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Commentary By Eric Kaufmann

Are Young People Really Drifting Right?

Culture Culture & Society

Photo by Andy Soloman/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Results of the French legislative elections show something surprising: nearly a third of voters under 25 back Marine Le Pen’s national populist Rassemblement National (RN), led by the youthful Jordan Bardella.

Meanwhile, closer to home, a new JL Partners poll of British 16- and 17-year-olds shows that fully 23% of this school-age group would vote, if given the opportunity, for Nigel Farage’s immigration-restrictionist Reform UK. Labour’s manifesto commitment to lower the voting age to 16 could therefore prove a boon to the Right-wing party.

Given that British young people have also moved over 20 points in favour of single-sex toilets over unisex ones since August 2022 and by a similar amount on the issue of immigration being too high, the conservative drift is becoming increasingly visible.

Continue reading the entire piece here at UnHerd (paywall)

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Eric Kaufmann is professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London and an adjunct fellow of the Manhattan Institute. 

Photo by Andy Soloman/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images