Young people who’ve turned 18 since 2016 could decide this election

You couldn’t write this stuff. Or at least, it wouldn’t sell. A xenophobic right-wing leader, previously elected by a tiny proportion of the country, tries to seize power through lies and appeals to fear and prejudice in order to force through an irresponsible Brexit project which will leave the country in ruins.

“Boring,” critics would yawn, “it’s been done before.” It’s true. We’ve heard this one before. And, as usual, it’s plucky young people who have the power to stop him from winning. It very nearly happened in 2017. I live in Canterbury, a marginal seat. Rosie Duffield, our fantastic pro-People’s Vote prospective parliamentary candidate, won here because of a campaign that gained widespread support amongst young people. If young people don’t mobilise again, there’s a real risk she could lose it. Or rather, we would lose her.

It’s up to young people to mobilise in this election. Labour has entered no electoral pacts; meanwhile, the Brexit Party has happily given one to the Tories. Sensible politics has been replaced by a singularly narrow focus on Brexit, with desperately needed policy debate on preventing climate breakdown sidelined, and no one seeming to care that it’s young people who will pay the price. The so-called adults won’t save us. We have to save ourselves.

That’s why For our Future’s Sake (FFS), the youth campaign for which I’m an activist, is launching a youth voter registration drive on a national scale. We have to get as many young people registered before the deadline on the 26th as possible. It’s less than a week away – but registering takes less than ten minutes. If you haven’t registered yet, do it today. And if you have, ask your friends if they have. And then tell them to ask their friends.

So much for the bad news. The good news is that if you had to bet on which generation was best-placed to fight for its survival, ours would be the favourite by a large margin. We have a clear sense of social justice, we aren’t afraid to speak truth to power, and we can mobilise on a national and global scale to campaign for what we believe in.

Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, three million new voters have come of age. That’s three million people who weren’t allowed to decide their own futures in 2016. Something tells me that they won’t be entirely happy with the current state of affairs. Here’s another statistic: in the 2017 election, the Tories won with a national majority of just 758,766. That is minuscule.

Admittedly, our first past the post system skews this in terms of how many seats are actually won. But in very real terms, there were fewer than a million votes keeping the Tories in power. If just half of the young people who have come of age since 2016 registered to vote, there is every possibility that we could kick them out in December. If all of us then proceeded to vote tactically, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

Young people can win this election and secure a People’s Vote parliament. But we have to do it together. If that sounds cliche, think of how depressingly familiar another Tory majority would be – and how you’ll live to regret not doing as much as you could have to prevent it.

If all of this is overwhelming, don’t worry: FFS is here to help. Over the next few days and weeks, we’ll be launching a host of projects and initiatives designed to empower young people to make a serious difference as quickly and simply as possible. If that sounds good to you, follow us on Twitter, check out our website, and subscribe to our email list. We can do this!

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Drive to get millions registered to vote by November deadline