Brexit Anomalies: Meeting the young people who voted Leave

On the 23rd June 2016, Britain marginally voted to leave the European Union (51.9%).

Something that was immediately clear from the referendum results data was the divide between different social and political groups.

People aligned with the Conservative Party overwhelmingly voted to leave, while Labour supporters mostly voted to remain.

People with higher levels of education were more likely to want to remain, with statistics showing that only 32% of degree holders voted to leave.

One particular group that stood out from the data was young people. 71% of 18-24 years olds voted to remain.

The result wasn't a surprise, a poll conducted by Social Europe in 2013 had predicted that the majority of young people would wish to remain in the EU.

This particular result brought up a lot of debate. If 16 year olds had been able to vote, would the UK still be in the EU come 29th March? Had the older generations voted selfishly and ruined the futures of younger people who would be the ones suffering the effects of not being in the EU?

While a lot of focus has been put on the way this particular age group voted, not a lot has been geared towards those young people who voted to leave.

 The Northern Quota spoke to three young people from across the country who voted to exit the European Union, to get their perspectives.

Kiele Dunne (pictured) was 19 at the time of the referendum. She's based in Southampton and mostly associates herself with the Labour Party.

Kiele didn't know much about the European Union at the time of the referendum. She tried to educate herself on the issue but found she was coming across a lot of Leave propaganda and that most of the educational material out there was long-winded: "Honestly I felt clueless, there was nothing really to help people like me become educated."

Kiele has never been particularly interested in politics, and she found Brexit a particularly confusing issue.

Ultimately Kiele voted the way she did because her family voted to leave.

"They believed the ideologies and lies that were advertised [by the Leave campaign]. I just believed if my family thought it was right, then it must be for me."

I asked Kiele if she would vote differently in a new referendum, knowing what she does now.

"I’m annoyed at myself for being easily led by my family. If I could vote now I’d vote remain. This whole Brexit issue has been confusing and unclear and very messy from day one."

Christopher Broughton (pictured far right) was 20 when the referendum took place. He's from Manchester but was studying at Oxford in 2016. He doesn't associate with any particular party but used to be a member of the Labour Party until around the time of the referendum and says he would now vote Conservative.

Christopher was well educated on EU issues, having learnt a lot in politics lessons in school, as well as educating himself on the matter.

He was undecided on which way to vote for most of the run up to the referendum but ultimately decided the UK was better off out of the EU.

“I firmly believe in accountability and responsibility, whilst I feel like the EU is unresponsive to the views of the states it seeks to represent unless they coincide with its own.”

One of Christopher’s main concerns was where the EU would be heading in the future.

“European political, policy, economic and cultural integration... has increased consistently and questions around ideas such as a European Army have arisen. The UK has been consistently skeptical if not outright hostile to elements of these policies and I don’t see that changing.”

Christopher says he would definitely vote Leave again with all the information he has now, but he is always open to learning more about the UK’s relationship with the EU.

Dami Olatuyi (pictured) is a Labour supporter from Harrow. He was 24 when he voted Leave.

Dami was very interested in politics and was fairly clued-up on Britain’s relationship with the EU from reading newspapers and watching debates. He said that Brexit only made him more interested in politics.

“I could tell that Brexit was a hugely important thing and I wanted to be involved because of that.” 

Dami believed that Brexit would lead to better things for the country, including increased trade: “I fell for the optimism of the leave campaign. They said everything would get better and I thought, why not?”

Dami’s views on Brexit are completely different now than they were at the time of the referendum. He has subsequently become a member of RemainerNow, a community for people who voted to leave the EU but have since changed their minds, and has appeared on numerous news programmes to voice his opinions.