Voters with friends and without capital

We were the focus of conference season. Millennials -usually graduates- living in big cities are both the most misunderstood and the most important demographic currently shaping British politics.

Scorned at by psephologists who have dedicated much of their time to defining who counts in the ‘left behind’, who consider the internationalist outlook of these latte-sippers to be the very thing that Brexiteers and Trump supporters were so angry about.

Misunderstood by both those psephologists and by politicians, particularly on the right, as a harmless generation of protest-goers who’d never pose much of a threat at the ballot box and to the Conservative Party.

Important because they were behind the Labour party’s surprising turnaround in 2017, and have triggered a debate with a focus on young people not seen for decades. The Conservative conference could not stop trying and failing to chuck a bone to the youth, only to literally have a coughing fit at the prospect of caring about them.

Still, much conversation still considers this class through the prism of old class politics — manual versus non-manual- pitting them against not just other generations but the traditional working class.

In some ways that diagnosis is understandable. On a personal note, identity for me is incredibly muddled. Born to a working class mixed ethnicity family from East London with parents in a manual and a low-skilled job, neither of which went to university, I attended Durham University to study Politics, and often find myself now in rooms with MPs and journalists. It’d be quite easy for me to follow the Sadiq Khan line: “Working class girl and middle class woman”. I am unlikely to experience the poverty my parents did, or experience again the struggle I did as a young girl. I live in a city with opportunities that feel boundless, made more so because of my degree and who that led me to be introduced to.

But unlike Sadiq’s journey, I and my peers with similar journeys will build our social capital - but are very unlikely to procure capital itself; be it money, housing, or any other tangible wealth. The city offers fewer opportunities than it did then.

This is a group that is far from the most struggling, the most in need — and young people that do not go to university are less likely to gain their social capital. In that respect, if the Labour Party achieves a good chunk of this demographic but loses out among its ‘traditional base’ and poorer voters, it still has soul-searching to do. This is less a question of who is worse off — rather that what motivates this new demographic is unfairly often attributed to being a ‘liberal metropolitan elite’. But it isn’t the social liberal, international and happy-in-diverse-large-crowds outlook that properly motivates them to vote to their Left, which is why Labour could get away with their muddled messaging on Brexit (for now)— it is a consciousness they do not have a stake in society as their parents did. The motivation is economic; and it is entirely legitimate. And psephologists and Conservative commentators are taking a risk if they do not view it as such.

Because this is a demographic that is in some ways the parallel to the home-owning socially mobile working classes who were loyal to Thatcher for Right to Buy and may now hold socially conservative views. Except they don’t have assets - in exchange, they have networks. Networks from their degrees, networks abroad, networks on the internet. That exchange is not considered a fair bargain. And now, they are bargaining and using their voting power to do so.

Historically, the ability to build said networks has been a prerequisite to high pay and what that means: assets, home ownership, a stake in society. Not having social capital — and the breakdown of social capital- was associated with a lack of social mobility. It is still true that social capital and networking is integral to getting good jobs and gaining useful professional allies. But it is increasingly the case that graduates who build these networks still find themselves trapped in an overcrowded, competitive labour market and completely shut out of the housing market. They may be exposed to a wide professional and social world. That in turn can shape a liberal outlook; a ‘citizen of nowhere’. What is left is a social liberal with joyful evenings, but with zero assets. It is social capital that is unlikely to translate into capital. It is social capital without the capital. And that changes a person’s politics.

The questions of these voters are: what does it mean to have social capital while existing in a new reality where that doesn’t translate into capital? What do they do when that link -and promise- is broken? And to what extent will these voters continue to hold loyal to Labour’s fresh promises of a new, fairer settlement while that translation is broken? These are questions that should puzzle psephologists, be the focus of Labour strategists, and terrify the Conservatives.

This demographic will likely be the focal point of our politics for some time to come. It should be taken seriously. At the least, it deserves more explanation than telling them they can’t afford a house because of…avocado toast.

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