Jeremy Corbyn speaking at a campaign event at Whitechapel on Saturday said that 2.4m Young People are missing from the country’s electoral register. Corbyn encourages the younger electorate to “step up" and register to vote.
Mr. Corbyn believes that young people are being “held back” by the Conservative government.
Blair does not back Corbyn
This follows Tony Blair’s comment that Theresa May will be Prime Minister yet again after the June 8th 2017 General Election. To hear this from a Labour ex-prime minster must be hard for Corbyn to swallow. People believe Corbyn is trying to use this democratic to his advantage in an attempt to secure more votes for himself and his party due to his recent polling numbers.
The UK has had a persisting decreasing number of young voters since the millennium and voters aged 18 to 24 in Sweden turn out to vote at double the rate of their peers in the UK.
During the last general election, it was the Green Party that mentioned young people the most in their manifesto. They mentioned them 35 times with Labour coming second by mentioning them 30 times.
Labour has also put forward a desire to ban tuition fees which could also entice more younger voters. Still, 75% of 18-24-year-olds voted to remain in the EU during the referendum. This means that they may be more attracted to the Liberal Democrats who are presenting themselves as the anti-Brexit party.
Lib-dems want to overshadow Labour
This also comes at a time when Tim Farron told the i newspaper that he wishes to be leader of the opposition. He does not seem to have any issues with Corbyn as he describes him as a decent man but he also added he is “demonstrably the worst leader in British political history in terms of effectiveness".
However, The Independent also reported that if only young people were to vote that Jeremy Corbyn would be the next Prime Minister. This is all hypothetical though as just 40 percent of under 40s said they were ‘certain to vote’ in the new poll, while 64 percent of those aged 40 and above said they would certainly vote.
It does seem to be Corbyn himself that is providing the main obstacle as a HuffPost UK-Edelman focus group has found that most voters are put off Labour by the leader himself. What also worsens Corbyn's position is that recent polls suggest that most people see Thrsea May in a positive light and a strong leader.
