March 23, 2025 - 4:00pm
Surveys and opinion polls show that young people in Britain are much less Right-wing than older people. They’re less opposed to immigration, more accepting of Muslims, and less likely to vote for Right-wing parties. One possible explanation for their Left-wing skew — which is sometimes mentioned on social media — is that a greater proportion of them are from ethnic minorities. But does this explanation work?
Faced with evidence that non-white Brits lean heavily to the Left, some Right-wingers tell themselves a convenient story that white Brits of all ages remain deeply sceptical of mass immigration and multiculturalism. They assume that the Left-wing skew of Britain’s youth must be attributable, in large part, to its ethnic make-up. However, this assumption doesn’t hold.
To begin with, the numbers don’t add up. At the 2024 election, less than 20% of under-30s voted for the Conservatives or Reform UK. But you hardly need to look at the census to know that far more than 20% of this age group is white. In fact, almost two-thirds of under-30s in England identify as “White British”, while another 5% identify as “White Other”. (The percentages in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are even higher.) If young white Brits were so Right-wing, you would expect more of them to vote Tory or Reform.
But voting figures can only tell us so much. Using the British Election Study, we can look at two issues that frequently crop up on social media: immigration and Islam. In one wave of the study fielded from July to September 2024, respondents were asked the following question: “Some people think that the UK should allow *many more* immigrants to come to the UK to live and others think that the UK should allow *many fewer* immigrants. Where would you place yourself on this scale?”
The scale went from 0 (“many fewer”) to 10 (“many more”). For ease of presentation, it can be collapsed into three categories: 0-3 (“fewer”), 4-6 (“same”), and 7-10 (“more”). As the chart below shows, the views of young white British people are much closer to the views of young non-white people than they are to the views of older white British people. Young white Brits are slightly more opposed to immigration than young non-white Brits, but both groups are much less opposed than older white Brits.
| Should more or fewer immigrants be allowed into Britain? |
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In another wave of the survey fielded in May 2024, respondents were asked to rate their feelings towards Muslims. A similar scale was used: 0 (“cold”) to 100 (“warm”). As before, it can be divided into thirds for the sake of clarity.
The views of young white British people are, once again, much closer to the views of young non-white people than they are to the views of older white British people. Young white Brits feel slightly colder towards Muslims than young non-white Brits, but both groups feel much warmer towards them than older white Brits. (Muslim respondents were included in the analysis, which increases the number of “warm” responses in the “non-white or mixed 18-25” category.)
| How do Britons feel toward Muslims? |
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It is true that young men lean slightly more to the Right (or, rather, less to the Left) than young women, but since broad demographic groups have the same sex composition (i.e., 50:50) this isn’t really relevant to the patterns above.
When it comes to issues surrounding immigration and Islam, the young in Britain are much more Left-wing than the old. Yet only a small part of this can be explained by the greater proportion of ethnic minorities among the young. The fact is that young people of all ethnicities lean Left — which means that Right-wing parties can’t rely on white Brits to shore up their voter base in perpetuity.
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SubscribeSurely the young are always more Left leaning. The tendency is that they become less so as they mature and recognise the realities of life.
More “idealistic” perhaps. German Universities, prior to the Nazis coming to power, were already nazidominated.
Absolutely. The writer presents a very naive straw man argument with his “the young are thought to be more left wing due to greater ethnic diversity”.
This isn’t happening in Britain. See ‘Millennials are shattering the oldest rule in politics‘.
That may have been the case in the past, but when the bulk have been priced out of homeownership, struggle to afford a family and exist in insecure poorly paid employment why would they start to move rightwards with age?
People aren’t going to become conservative if they’ve got nothing to conserve
Exactly right, Sir. Well said.
The Tories, from Cameron onwards, turned their party into the pensioners’ party. As they have discovered, this is not an election-winning strategy.
there have been numerous studies in the EU and Europe/UK that this generation is the 1st to be more conversative (small c) than their parents in 60 years.
Remember consersative is also about rebuilding , using things that worked in the past as a guide. So maybe the word ‘conservative’ is a bad term, but the term is in opposition to destroy everything, suffer the conquences of the left
So those people you say won’t become conservative, yet it’s the only position that offers them something better than they have. be it a Merit based system,sensible immigration, a pro Business, Industry focus economy
Now the problem is the Conservative party offers none of that
Farage seems a busted flush
So society is going down a very dark path, where the majority are not being offered a suitable democractic option
I don’t understand why these factors should cause them to move leftwards. If we are focusing on immigration (as the article does) then we would expect young people to move right wards as immigration makes housing scarcer and more expensive.
That they have not moved to the right (unlike their continental equivalents) demonstrates the power of ..what? – education, fashion, snobbery, shame?
The paradox, of course, is that all the problems you describe were created by the ‘left’.
In 1997, the year that New Labour came to power, any young blue collar worker in Britain could reasonably expect to enjoy a good degree of financial and job security, get on the housing ladder and start a family.
By 2010 all that was gone and the country was drowning in debt – but the suburbs were chock full of ‘socialist’ millionaires thanks to artificial house price inflation, bloated public sector salaries and unfunded pensions, and Brown’s flooding of the City with printed money.
it’s worse for the left as society everywhere is ageing due to better medical treatments, safter envirnoments. The proportion of older/young people will always be shifting in favour of the older people, everyone gets older
We see it with the Brexit vote, basically people who voted for remain in 2016 have aged in to now supporting leave. The Right wing, Tradditional vote whatever you want to call it has a permanant supply of new recruits that far outpaces the ‘progressives’
The Strange Death of Britain.
If these polls aren’t fabricated (which is of course possible), it looks a lot like national suicide.
The people of Britain have been so effectively brainwashed that they don’t want anything resembling Britain to exist.
The polls aren’t fabricated but they’re quite meaningless because a) everyone lies to pollsters and b) everyone holds the socially respectable opinion on these issues until they are directly affected by them.
If the Financial Times article is correct and the socialist young of today are to be the socialist ruling class of tomorrow then I am afraid there is nothing for it but to accept that society will have to learn the truth the hard way.
The truth being that socialism inevitably leads to poverty, authoritarianism and loss of personal liberty. That is, a generally unhappy life.
I am old now so all I can say to the young is “Good luck with that”.
And what has 40 years of neoliberalism given the youth of today?
Unaffordable housing, sky high privatised utilities, extortionate childcare costs, a large tax bill (to fund the wealthy pensioners who didn’t want to save for their retirement) and just about every state asset being in the hands of foreign corporations?
If that is classed as a win no wonder the youngsters aren’t exactly flocking to it!
Neoliberalism closely resembles socialism. A ruling class that hoardes all the wealth. Funny how you see your only options two failed policies and can’t consider the one that always leads to wealth. Capitalism, uncorrupted by corporatism.
Like the communists, those who champion neoliberalism will never admit the system is at fault, it’s always that it simply hasn’t been tried properly yet.
If we simply double down on the ideology, deregulate that little bit further, sell off just a few more state assets, reduce worker protection just that little bit more I’m sure next time it will work as promised and all that money will indeed start to trickle down as it was supposed to!
Nobody ‘champions neoliberalism’. It’s a straw man.
Oh Billy Bob. You are either too young to have been brought up in the 6th or 7th decades of the last century or you have forgotten what is was like. The young of today are far, far better off than ever. Of course, they don’t believe it. Thus they will have to learn hard way (when socialism has destroyed wealth they will learn the hard truth of cruel poverty).
Tell me, in what way are they better off?
Technology is a bit cheaper I’ll grant you, but my grandfather and father were able to buy a decent family home where they grew up, run a car (and a van in my dads case), have annual holidays and raise families of 7 and 6 respectively all on a single average salary.
Dad even managed to churn out two kids first and still earn enough to pay the rent on our council house and save enough for a house deposit.
In what world would any of that be possible today?
A world with a sensible ‘British First’ immigration and housing policy.
In my home borough of London the current wait for a 2 bed council property is 6 years. 40,000 households are waiting to be housed. 60% of current Lambeth Council tenants are Non-British Nationals.
I don’t know if that’s Neo-Liberalism or not but I now it’s not working.
Thats neoliberalism, bringing in cheap labour from abroad to keep wages down (remember when wage rises were labelled as wage inflation after vivid to make them sound like a bad thing) and supposedly make companies more competitive.
All that nice wealth was supposed to trickle down but it never happened.
So you’ll agree youngsters today have it harder today than 30 years ago?
I’m not sure if having some material consumerist wealth is worth the loss of (affordable) homes, assets, job security, health care, education, public services etc.
A lot of wealth was produced during the postwar period using a system that was essentially a social democracy on the both sides or the Atlantic. This consensus was abandoned after the late 70s. Prosperity remaining reasonably high but that is not really thanks to the reforms but in spite of it; growth and many other indicators declined during the ‘neoliberal’ period.
Politics is always about class, never about ideology. Ideology is simply the way we rationalise our class interest.
Housing is unaffordable because it’s the only way to acquire substantial wealth that isn’t taxed. It isn’t taxed because the suburban graduate class that owns most of it also owns the universities, the Civil Service, both political parties and, crucially, the entire establishment media.
The £6-8 trillions of excess value that is held in UK property – largely as a result of the policies of ‘socialists’ – would be more than sufficient to pay off the country’s debt and repair its public services.
Twice.
Hugh Bryant, I don’t want to be too picky but, in your ideal world, how would you realise the trillions of pounds of “excess” value held in UK property? I find the notion of money and wealth endlessly fascinating and puzzling. A grand mansion is a fine thing if there is enough attached economic activity to maintain it in its pomp and glory otherwise it is nothing but a woodworm-infested, rotten money pit.
The young are no longer taught critical thinking because they are cancelled if they criticise the status quo so they aren’t going to tell the truth if they feel think and see the reality.
So, as the Lemmings gathered in their restless throngs at the sea, and as the cries were going up of ”To the cliff edge, Comrades” Unherd commissioned a poll asking the gathered a few simple questions.
”Should We Leap?”, the first question, was given a strong majority of yes by the 9 month to 18 old ones. The 18 months to 3 years old (the senior Lemmings) were slightly more for NO, but response varied by how fat they were (wealth) and some other traits.
and
”Why should we leap?’‘ the listed reason most chosen was ”Why Not, as life sucks now days.”
And so that afternoon they leapt off into the waves.
Among the respondents who said we need more migrants, what percentage can accurately estimate how many have arrived in recent years?
I bet you would have found exactly the same phenomenon at any point over the last century.
Most people move to the Right politically as they get older; it’s as inevitable as the way we grow out of going to nightclubs, taking drugs etc.
For the past 30 years the indoctrination of a certain world view via the media and academe has been relentless. I feel sorry for todays youth and younger generations for when they realise where the lies they have been inculcated with has led them they will feel a sense of betrayal that is beyond imagining.
I could see it coming in the 1960s. And I was an Orwellian socialist (still am, in many ways).
What is interesting, and in need of explanation, is the difference between British youth, and youth on the continent.
The British youth have spent basically the entirety of their childhood under the Tories (whether you think they’re right wing enough is irrelevant, the Tories represent the right in Britain) as an 18 year old today would have been 3 years old when Cameron won the election. Therefore all they’ve ever known is the right in power and being largely useless, as well as looking after the elderly (triple lock pensions etc) at the expense of the young.
Throw in an unaffordable housing market, expensive childcare and insecure employment (all of which are worse in Britain than the bulk of the Continent) and you’ll see why the young in Britain aren’t exactly enthusiastic about the right.
I also think the British psyche tends to be more relaxed than the Europeans, much more live and let live rather than pitchforks and indignation which may also contribute. Anybody who tries to sound authoritative tends to be bet my mocking and ridicule, which is why the likes of Trump or Le Pen would struggle.
The British right is simply different, and Farage trying to copy the Americans isn’t going to work long term
How depressing. Time to flee? Where?
The places we might once have fled to – Canada, Australia, New Zealand – have been destroyed by the same people who destroyed Britain.
The where to flee answer is so obvious most miss it – but it is:
‘To The Past.’
Not in a DeLorean, but by statute, by law, by culture. Kick out those who fail in the test of legality and contribution, and stop those from coming. Drill and Frack, re-industrialize, make education about learning useful things and not indoctrination, take back the sea and fishing, get rid of the EU Tentacles which cause so much harm. Make tax law for those precious years of a child from birth to school are protected and enabled for Mothers being at home – meaning make Family above all. Allow the Middle Class to afford children, not just the poor. Kill ‘Woke’ and replace it with Enlightenment, traditional British values.
Meritocracy, Police to go after any who break windows, and Judges to correct that, Anglican, religious study, class in school (remember Britain is a Christian Nation), bring back shame for shameful acts and words… Make Britain Great Again…..
Or not…. and flee to USA or Canada if you can figure out how.
If you’re 18 and not of the left, you haven’t a heart.
If you’re 30, and you’re not of the right, you haven’t a brain.
Social pressure is an important factor. Given the bias of all “right thinking” medias (press, TV, social media, etc), you’d be su1c1dal to adopt conservative opinions in public.
The brainwashing works…
This analysis is fundamentally flawed as it defines being right wing as simply being concerned about immigration. Recent history, from the Brexit referendum to the 2019 GE, shows that very many traditional Labour voters were and are concerned about immigration.
I don’t think this article can have been written by someone who realises that people grow older as time goes by. The only explanation I can see for the conclusion.
I think it is healthy that the young are optimistic, passionate and open to new experiences and people.
However, it is equally healthy for society that older people become more nuanced, more cynical even, and more inclined to value cultural cohesion as their experience tells them that life is not quite so simple as they might have expected.
For 30 years, wealthy Metropolitan liberals have imported a slave-class of brown skinned nannies, gardeners, builders and cleaners, focusing particularly on illegal migrants, because they are precarious and therefore grateful, and so can be employed cheaply and not given any rights. When the similarities between this and what their colonial predecessors were doing, they just can’t seem to see it.
Their kids, jetting around the world on endless “travels” of “self discovery”, again, behave like colonial expats. I’ve watched this in amazement, from Africa to SE Asia. Their entitled arrogance and the way they condescend and pontificate to fellow humans in their own lands and culture is really quite remarkable.
This class call themselves progressive,and they are right. Progressively, they have crippled our economy., trashed our culture, crushed the inventiveness and spirit of our youth (except of course, their own kids). They have debased the labour market and the entire idea of work, and thrown away our energy security.They are entirely non-productive in any meaningful sense, just as were many of their foppish, monied predecessors in the 17th and 18th centuries. They are a cancer in our society.
We need to look at the Britain of the 19th and early 20th centuries for our inspiration. That’s where the examples lie that are still valid. Hard work for good pay, getting on, prosperity and philanthropy, health care that worked, the values of respect for self and others, modesty, rigour, courage and integrity.
It’s all there, and it can all be regained, but who or what will re-unite us with our former selves?
As my late father always said, “if you don’t vote Labour when you’re 18, you’re a bloody fool. If you still vote Labour when you’re 40, you’re an even bigger bloody fool.”
I remember some sixty years ago my father complaining about immigrants to his mother-in-law. “Well”, she replied, “I don’t think young people mind them so much.”
My gran was right (although I was much more to my father’s way of thinking, and still am). But those young people of sixty years ago are now in or nearing their eighties and overwhelmingly anti-immigration.
So what happened to their liberal values? I suspect that as they grew older they did indeed become more conservative, but conservative for the England of that time, vastly more mono-racial than now. They don’t like the changes which they have seen in the last thirty years.
As for the young people of today they too will become conservative for the England of today, and will dislike its ongoing further transformation. But by then it’ll be too late.
So what is left for young racial conservatives (and they do exist). Find each other, build your own Orania, survive and thrive.
Many of the older voters are concerned about the pace of change and losing cultural identity. Most of the young people surveyed were born after Blair/Brown 97 and have only ever known the way it is now. They are not as worried because they can’t appreciate how much has changed.
I wonder now whether the white English population is now in a minority in the dominant country of the UK. Can’t see the same for the white population in Wales, Scotland NI but I worry about the millions of unrecorded illegals in England, lingering on from student visas for starters.
The UK, Ireland, and Canada seem to be the only places in the Western world this happens.
the reality those young liberal left are not very bright
LGBTFJJFS+%^ rights (whever ever it is for today) but are yeah the most homopobic, anti female religion literally an oppressive patriarchy, we fine with that, because a lot of them are brown and we can’t judge ‘brown’ cultural values in any way
So seeing many esp clueless young women, saying my body my choice, but cheering on a system that will see them in a burka, unable to go out without a family member and 2nd class citizens to men, makes you question whether these young people should have even the vote
Not exactly a good prognosis for the UK.
“This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,”
Britain likes to think of her experience of history as normative when in fact it is utterly exceptional. It is unsurprising, therefore, that her political culture fails to bear predictable comparison with other western nations.
In perhaps 30 generations we have suffered neither national humiliation (as the French did in 1877 and 1941) nor occupation (as Germany did in 1945) nor foreign backed repression (as dId Hungary, Poland and Eastern Europe) nor colonisation (as did China and India) nor Civil War (as did Spain and Russia). Nor have we had to fight a struggle for national liberation (as did Greece, Italy or the United States).
If one excludes the constitutional rearrangement after the departure of the Irish Free State then the current British Polity has endured without a rupture of that sort for over 300 years.
Perhaps we are so long used to being a dispenser of tolerance, foreberance and puzzled patronage towards the ‘envy of less happier lands’ that we simply lack the ability to perceive and respond to a legitimate grievance of that sort when it does come about in our own history.
And perhaps, philosophically speaking, that is no bad position for the young to take. It may make things easier in the long run.
Maybe it’s because they’re a bit daft?
I am not aware of anyone in primary, secondary or higher education who is not left leaning.
Ditto all those in the major institutions who have significant influence.
My experience of the majority of young people is that they are poorly informed outside of IT and popular culture.
In Covid we saw how easy it is to dupe well educated adults- let alone gullible and deluded young people.
Young people generally and historically have tended to more idealism until reality and responsibility kicks in. As responsibility is an increasingly devalued commodity and a “ state will provide “ mentality is endemic we will continue along the same road until painful consequences become our cruel teacher.
The triple lock is a luxury we cannot afford- along with gold plated civil service pensions and ( conservatively) half those employed by the State.
Sadly ,when the reckoning comes, I doubt we will have the resilience or skills to survive as a functioning civil society.
I pray that my analysis is too pessimistic.
The obvious reason our youngsters are less Right leaning, esp on things like immigration and diversity, is because they grow up mixing much more with kids from differing backgrounds than we did. And when you mix more you struggle to develop the prejudice more prevalent in the older age groups where that experience never occurred, or occurred much less. It reeks out of the comment section that many of the Unherd base grew up experiencing much less diversity and hence carried that ignorance into mid-life and beyond.
You then couple it with how generational inequality has accelerated. The notion we all move a little Right ward as we age, get a mortgage, have a pension, etc had some truth. But our economic model is removing that assimilation.
The Populist scapegoating of immigrants and the ‘other’ will continue to have some traction. It’s as old a trick as they come. But the problem for the Right is whilst it can commandeer this ploy it has no economic answers to growing inequality, nor indeed wants to have any answers.
The paradox, of course, is that all the problems facing young people today were created by a party supposedly of the ‘left’.
“The Populist scapegoating of immigrants and the ‘other’ will continue to have some traction. It’s as old a trick as they come”. Oh please, you’re still clinging desperately on to this fallacy. The projection is strong with you, as it always is.
The public has mass immigration forced upon them, it has never had electoral consent. Do you think this is acceptable in a liberal democracy?
“Unherd base grew up experiencing much less diversity and hence carried that ignorance into mid-life and beyond”. Again the prejudice (projection) is with you.
No party has the economic answer to growing inequality, perhaps that’s down to the idiotic policy each government has followed for the last 30 years, that is: a low skill, low wage, low interest rate, part-time mass immigration driven, asset accumilating economy.
Do you think this is acceptable in a liberal democracy?
I don’t think JW is a big fan of democracy. He thinks government should be left to the ‘people who know best’ – you know, the folks who gave us Iraq, Afghanistan, the financial crisis, lockdowns etc etc.
The people screaming about the threat to democracy are the very people who have the absolute contempt for it and the people they are supposed “to serve”.
Utilitarianism at play enabled by technocracy and it’s been an absolute shambles. So much for the greater good for the greatest number of people. It’s failed miserably.
Let Britain die
Well, ok. As long as England lives.