Caitlin Barr reports Starmer wants to lower the voting age – but asks will Labour deliver for young people?
For many young people, Starmer’s Labour government will be the first they remember. Most of us have only hazy recollections of Blair and Brown and would struggle to name any of their flagship projects beyond Sure Start and the Iraq War. After 14 years of Tory rule, which has further entrenched class inequality and made it harder for young people to afford basic necessities like food and shelter, Labour government represents hope. After all, as D:Ream sing, things can only get better.
But will they? Many promises were made before the manifesto launched: an end to the two-child benefit cap (which didn’t make it into the final document), abolishing no fault evictions, and lowering the voting age to 16. Months later, it’s unclear how any of them will pan out, especially with the shock exile of seven MPs who voted for the SNP’s amendment to remove the cap just a couple of weeks after Starmer’s premiership began. Wes Streeting’s posturing about banning puberty blockers is making many young trans people and their allies incredibly worried. Maybe… things could actually get worse?
Starmer will need to do a lot to convince young people that he can be trusted to deliver for us. After all, many of us turned our backs on the party at this general election, with 41% of people aged 18-24 voting Labour, down from 56% in 2019. Whether that’s to do with a less inspiring manifesto than Corbyn’s 2019 one, or the pull of more ideological parties such as the Greens and Reform, Labour has some work to do. Young people need more than a greyscale photo of Starmer looking serious with “change” pasted next to it – we need radical action.
As someone looking to move out of my family home, I’m often shocked by the hugely inflated prices of tiny, uninspiring rooms in increasingly far-flung corners of London. I’ve accepted that it’s unlikely I’ll be able to afford a house of my own in an area I’d like to live in any time soon. 74% of 16-24 year olds privately rent according to the 2023 English Housing Survey. A 2022 study found that four in ten people under 30 pay over 30 per cent of their income to their landlord. Renting reform needs to be a priority for Labour if they hope to persuade young people they’re in good hands. In this year’s manifesto, Labour promised to immediately end no fault evictions, but they’re yet to do so, and I know of several people who’ve had Section 21s served to them since July 4th. They also said they’d work to help renters challenge rent increases, raise standards in the private sector in line with Awaad’s Law, and give first time buyers “first dibs” over international investors, but there’s been no movement on any of these pledges either. If Labour deliver on any of these promises, young renters will be on the way to being protected against predatory landlords and shocking standards of living for extortionate prizes. For young people being ripped off for the basic human right to a safe place to live, Labour cannot act on this soon enough.
Of course, this assumes that the tiny HMOs me and my friends are scouting out aren’t underwater by the time we can afford the deposits. Many communities in the UK are starting to see the effects of global warming, while our friends in the global South have been displaced and killed due to dramatically rising temperatures, flooding and famine brought on by the climate crisis. Ed Miliband’s tenure as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has been promising so far – he’s already lifted the offshore wind ban. But there was some confusion just a few days into his new role, as many outlets reported that he had ordered an immediate ban on North Sea oil drilling – which it turned out he hadn’t. In fact, he told the oil industry the very next day that he would never ban oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, just a week before Just Stop Oil protestors were handed unprecedented long sentences for planning road blocks on the M25. It’s young people who will feel the effects of these decisions when climate catastrophe can no longer be ignored, with high temperatures and exceptional rainfall increasing in frequency year on year. Young people deserve to plan for our futures without worrying it’s futile. We need decisive action on climate change, and time is running out.
Keir Starmer has the opportunity to make life less hopeless for young people – but he needs to deliver, or he’ll keep losing us to parties offering more radical change. There’s no point lowering the voting age if you have little to offer young voters. We can’t afford to wait much longer.