UK election: Youths urge their peers to vote, as right-wing Reform Party gains popularity

REFORM PARTY GAINING POPULARITY

The youngest voters in the UK are likely unable to remember a government other than one helmed by the Conservative Party, which has been in power for 14 years. 

But the ruling Tories are not expected to win their support in the current atmosphere of uncertainty and pessimism.

This has been apparent outside urban centres, like in the coastal town of Clacton-on-Sea on England’s east coast.

A relatively new political force has been capturing the attention of youngsters there – the right-wing Reform Party led by Nigel Farage, who is running for a parliamentary seat in Clacton.

This is particularly notable in a country where the young tend to vote for left-wing parties.

Farage has called the “rapidly growing” support among young voters “truly remarkable”. 

While the party’s social media campaign has convinced many young voters, it is Farage himself who seems to have struck a chord. The 60-year-old has the highest number of followers by far on TikTok among UK politicians.

In one TikTok video, he told his audience: “If you’re wondering why you can’t get a house, why rents are up 20 per cent in the last three years, if you’re wondering why your granny can’t get a (medical) appointment – it’s because we have a population explosion … The most affected group are the young people of this country.”

Farage and his party have also based their campaign around the fact that Brexit was not properly implemented, which is the “elephant in the room”, said Paul Pickering, professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at Australian National University.

He told CNA’s Asia First programme: “A lot of other commentators would say that a lot of the problems that the British economy is now facing – its labour market and so forth – are as a result of Brexit, but it’s just no one really wants to go there again. 

“That’s something that no one’s really prepared to talk about.”