The United Kingdom’s general elections yesterday saw a historic turnout of student voters with early reports saying their trip down to the polling stations are turning some university seats over to the Labour party, according to the UK’s National Union of Students.
Calling themselves #GenerationVote, students posted “sassy” selfies as they formed queues around their polling station, in numbers estimated to be significantly bigger than they did for the 2015 General Election.
“Early reports suggest 72 percent of 18-24s voted,” student politician and NUS’ outgoing president, Malia Bouattia tweeted.
Some are surprised. We are not. #GenerationVote”
Only around 40 percent of 18-24-year-old registered voters turned up to vote in the previous general election back in 2015, which saw the Conservatives taking the majority of seats then, according to Ipsos Mori.
Early reports suggest that 72% of 18-24s voted. Some people are surprised. We are not. #GenerationVote
— Malia Bouattia (@MaliaBouattia) June 9, 2017
How we voted. No surprises there! #GenerationVote pic.twitter.com/x2HKqQRodk
— Malia Bouattia (@MaliaBouattia) June 9, 2017
The election results are currently being tabulated, with the Conservatives having a slight edge over the Labour with around 510 seats tabled as at the time of writing.
BBC reports Labour has taken seats from the Conservatives at Battersea and Canterbury, as well as unseating the Liberal Democrats’ seat in Sheffield Hallam, helmed by former Lib Dem leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
Canterbury and Sheffield Hallam are both student-heavy, university seats.
In the run-up to the elections, students have galvanised behind the Labour party, especially after its popular manifesto that promised to scrap tuition fees from as early as this year.
Student Voices reported 50 percent of the student population will vote for Labour, while the Conservatives were estimated to take 15 to 20 percent of their votes. This is in stark contrast to how the rest of the country polled, where only 35 to 40 percent said they would vote Labour, compared to 40 to 47 percent of respondents choosing the Tories.
.@andrewrawnsley dubbing #GE2017 the "revenge of the young" – did you know there are 750,000 new 18-year-olds eligible to vote since EU Ref? pic.twitter.com/fVwHeDtSqw
— NUS UK (@nusuk) June 8, 2017
The Observer’s chief political commentator has dubbed this general election as the “revenge of the young”, over Brexit where many older voters voted against the youth’s intention to remain in the European Union.
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