News and Blog

  It has been common practice for some time – and perhaps now more than ever – for journalists to emphasise the political differences between young and old in areas such as voting preferences or political agendas, and to frame those differences in terms of generational ‘conflict’ or ‘war’. With the exception of electoral turnout,…

  As the official referendum campaign gets underway, polling continues to highlight the vital role Millennials will play in deciding the outcome. They are becoming (albeit slightly) even more supportive of EU membership, even though overall levels of support have remained relatively stable, and young people who support EU membership are – unlike their elder counterparts – more…

  We know support for continued EU membership is heavily concentrated among younger citizens with 60% under 30 who support REMAIN, compared with only 24% who support LEAVE. Among the Pre/Post-War generation 54% support LEAVE and 35% support STAY. We also know young people are less likely to vote with 70% highly likely to vote compared with 88% among the oldest generations. What we didn’t know is…

Depending on your perspective, the campaigns for a remain/withdrawal vote in the EU referendum have had between six weeks (since David Cameron announced the date of the referendum on 20th February) or more than two years (since David Cameron announced that the plan to hold a referendum would be in the Conservative Party manifesto for the…

  With a plethora of upcoming elections on 5th May, we are reminded that devolution of power and delineated boundaries in the UK since 1997 means multi-level political trends and outcomes within and between nations and regions: the EU referendum is no exception. We know that in the UK young people are more likely to support…

This project is currently considering the potential value of an analysis of virtual patterns of trade union organisation and mobilisation and specifically the contribution of social media to the rescaling of trade unionism. This includes both: the virtual linkages of the trade union movement with other forms of social and political activism; and the virtual…

  Since David Cameron announced the date of the EU referendum, the gulf in support for EU membership between young and old – not to mention the gulf in the likelihood of voting – has featured heavily in media coverage and opinion polling about the referendum campaign. An explanation for that gulf in support, however,…

  In last week’s blog we showed how important Millennials are to the Remain campaign: they make up one in three ‘Remainers’, and also make up the largest chunk of ‘Committed Remainers’ who will most likely vote to stay in the EU on polling day. Once we take into account the fact that most voters – and…

  A recurrent theme any study or discussion of how young people will participate in the EU referendum is (and will most likely remain) their reluctance to do so. According to our latest data, around 70% of Millennials are likely to vote, while one in ten are certain not to. This compares with 85% of the…

  On the 23rd of June 2016, 43 years after a reluctant and delayed entry to the European Economic Community, Britain will vote on one of the most significant political decisions for a generation: its membership of the European Union. For young British citizens who have never known a time before the EU, this is potentially…