As May approaches, politicians risk ignoring young people – argues Khan

As serious campaigning for the general election kicks off, Sadiq Khan, Shadow Justice Secretary, has hazarded a guess as to why many people feel disenfranchised from mainstream politics.

In an interview with The Independent, Khan said the election campaign risked being aimed solely at older voters because they are the generational group most likely to vote. In the mean time, he said, this will probably leave young people neglected, running the risk of creating or increasing feelings of political disconnect.

He said that to combat low turnout, significant electoral reform was necessary. Noting Labour’s plans to lower the voting age to 16, he explained:

“If you speak candidly to a campaign manager of any of the mainstream parties they will say that they concentrate their energies disproportionately on those they know are going to vote.”

“If you’ve got a candidate with an hour spare and a choice to go to an old people’s home or a sixth-form college, 99 per cent of campaign managers will say you’ve got to go to an old people’s home. That’s because 94 per cent of them are on the register and 77 per cent of them will vote. That is not true of the younger generation.”

“These guys [young people] get neglected all the time despite the fact that some of them receive brilliant citizenship education and have really interesting views and all the evidence is that if you can get someone to vote the first time they can they’ll carry on voting.

“We as politicians have to understand the responsibility on us to engage young people in politics. If someone is not voting that’s a problem.”

He argued that alongside taking the voting age down to 16, polling stations should be set up in secondary schools, on-the-day voting registration should be established, and the government should consider extending the voting period:

“You can get a mortgage in a day – why can’t you do the same with voting registration? If the concern is fraud, we can address that. Is it in our interests to have as many people as possible active citizens, or do we enjoy the fact that a lot of people are passive consumers and the active citizens are older voters?”

He also went on to note that the Government’s economic policies tend to benefit older people

“You look at any empirical analysis of this Government’s policies and you can see they are going for the silver vote. You have to ask if that is good for our country.

“I have come to the stage now where I think the Establishment – whether you call it conservatism – is making a concerted effort to make it as difficult as possible for there to be a level playing field for everyone to take part.”