Young People Care About Brexit, But We're Talking About It All Wrong

We’re talking about Brexit all wrong. Not because we are making the issues ‘inaccessible’, or because the language used is too ‘complicated’. Both imply that those in Westminster are the only ones clever or interested enough to understand - very far from the truth indeed. The problem is that the way in which issues are being framed alienates the very people they affect.

It has become a truism that Brexit will harm the most disadvantaged in our society the most. But it is rare that anyone ever expands upon what that actually means, beyond the abstract jargon that talks of those in the ‘lowest income brackets’ and the ‘most economically precarious’ in our society.

This jargon ensures that these people, ordinary people, don’t care. The language of the old, rich and privileged dominates. For us, as young people, to be taken seriously in the halls of parliament and the news studios of Westminster we have to become conduits for the stale language that already dominates discussion. We are expected to provide a fresh, young face to the same old ideas.

For our generation to get a hearing in the media or the minds of MPs, Brexit has to be put forward as an economic issue which will see young people lose out on jobs or earnings: we are forced to paint Brexit within frames that are impersonal and political rather than individual and meaningful.

But that’s not the language that young people care about, or think in. And no-one, with a few precious exceptions, is bothering to translate.

It’s not that young people are apathetic - universities and colleges, Facebook and WhatsApp groups are frequently lit up with fierce debates. But they’re rarely about economics or who will be better off. The issues that inflame our passions are women’s rights, racial injustice, class inequality or LGBT+ rights.

It has to be made more clear that Brexit is itself a women’s rights issue; that it will heavily damage race and class equality; that it will affect the human rights of all those in our society – and that those most at risk are the ones who have historically been sidelined. The framing at present just isn’t good enough.

The problem is a vicious cycle. The more louder, more privileged voices dominate discussion with their talk of Parliamentary agreements or statistical projections for the future, the more it discourages those who have been battling inequality in their daily lives, often for years, to try and make their voices cut through the noise.

But young people care about these things. We understand the notion of intersectionality and its importance – we wear the accusations of being ‘millennial snowflakes’, or of being obsessed with ‘identity politics’, as badges of pride. Now, we need to pick up the mantles of the ‘social justice warriors’ we are so disparagingly told we are, and fight for a new discussion about Brexit. A discussion that understands the reality of the issues we are talking about. 

Young people are expected to mould themselves – and allow themselves to be moulded – into the shape of the generation of politicians above us. Given the current state of political affairs, few are thrilled by this prospect. We need to ignite this discontent into a sense of outrage at the lack of diverse voices in debates. 

Because their absence means that Brexit is being presented in an archaic and exclusionary language, not the language that young people can be heard speaking so passionately every day.

I have so much faith in my generation. My heroes are my peers, whom I have seen publicly marching on the streets, or privately and daily railing against the issues that make our country so unequal.

I see so much commitment from my generation to protect each other from burning injustices, and to fight for a fairer society. We now need a new conversation about Brexit and the chance to have a real say. It’s high time our language and our passion was used to address the greatest challenge facing our generation.

Phoebe Potter is head of mobilisation at Our Future, Our Choice