The Student Vote: Is it as influential as it should be?

With 35–40% of under 25 year olds voting Labour, it is evident that young voters could drastically change this election on the 12th of December.

The increase in young people registering since election announcement on October 29th reached 3.2 million, 38% higher than the 2017 election. The boost may have been caused by insistent propaganda coming through student letterboxes, but also due to awareness around tactical voting, and people registering at their universities to make a bigger impact.

Helena Schofield, the President of the Student Union in Portsmouth was clearly pleased by the recent news on the surge of young people registering to vote. “It’s really important they’re actually having their say and using their voice to vote on issues that matter to them”

The latest shock was influencer Stormzy coming through as a dark horse, perhaps the cause of the spike of 150,000 young people in last minute registrations. Story reference (https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/26/huge-spike-young-people-registering-vote-thanks-stormzy-11220357/).

In a position of immense freedom, he continued to make clear who his affiliations were with, cursing at Boris Johnson and insisting his support for labour. Influencers can never underestimate their effect on the motivating the adolescence.