Over the last two decades, youth turnout fell from 66% in 1992 to around 40% in the 2015 general election. By contrast, Brits aged 65 have always voted in droves (turnout averages around 75%). The UK has had the largest gap in voter turnout between the old and the young in the OECD.
Corbyn’s bold manifesto promised to ban unpaid internships and cap rents so they would only rise with inflation. He would make universities free again—they were no tuition fees in England and Wales for higher education before 1997—and even hinted at plans to wipe out some student debt.
For campaigners on the ground, it was obvious Corbyn had tapped into the despair that many young people felt in the country. Over the last seven years, tuition fees had tripled; government grants to help the poorest attending universities were axed; under-25s lost their entitlement to housing benefits; the young were squeezed by a spiraling housing market; and job prospects have deteriorating “alarmingly,” according to Britain’s biggest trade union. [...]
In the end, over a million young voters aged up to 25 registered to vote in the run up to the June 8 election. More under-25s have registered to vote than at the same period in the run-up to the Brexit referendum last year and the last general election in 2015.
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