What did a room of Politics A Level students think about the election?
Last week I had a rare opportunity to poll a group of people who had not been surveyed before. This doesn’t happen every day in the world of political research, so I leapt at the opportunity. In this instance, I was able to survey a group of around 2,000 16-18 year old politics students, before and during the twice-yearly PolEconUK conference. It provided a unique insight into what a young and politically engaged audience thinks about the state of UK politics, and how hearing from political speakers can change partisan attitudes.
In the first poll, carried out in the week or so before the first conference speakers began, just over 850 students participated. The vast majority of them live in London and the South East (70%), so by no means do these results represent the country as a whole. They do, however, do a pretty good job of telling us what those in the room thought.
To start with the less surprising finding, following the general age pattern among the wider population, the group of students in the room were much more likely to identify as “left wing” (51%) than adults in the UK (25%), who more often position themselves as centrists (33%). We found that many of these students would vote Labour (41%), with the Conservative party (14%) level with the Liberal Democrats (14%). Given their age, only a portion of the room will actually be able to vote this time round, and notably many in the room would keep it this way (41% opposed, and 44% supported lowering the voting age to 16). However, come the general election after this one, it does indeed look like Labour will continue to attract new voters.
However, this overstates the political differences between the students and the public. For one, the issues which are top priorities for the country as a whole were the same as for this group; the Cost of Living, the Economy broadly, the NHS. There was less concern about immigration among the students, and more concern about the availability of housing, something which is increasingly true of the whole population under-35. Concern for the climate was broadly level in the room and among the public.
On economic attitudes, the students were very similar to the public as a whole. The majority felt that ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth, and that income should be redistributed from those who are better-off. These are views which the UK public generally holds too. It is on social issues where the generational divide opens up more clearly; fewer of the students supported stiffer sentences for law breakers, or said the death penalty was appropriate for some crimes, than adults in the UK on the whole. Most unsurprisingly, only 36% of students said that young people these days don’t have respect for traditional British values, a view held by 63% of UK adults.
One of the exciting opportunities the day presented was the ability to resurvey the attendees after they had heard from the speakers. Having heard from the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrats, Green Party and Reform UK, nearly 600 of the students reanswered some of the questions in the short break before the afternoon’s session. This included a specific question on whether they felt more or less positive about the parties and leaders. Nearly half of the students (49%) reported feeling more positive about the Green Party after the morning’s speakers, where they heard from Deputy Leader Zack Polanski.
In direct reports, the majority of students did not change their views on the Labour Party, or the Liberal democrats. Views on the Conservatives divided between no change (43%) and feeling less positive (43%), and a majority said they felt less positive about Reform UK (51%). This controversy was felt in the room during the Reform UK and Conservative speeches, with occasional booing from the crowd. Of course there are caveats; I don’t think this implies that parties to the right always lose favour by engaging with young people. Many will have been inclined to say they feel more negative just because they feel negative in general. Others may have hardened against these parties after hearing the vocal disapproval from the crowd. Yet it is undeniably challenging for right-wing views to find a foot-hold among younger audiences, including highly politically engaged students. 63% of the students after hearing the speakers said that some divides in UK politics are too wide for people to find common ground, while just 29% said the opposite.
To-line vote intention did change as well. Predictably, given the success of the Green Party speaker, the proportion who said they would vote for the Green Party increased from 8% to 19% in the second survey, mostly at the expense of the “Don’t Know” group falling from 11% to 4%. The proportion who felt that the Green Party was the party which best represented young people rose even more significantly (from 15% to 34%), drawing level with Labour (35%), who held a very clear lead at the start of the day with 50% of respondents.
If there was one result which remained consistent and decisive throughout the day, it was that a vanishingly small number of those in the room expected anything besides a Labour victory in the next election. 84% expected a Labour majority at the start of the day, and 87% after the speakers had finished. This is higher than the expectation levels among the UK adult population as a whole (55%), where many express uncertainty (17%).
It’s an interesting time to do exercises like this. An election looms, but people are already so used to the feeling that Labour will win that it’s been reduced to a near-formality. While there is clear and powerful division over some issues, like the conflict in the Middle East, there is a more unified sentiment on areas which many feel are more important, like the economy and NHS. With a strong anti-political sentiment becoming a frequent feature of political discussion with the public, it is hard to imagine what politicians can say to win people over. Despite all this, a majority of the politics students who attended the conference came away more interested in a job in politics (51%). Optimistically, perhaps events like this make the case that the more people engage with politics and politicians, the more they want to engage.
The speakers at the conference were:
Wes Streeting MP
Lord Dubs
Baroness Chakrabarti
Richard Tice
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg MP
Ed Vaizey
Zack Polanski
Sarah Olney MP
Alistair Campbell & Rory Stewart (The Rest is Politics)
