The May 2026 local elections could prove historic: for unprecedented insurgencies on both the left and right, nationalist victories in Scotland and Wales, and even the fall of Keir Starmer. But they might also be the last elections before 16-year-olds are given the vote. Britain’s youth are emerging as a distinct and increasingly disaffected force in British politics: only 36 per cent expect to be better off than their parents. In a bid to make sense of their melancholy, and to understand how their vote might change national politics, I spent the last month meeting youth representatives from Britain’s political parties.
Labour
As Labour’s membership numbers are falling nationally, there has been a particular drop in youth membership. Ellie Sandover, a Labour youth officer in Croydon, wishes she had a “canon event” that made her join Labour. “I wish there was this one lightbulb [moment]. It was probably a collection of things, but with my upbringing, it was always Labour.”
After we spoke, further details of that upbringing emerged when it was reported by Inside Croydon that Sandover is, in fact, Keir Starmer’s niece. The paper also reported that local members were disappointed by her selection and that two of Bensham Manor’s sitting councillors, Eunice O’Dame and Enid Molyneux, were blocked by Labour from standing as candidates in 2026. When approached for comment about Sandover’s selection, a Labour Party spokesperson said: “Labour is proud to have a strong set of local candidates standing for election in Croydon and right across London. Only Labour is on your side – vote Labour on Thursday 7 May.” Adding: “All council candidates were selected in line with Labour Party rules and procedures.”
Aside from her family, other aspects of Sandover’s biography point towards a career in Labour politics. “I was raised in a very working-class household; I went into private foster care very young,” she said. Her mother, Katy Swabey, works as a nurse in a care home. Sandover later attended the prestigious Brit School for performing arts in Croydon, read law at university, and wrote a dissertation analysing the relationship between breakfast provision, social deprivation and knife crime prevention in the UK. She considers the introduction of universal free breakfast clubs in all primary schools in England to be one of Labour’s biggest achievements.
The young people she meets “care about the pride in where they live, where they come from – walking outside their house and feeling proud, and not feeling worried about going home.” Of the young people involved in national parties I spoke to for this piece, Sandover was the first to stress local politics ahead of national issues.
For Sandover, extending the vote to 16-year-olds is a good idea, despite growing concern that it would simply hand the electorate to the Greens. “There are elements of what the Green Party represents that are very credible. It’s a party that I respect, and I think a lot of young people are attracted to it because they’re really clear. I guess a lot of young people think there’s a space on the left for that.”
The Greens
The Green Party is set to be one of the main beneficiaries of Labour’s record unpopularity. Some 36 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds intended to vote for the party when Zack Polanski became its leader. Now, 46 per cent of them are expected to do so. One fifth of the party’s expanding membership is aged under 30.
Lilac Carr, an undergraduate at Soas, is the secretary of London Young Greens and a council candidate in the upcoming local elections. She joined the party before the recent surge in support under Polanski. “I joined at a time (early 2024) when I felt I couldn’t vote for anyone else, even if it was not considered realistic that the party would be a serious contender.”
Camden is exactly the kind of council where Polanski has made the Greens real contenders: urban, young and with high levels of wealth inequality. Here, Polanski’s urgent, moralistic rhetoric is widely praised, which has led some to label him a populist. I asked Carr about this criticism.
“Populist? That would really depend on who you ask in the Greens. I think most Young Greens would probably want to align with that. The Greens offer a far more unifying message of populism. We’ve all seen how the world has gotten worse and we’re all experiencing that together. And when you come together and recognise that actually the problem is billionaires, not migrants, then that can be a real unifying message that I think appeals to a lot of people.”
This has led many to question quite how green the new Green Party is. Earlier this year, New Statesman polling showed more Green voters support drilling in the North Sea than oppose it. But Carr objects to the idea that the Greens have ditched their environmentalism to attract a broader base. “I think there’s been a perception historically of the Greens as a purely environmentalist, middle-class party that is less concerned with people’s everyday experiences, and that’s not true. The party has consistently cared about issues of economic justice, but I don’t think it has necessarily communicated that as well as it has now under Polanski.”
The Young Greens, Carr argues, are “a far broader group” than simply the “tofu-eating wokerati”, who make up “a beloved but only partial representation of what the Young Greens are.”
Carr believes the youth swing towards the Greens reflects broader generational differences in outlook. “I don’t think I would outright say we’re better in any way. I think in many respects we have become more progressive, and that’s a wonderful thing.”
The Conservatives
Today’s young Conservatives joined their party for diverse and eccentric reasons. Jay Chan, a young Tory and “pintfluencer” (a content creator who focuses on reviewing pints), joined because of his Hongkong upbringing. He became a card-carrying member within a year of moving to Britain. He went on to work for the former MP Marco Longhi, who lost his seat in 2024 and has since defected to Reform.
Chan is still a Tory member, and he is on a mission to drink a pint in all 650 parliamentary constituencies to highlight the plight of Britain’s pubs. At the time of writing, he has ticked off 153.
“When I joined I did not have a Thatcherite view of the economy or anything like that,” Chan told me. “That’s way too complicated for me. I was 16.” He spent a period as a libertarian, then a Christian nationalist. “I used to retweet Charlie Kirk for some reason – that was a bit silly and cringe.” But he is now a Tory wet, a one-nation conservative and paternalistic. And so, he believes, are most young Conservatives.
Chan is not dismayed at the prospect of the local elections. When he joined the party, he found that the young members were “people who really want a career in politics. Some of them really hate fun.” Now, by contrast, freed up by the irresponsibility of opposition, it seems the Young Conservatives are a more light-hearted bunch. “It’s not like a football club. I doubt half of us even know how to play football. But now it starts to have a sense of community – more moderate, more community-spirited, more fun.”
The Lib Dems
Constrained by electoral geography, older progressive voters often hold their nose and vote Liberal Democrat to avoid a right-wing alternative. The Lib Dems are a party of compromise, and tactical voting is often how they win. But why would the idealistic and politically engaged opt for compromise at a young age and join the Liberal Democrats? For Rebecca Jones, secretary of Liberal Democrat Women, who joined in 2019, the reason was Brexit. “Being too young to vote in the 2016 referendum, it felt like this decision was made by other people, and it’s us who have to suffer the consequences.”
For young people joining the Liberal Democrats now, it tends to be housing. And according to Jones, young Liberal Democrats also debate women’s rights, racial equality, LGBT rights and drug reform. Jones thinks this is a product of Gen Z being, with regard to social issues, “much more overwhelmingly progressive than a lot of generations are. Generally speaking, we’re more radical”.
A difficulty is that one of the key issues mobilising young people in Britain today is Plan Two student loans, which the coalition government introduced in 2012 alongside the tripling of tuition fees, despite having famously pledged to scrap them.
Jones considers this legacy “kind of annoying, but I don’t really hold it against the Lib Dems. It was something that was spearheaded by the Conservatives. I think we should have held our ground on a lot more issues, but I think the party learned a lot from that.”
Reform
What do the Bible, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and Happy Sexy Millionaire by The Diary of a CEO podcast host Steven Bartlett have in common? They are the books that make up Reform UK influencer Jayden Palmer’s heavily curated TikTok backdrop.
An 18-year-old student of media and communications at Exeter, he has amassed more than 20 million social media views in his quest to become Reform’s most visible young supporter. And he wants to be prime minister one day.
“I joined Reform slightly before the last election, simply because I felt very disenfranchised with all the other parties. I’m very right-wing: low taxes, control on immigration, fiscally conservative. But I looked at the Conservative Party and couldn’t ignore the past 14 years of what they did. I didn’t feel like I could trust them, and I don’t know why anyone should trust them after how shockingly bad they did.”
Born in 2008, Palmer was two years old when Cameron came to power. Having only known Britain in relative decline, it was only in 2024, when Palmer was 16, that GDP per capita rose above that of the year preceding his birth.
Reform ranks fourth among 18 to 24-year-olds. So what attracts a middle-class, affluent teenager with a clear talent for online communication? Economic policy. Palmer made no reference to a Judeo-Christian moral code and considers Restore Britain extremists. “They’re talking about deporting legal immigrants, and I think that’s a very dangerous territory to get into.”
Palmer’s views run against the grain of his peers: “Lowering the minimum wage, I actually believe helps young people. You choose a young person because you can pay them less at the end of the day.”
Palmer considers that, on the whole, British 18 to 24-year-olds are conservative. But according to YouGov, 94 per cent of them are still set to vote elsewhere.
[Further reading: Stevenage Woman keeps thinking about Nigel Farage]
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