“It does feel hopeless” Gen-Z’s view of the next election
Youth-led, non-partisan campaign Give an X reports the top three most important issues young people believe the country is facing at the moment are health and the NHS, the economy, and housing and house prices.
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00:00Hi, I'm Charlie Kerman. I'm a young activist and support in the Give an X campaign.
00:06I do think the focus is never really on young people and it fascinates me. I don't really
00:12see a lot of political engagement with young people. I don't see them coming and talking
00:16to us at our universities, at our colleges. Having focus groups around policy, so much
00:25policy is policy that will affect us for decades to come and yet it's not ever about
00:31us. We're not really asked our opinions on it. You even see it in the debates that have
00:36been on TV and things where actually there's no real focus on the future and a lot of the
00:44questions do not come from younger people.
00:48From the data, a lot of young people feeling that their parents are financially better
00:51off when they were their age. How does that have an impact on voting behaviour and political
00:57priorities?
00:58I think it's become really easy to feel disillusioned with politics in this country where it does
01:04feel hopeless. Where the focus is lying in a lot of these campaigns at the moment is
01:11not where I would put my focus and I think that's true of a lot of my kind of generation.
01:17With so many young people thinking that their vote doesn't count, that even if I go and
01:22vote, it won't make a big difference, what message do you have for those disillusioned
01:26with the political process?
01:28If every person who said that went out and voted, it would have an impact and ultimately
01:35it's something that I really believe in is showing up and having your voice heard. Even
01:44if in this particular election it doesn't feel like anyone's listening, if young people
01:50get out, they vote, that voice is heard, then going forward into the next parliament and
01:55then into the next general election that will only build and build.