Niamh Portess remembers exactly what she was doing on the morning of 23 June 2016. She was at home with her family, gathered around the TV, watching as the news anchor announced that the UK was leaving the EU. Immediately, her phone blew up as her friends flooded her with shocked commentary. She was 11.
Just a child, she thought the news was good. Brexit must be a positive thing, she thought. The Government keep saying it is. Now, of course, she knows better.
Portess, from Beeston, Nottinghamshire, turns 18 on 7 December – meaning she will miss the right to vote on 4 July by five months. “I’m so angry,” she says. Brexit shaped the lives of Portess and her friends – and then came the earth-shattering impact of Covid-19 and the Government’s pandemic policies – and parties. Now, she is even more politically engaged, and so are her friends. “Maybe even more than my parents, I think,” she says.
Portess feels enraged that she cannot vote in an election where parties have pledged dramatic policies involving her generation, including the Conservatives’ plan for all 18-year-olds in the UK to undertake national service, and Labour’s to lower the voting age to 16.
“There’s a lot of politics around young people. A lot of these policies have to do with our generation, and we don’t get a say,” she says. Portess says the issues that matter most to her are reforming the NHS – several of her family are nurses, and she says “they come home exhausted after working maximum hours for minimum pay”- education and climate. “All of this is going to impact us. It’s not going to impact the older generation who are voting for it.”
She isn’t alone. New research from the education charity Opinium has found only one in ten eight to 17-year-olds believe that politicians focus on their needs, and 88 per cent of these children and young people believe it is important for them to have a say. “A lot of people my age know about politics because of everything that has happened,” says Portess. “Brexit, and then Covid. It spurred us all into watching the news.”
Lily Booth, from Norfolk, wants to vote. “I’m 16 years old, and I’m really worried about what my future is going to be like if the Conservatives get voted in again. I’m so worried because my rights will inevitably be taken away from me. I will either have to join the military or unwillingly do community service. At that point, I will be 18. I will already be working full-time and probably not on good pay. I thought community service was supposed to be a punishment?” she says.
Like Portess, one of her earliest memories of political consequence was the Brexit referendum. “I was nine years old and even I could sense it was stupid. I didn’t even need my parents’ opinion.”
Even if she didn’t wish to engage with politics, it is all over her social media. “I was scrolling through my phone and suddenly Rishi Sunak pops up,” she says. “He explained the national service policy, and I just thought, this policy is going to apply for people who are 15, 16, 17 today? Those people don’t have the right to vote. The message that we’re getting is you’re just trying to control our lives.”
It’s even harder for Booth to hear Rishi Sunak’s policies around gender. “What have trans people done, genuinely, apart from very quietly transition?” she asks. “I don’t understand why politicians have to make it such an issue. I think it’s because older people didn’t grow up with this. But it’s what we’re growing up with. It’s quite annoying because, believe it or not, some teenagers do have first-hand experience with things like this. Some adults just can’t seem to process that.”
Worries around the cost-of-living crisis haven’t escaped Booth, and she is practical when it comes to thinking about her future. “My plan is to take a gap year and work so that I don’t have to spend most of my life paying back my university fees,” she says.
Max, 17, is also too young to vote. He will turn 18 next year but believes he can see straight through some of the latest election policies. “The Conservatives’ national service policy is being marketed as a way to improve the lives of young people, but to me, it just seems designed to appeal to a different, older demographic,” he says.
There are issues that Max believes need more urgent attention. “I’m most worried about the rise in misinformation which can influence people’s opinions and decisions. It’s the first ‘TikTok election’, because people are increasingly making decisions for the future based on social media and other people’s opinions, which can be misleading,” he says.
Max has a severe peanut allergy and is campaigning to change the law on restaurants and allergies. “While there have been some amazing recent developments with the implementation of Natasha’s Law, it doesn’t go far enough. I am participating in the Owen’s Law campaign to change legislation, and make it compulsory for restaurants to list any use of the 14 main allergens.”
Like most people his age, social media politicised Max. “If I hadn’t consumed information in the way I do, I might not have become as interested in this as I am,” he says. “It’s disappointing that I can’t vote, as I’m passionate about politics.”
Liv Marshall, 17 from Nottingham, is worried about the climate. For this reason, she believes it’s time to lower the voting age. “This new government will be in power for the next five years. That would make me 22 by the time I can vote,” she says. “I will have been to university, and be getting my first job, moving out and trying to rent a property. That’s such a crucial part of my life, and the next government can have a massive impact on that.”
Marshall, who is currently sitting her A-S Levels, is worried about the future of the job market; about workers’ rights and zero-hour contracts. She is particularly frustrated by the threat of national service. “A lot of young people my age gave up a lot of their youth to the pandemic. A lot of my school years we spent doing lessons on Teams. And that definitely negatively impacted my grades and my mental health. That’s part of the reason I’m now being homeschooled,” she says. “And now, the Government thinks it’s acceptable to demand that I go off to the army for 12 months?”
Portess, Marshall, Booth and Max, are desperate to have a say. There are countless issues they believe older generations simply can’t understand. “The climate crisis is going to affect my generation more than most,” says Marshall .”There’s going to be an influx of green jobs that are going to need to be filled, but we aren’t being taught about them.”
For now, then, this cohort of teenagers watch on from the sidelines. Nervously. “I find it really frustrating that these decisions are being made by the older generation,” says Portess. “It won’t impact their lives. It will impact ours.”