By BAGEHOT
AT THE end of today, Tuesday June 7th, many of those eligible to vote in Britain’s EU referendum will lose the chance to do so. As a consequence, they will be voiceless as their compatriots go to the polls on June 23rd in a referendum with more lasting significance for their country’s future than any general election. In future years they may well regret the outcome of that vote, and its long-term effects. But having declined to take the five minutes needed to register online and thus make their voice heard, they will have no right to complain.
I am principally referring to the young. They overwhelmingly support staying in the EU: according to The Economist’s latest poll-of-polls 61% want to remain and 18% to leave. Yet they are disproportionately absent from the electoral roll: 30% of all 20-24 year-olds are unregistered, compared with just 5% of those over retirement age. Thus with polls now narrowing (five of the last ten have put Brexit ahead) there is a real risk that the Leave campaign—which increasingly characterises a vote to quit the EU as a mandate for a more closed-off country—will win thanks to older voters nostalgic for the Britain of the past. So young voters matter, as this advert by Wake Up and Vote and Bite the Ballot insists.
Nostalgia is no crime, but it would be a travesty if those Britons who will live to pay the long-term price for such a decision (that is, those now in their teens, twenties and thirties) did not exercise their right to object to it. Not least as they are probably the most well-equipped to judge what is best for their country’s future.
I recently attended a pro-Brexit rally at which the speakers (one from UKIP, another a well-connected Conservative) admited that youth turnout had to be kept as low as possible for Leave to win. Young people are simply too immature to understand such a serious decision, agreed one man in the audience. On the contrary. The young are the most familiar with new technology and what it means for Britain in the world. Unlike previous generations, they have grown up in a globalised economy defined by interdependence. They have a modern conception of national identity and belonging: they are more likely than older generations to define nationality as adherence to a country’s institutions and values rather than a function of race and upbringing. They are more relaxed about immigration than the greying voters to whom Boris Johnson and Michael Gove so disingenuously pander. In other words, they are liberals.
Hence their strongly pro-European perspective. It would be a great shame if young Britons did not bring this to bear on a referendum that will do so much to define the Britain of 2030, 2050 and beyond.
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Britons and Irish and commonwealth citizens legally resident in the United Kingom must register by midnight today (Tuesday June 7th) to vote in the referendum. They can do so here.
Those who are registered and will be away from their normal address on June 23rd can apply for a postal vote. Local election registration offices will accept such applications up to 11 days before the referendum. The deadline for proxy vote applications is six days beforehand. Proxy voters can submit their proxy votes by post; this too requires an application.