Engaging young people in politics
The 2024 general election saw lower voter turnout among both young people and people of colour. But this doesn’t mean that they’re not interested in politics and democracy, writes Banseka Kayembe, director of Naked Politics, which encourages young people to get involved in creating the political change they desire.
The recent general election had its fair share of surprises but voter turnout was not one of them. According to research by the IPPR think tank, turnout was 11 per cent higher in constituencies with the highest proportion of over 64-year-olds compared to the lowest. Meanwhile, turnout was 7 per cent lower in areas with the highest proportion of voters from minority ethnic backgrounds.
This data suggests that young people and people of colour are particularly isolated from traditional forms of democratic engagement, continuing a vicious cycle in which older white voters are more likely to have their political interests catered to. Core areas of concern for marginalised young people such as housing, employment and education seem likely to continue to be ignored, further deepening their voter apathy.
I’m the director of Naked Politics, a media and educational organisation for young people. Our work is centred around being curious about how young people can participate in democracy beyond simply voting and how best to increase their civic action in deeper ways. For example, what is the antidote to this level of systemic apathy? And are marginalised young people gravitating towards other forms of democracy?
‘Merely putting a cross on a piece of paper once every few years feels unsatisfactory’
Voting is often touted as the height of democratic participation for citizens. Voting matters, of course; the last election demonstrated to some parties what can happen when voters collectively choose alternatives at the ballot box. But merely putting a cross on a piece of paper once every few years feels unsatisfactory. We’re often told that if we don’t vote in elections we have ‘no right to moan’ about policy outcomes, a flippant belief that belies the valid feelings of apathy and disconnection with establishment politics held by significant numbers of people. A more aspirational model of democracy has to be one in which people hold collective power to fight for change, beyond just voting in a representative.
I set up Naked Politics nine years ago because it was clear that young people felt ignored or unheard within traditional public spaces. We were already on a trajectory of increasingly alienating policies for young people, as emphasised by the tripling of tuition fees just a few years earlier. Mainstream media often insisted that voter turnout among young people was poor because they were uninterested or cared more about frivolous things.
Operating as an ad-hoc media platform, my team at Naked Politics commissioned articles by young people, with all of us working for free. It confirmed to me that it wasn’t rare to find young people who were interested in politics – in fact they were deeply politicised by their material experiences, which were becoming increasingly difficult. They wanted to write about housing, jobs, education, climate change and social injustice. They wanted to tell the stories of young marginalised people, but often were shut out from mainstream media and politics, which remained incurious about how young people were living.
In recent years Naked Politics has responded to the real desire of young people to understand politics in a way that feels more practical, becoming grounded in people power, community organising and how ordinary people create political and social change. Young people have been at the forefront of many political movements over the last several years, from Just Stop Oil to Black Lives Matter and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Globally, they’ve taken part in collective boycotts and helped build innovative campaign groups and strategies equipped to challenge today’s injustices, using art, creativity, media collaborations and digital tools to meet these challenges. They’ve also engaged in citizen journalism, providing vital information and stories that mainstream media often ignores.
‘Our media platform focuses on young people and bottom-up democratic action’
Our media platform focuses on young people and bottom-up democratic action. Rather than young people consuming news passively, we want to encourage them to get involved in creating the political change they desire and see themselves as having collective power to leverage over those in positions of authority. We’ve commissioned hundreds of young people to tell often untold or ignored political stories, explore the history of people power and understand politics through the lens of young people.
Often, we commission young people who have little or no experience and are providing them with their first practical understanding of what a good standard of journalism is, with little in the way of resources. With the support of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, our educational programmes give young marginalised people a foundational understanding of democratic campaigning, activism and journalism as tools to shape this country and strengthen our democracy.
Since September 2023, we have engaged with over 400 young pupils of colour aged between 15 and 18. When asked ‘how confident do you feel about your ability to influence politics or political decision making now or in the future?’, over 25 per cent said they were very unconfident or not confident and 45 per cent said they were unsure, suggesting a disconnect between themselves and political action.
After one to two Naked Politics workshops, the number of participants with a good or excellent understanding of how people create political change rose from 50 per cent to 83 per cent. In addition, 46 per cent of young people say they would be likely to get involved in democratic action in future as a result of our session.
Young participants continually show a real curiosity and intelligence when posed with practical questions around organising and democratic action. I was recently struck by a pupil at Brampton Manor Academy in east London who highlighted, unprompted, the importance of celebrating small wins, even if the overarching goal of the campaign had not been met.
Young people’s appetite for understanding their political power in a different type of way is certainly there, but from our experiences so far schools just often lack the resources and funding to weave it into the curriculum. Citizenship is a compulsory subject at secondary school, but the reality, according to data collected by ACT (Association for Citizenship Teaching), is that ‘we are a very long short of having at least one trained Citizenship specialist teacher in every school’.
‘We must make it happen ourselves’
Britain has a rich history of people power, but so much of it has been buried – hidden in the fading memories of elders or captured in photos now gathering dust in attics, with fewer opportunities to bring that history to a new generation. How many young people learn about the Asian youth movements of the 1970s and 80s, which saw young South Asians mobilise against local injustices by protesting, raising awareness and creating materials like newsletters to educate others in the community and beyond?
Or the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott, where four West Indian bus workers successfully organised against Bristol Omnibus Company for refusing to employ Black or Asian bus crews? Parliament subsequently passed the Race Relations Act, which made ‘racial discrimination unlawful in public places’, two years later. Or the Lancashire cotton mill workers who at a significant personal sacrifice, refused to work with raw cotton picked by enslaved Black Americans?
In a summer characterised by racist riots and pogroms, it’s a powerful reminder that young people are not innately invested in democracy. They are as capable as anyone else of falling for disinformation and nefarious and extreme forces in a political climate where they feel like the establishment is failing them. Shoring up community power, following the blueprints of social action before us, building movements that cross cultural, racial and religious lines and can speak truth to power, and giving people the democratic autonomy they need won’t just happen on its own – we must make it happen ourselves.
The radical philosopher Frantz Fanon wrote ‘that there is no famous man who will take the responsibility for everything, but that the demiurge is the people themselves’. It is not too hyperbolic at this point to say that the integrity of our democracy depends on it.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Runnymede Trust.
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Photo © BSix College
