The Labour Party has increased its utter dominance over the Conservatives among 18 – 25 year old’s, with a record high 47-point lead, according to a new poll from Savanta for Peston.
The new research, which suggests that only 14% of young voters in the UK are planning to vote Conservative at the next general election, shows an increased lead for Labour of 6 points since Savanta’s last youth tracker for Peston in September 2023.
The prime minister’s personal rating among young people has also taken a major hit, with a drop from a net score of -20 last autumn, to -44 in the most recent poll. However, Labour leader Keir Starmer has also had a decline in support, dropping from +7 in September 2023 to -5 in April 2024.
Chris Hopkins, Political Research Director at Savanta said,“Young people not voting Conservative is hardly a new problem, but the sheer scale of their disenfranchisement towards them is a ticking time bomb for the party. All three of our Peston Youth Tracker polls have shown just one in seven young voters would back them, a trend that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon.”
“The electorate has been increasingly volatile over recent years, so perhaps all is not lost for the Conservative Party in the long-term. But voting for someone is a habit, and the Conservatives’ previously successful strategy of waiting for younger people to become mortgage-owning older people may be about to become dramatically unstuck.”
Savanta’s polling also suggests significant disenfranchisement among young people, with two thirds (65%) of 18 to 25-year-olds having no trust in politics, and six in ten (59%) saying politicians don’t care about them.
More broadly, young people in the UK think the most important issues impacting them are:
- Housing (34%)
- Mental health provision (34%)
- Education and schools (33%)
- The economy (28%)
- Employment and welfare (27%)
