Have we let our parents' generation down?Daniel Gayne

Few will forget waking up on the morning of 24th June. We’d chosen to leave. We were leaving the EU. It was actually happening. Whatsapp messages flew in from friends abroad, including one in the US: “WTF were you guys thinking?!”.

I had spent the preceding four months standing on street corners in South London accosting passersby with blue and red ‘I’M IN’ stickers urging them to “Vote remain!”. Engaging young people in our borough was a key aim during the campaign. We hosted street stalls outside local colleges, events with school leavers, and spread the word among our 20-something friends. At a community debate, speakers from both camps addressed a crowd of sixth formers with varying success, compelling them to vote for both sides. Young people were those who would determine the vote, they said. Their futures were the ones at stake.

Figures from a poll after the referendum by Opinium indicated that while 64 per cent of young people aged between 18 and 24 turned out to vote, that figure was 90 per cent among those aged 65 and over. Regardless of the hypothesis that more young voters would have determined a different outcome, it is clear that comparatively fewer young people voted in a referendum whose effects will be predominantly felt by their generation. Are young people more apathetic towards politics? Is a trip to the polling station less of a priority when it doesn’t punctuate the day of a retiree? Multiple times, I found myself having to explain to people of my age (22) why it mattered that they voted.

One answer for this perceived inactivity can be sought from the filter bubble. The internet activist Tom Steinberg summarised the issue when he described how, when actively searching through Facebook to find celebrants of the vote to leave, he was met only by views that reified his own: “The filter bubble is SO strong [...] that I can’t find anyone who is happy *despite the fact that over half the country is clearly jubilant*”.  Newsfeeds create silos of opinion and paint a distorted picture of civic reality. If Facebook leads us to believe that most agree with us, the impetus to change minds through activism is diminished.

The proliferation of online petitions points to another indicator: political activity online is subsuming political activity offline. As David Runciman points out, politics shouldn’t be so easy – the fact that I can sign a petition at the click of a button does not equate to engaging in substantive change. True, leafleting outside while it rains can make real-life, on-the-ground activism seem less appealing. Yet it is important because it opens up chance encounters in a way that online activism does not.

Signing a petition online reaches those who probably already agree with you. The impromptu conversation had on a street corner or when out door knocking is often held between two people whose paths would otherwise never cross. In that moment, they are forced to understand, and perhaps even empathise, with each others' views. The strength of shared experience and friendship binds people in ways that Facebook’s horizontal network of shares and likes cannot.

But politicians also play a role in getting young people involved in politics. As Owen Jones has pointed out more than once in his incisive ruminations on Jeremy Corbyn, while Labour is the largest party in Europe, they are less effective when it comes to translating party membership into activity. If they want a chance at winning in the next general election, they must realise that Twitter followers and signups online do not necessarily forge the groundswell of activism that will be instructive in convincing people to vote for them. A relatively tiny proportion of the population use Twitter: political engagement has to cut through the echo chamber in real time as well as online. Politicians, particularly those on the left, should show more prescience for this truth, and should be aiming to foster activism on the ground.

The Green Party’s comically sage election video in April this year depicted both the parliamentary left and right as children divided by petty infighting. This vanity of small differences does little to encourage young people to get involved in politics. On the left, the tendency to preach to the converted is likely a result of this fractiousness. Political groups like Momentum, while effective in signing up young people who agree with them, have been simultaneously divisive, branding anyone who doesn’t echo their same sentiments a ‘Blairite’. Such petty differences do not encourage political involvement among young people who are of a different, perhaps more moderate, political mindset to the Our Flag Stays Red camp.

Cultivating political activism needs to be a two-way process. Politicians need to be better at turning membership and online activity into activity on the ground. Some MPs already do a good job of this: Daniel Zeichner in Cambridge hosts regular campaigning sessions and events, and makes proficient use of organising software NationBuilder. More could follow in his path. As young people, we must also remind ourselves that online activity is not a substitute for canvassing and door knocking. Opinions we are party to online do not mirror reality. While the internet may serve as a gateway to political activity, and doubtlessly makes political organising easier through programmes such as Van and NationBuilder, it should be in addition to, and not instead of, activism in person.

During the referendum we witnessed vitriolic rhetoric and the clouding of the truth on both sides. Yet, as many who campaigned will attest, it was also a time when people who had never campaigned or been involved in party politics decided to be politically active. This has left a positive legacy of political activists for the future. As young people, we must carry that baton.