchester have quintupled their membership; and the Midlands – since January 2015, membership doubled in the constituency of Coventry North West. In addition, the so-called “northern powerhouse” has seen a vast rise in membership; Liverpudlian constituencies, in particular, saw quadrupled memberships. Further, this argument does not address similar left-wing springs across the globe: the election of Syriza in Greece; Podemos’ success in the Spanish elections; Bernie Sanders’ performance in the Iowa caucus.

Among Iowa Democrats aged between 17–29, 84% opted for Sanders; he still held a 21% lead over Clinton amongst those aged 30–44. Owen Jones, seemingly the sole spokesperson for left-wing young people, suggests that the resurgence of left-wing politics “is a story of young people facing a present and future defined by economic security, often apparently doomed to a worse lot in life than their parents.” He acknowledges that a “generation” is a sweeping generalisation, but maintains that it is the support of the young people – in particular the impact of social media campaigning – that has led to the rise of Syriza, Podemos, Sanders and Corbyn.

The breadth of this shift in opinion has led many journalists and political commentators to believe that something deeper is occurring. It seems that Jones was correct in his claims – Corbyn represents a movement that is growing; a movement of hopeful people, who believe in change and are willing to campaign, canvas and protest for what they believe in. The teenagers have woken up – at long last – and they’re not happy.