Once, anti-establishment youth disillusioned with mainstream politics headed left. Now increasing numbers are tilting right. Why?
Josh is 24 years old and works as a carer. It’s not easy work, but he prefers it to his old job in a supermarket: most of his clients are elderly and “just want someone there with them, because they’re lonely”. In his spare time Josh used to be into boxing. But lately he’s got into politics instead.
Like many of his gen Z contemporaries, he’s thoroughly disillusioned with the mainstream kind. “The two parties that have been in power for 100-plus years have done nothing. The economy’s a mess,” he scoffs. But if he sounds like the kind of anti-establishment young person who once rallied to the radical left, Josh’s frustration has taken him in another direction. An ardent leaver in his teens, who backed Boris Johnson in 2019, he now belongs to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
The average Reform voter’s unhappiness isn’t a matter of ‘scapegoating an other’ over a media construct.
The consequences of the electorate refusing to accept this will only cause Reform’s voter base will grow.
That’s valid. I vastly simplified things I know, and there’s lots I don’t understand about it. People want to feel heard and they aren’t getting that from most of the traditional political parties.
I’ve voted both Labour and (in the past) conservative in my time and I think both parties are currently guilty of taking a lot of things and a lot of people for granted who expect better.