Liberal young leavers were vital to Vote Leave's success. Now, Boris must give them something back
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About once every two months, an opinion piece appears in a Remain supporting newspaper arguing that if there were a Second Referendum now, Remain would secure a conclusive victory. The tone of these pieces vary vastly. Some, penned by cautious young writers, tactfully argue that almost everyone who has come of age since 2016 would throw their weight behind Remain. Others suggest, in rather fruitier language, that Brexit is now “the will of the dead people”. The message, however, is essentially the same: old people vote Leave, young people vote Remain, so once the crusty oldies are dead, we’ll win.
Quite apart from being deeply tasteless and lacking in basic logic (there are just as many – if not more – old people in 2019 as there were in 2016), this argument overlooks the most important fact about the Vote Leave campaign: it won because it brought together a coalition of voters from all different walks of life.
Even in my own close circle of friends and family, I can identify at least three different types of leaver. My mum, a middle class 60 something living in Clapham, voted leave because she cares passionately about the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. A close friend’s dad – a London cabbie – voted leave because he worries that immigrant Uber drivers are getting the jobs which used to be his. And an entrepreneur school friend infuriated his civil servant family by voting Leave, arguing that the EU – which offers free trade deals only to those in a certain geographic area – is an anachronistic institution, unsuitable for the digital age.
It is this last cohort of voters, the liberal young leavers, who have piqued my interest this week. In 2016, there were 5.4 million 18-24 year olds living in the UK, roughly 3.6 million of whom voted in the referendum. Of that 3.6 million, around 1 million voted for Brexit. Given that Leave won by just over a million votes, it would be reasonable to argue that without the youth on side, the campaign wouldn’t have made it over the line.
The Boris government – Vote Leave 2.0 – owes something to these people. Yes, Brexit must offer something to angry voters let down by globalisation who voted to Leave to rebel against the establishment. But it must also offer something to the hopeful young optimists who grew up online in a borderless world, and want to leave because they believe that Britain can do better than a sluggish EU which discriminates based on geography and frequently gets itself tangled in a mess of red tape.
And that’s where International Trade Secretary Liz Truss, a hero among young libertarians, comes in. After meeting the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, and her own counterpart, Simon Birmingha, Ms Truss told a press conference in Canberra this week that the two nations had a “special link”, and suggested that any talks about a trade deal will be accompanied by a conversation about the rights of workers to move between the two countries.
For entrepreneurial, young Brexiteers this news will come as a welcome relief. After three years of listening to Theresa May drone on about “Just About Managings”, they have found in Truss someone who understands that leaving the European Union “really does give us a chance as a country to become more outward-looking, to become more competitive, and to deepen our links with our partners right across the world.”
Of course, negotiating a free trade deal with Australia which incorporates some element of free movement will be tricky – and the plan certainly needs a lot of finessing. But if Boris is to win back some of the young people who voted for him as mayor of London in 2012, this is exactly the sort of project he should be investing time and effort in. If Brexit is to work, it must bring together a coalition of voters of all ages and backgrounds – and offer something for the many, not just the few.
