“Hey, kids! I know voting totally sucks, but maybe this rad video about the EU will get you fired up!!!”
This, more or less, was the tone of the Remain campaign’s attempt yesterday to enthuse young voters about the upcoming Brexit referendum:
Even by the standards of “youth” campaigns it is shabby stuff, buoyed by arguments that the EU protects mobile data and somehow secures the right to party.
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A sickly combo of bad spelling and bad punning, set to what I think is 80s arcade music, sees 18-29-year-olds urged to keep on #workIN, #chattIN, #sharIN and – vitally – #votIN come June 23rd.
I’m 25, so this risible tripe is technically for me.
Presumably my brain insufficiently developed to be properly terrified by Sir John Major, the IMF and Biblical prophecies of war.
Even my sister, 21 and pretty Europhile by nature, was having none of it:
She was hardly alone:
@JamesMcGrory @StrongerInPress We'll win over the yoof by missing the 'g' off the word voting? Oh you are so cool & hip! #Brexit #EURef
— Cannibal Lecher (@Cannibal_Lecher) May 24, 2016
@StrongerIn because young people love being patronised as idiots who can't spell (I say that as someone who is is voting remain)
— tweetSP0RT (@tweetSP0RT) May 24, 2016
@StrongerIn we can still do all of that after brexit. Don't be stupid ffs.
— Wolfy (@Jet_Wolfy) May 24, 2016
@StrongerIn Stop fucking patronising young people with this propaganda.
— Mike (@mikesjb) May 24, 2016
The campaign may well be shooting itself in the foot here – young people are overwhelmingly pro-EU anyway so there’s little reason to risk pissing them off.
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However, some of the shrillest Remain arguments – house prices will tumble! interest rates will rise! – should actually be music to the ears of young people, whose biggest blight is the lack of cheap housing.
As argued in The Sepctator this morning:
If you can’t ever see yourself buying a property, and the Chancellor tells you that your vote in the EU referendum may give you the opportunity to change that, it may seem tempting.
Vote leave, and solve the housing crisis. Vote leave, and finally change the economic system that has kept you outside. Would you blame us for voting for drastic change?
