The United Kingdom is deeply divided by the referendum on the status of the country as a member of the European Union. Polls indicate that the output of the EU and stay promoters are now engaged for months in a head to head.
These fractures, however, do not follow blindly the political parties. The deepest divisions are socio-economic, regional – and above all, generational.
The very latest YouGov poll found that 64 percent of respondents in the age group between eighteen and twenty-four He would prefer to stay in the EU, while 24 percent support the idea of a “Brexit”, ie the output of Britain from the block of 28 countries. On the opposite side, the percentages of respondents in the older age group of sixty-five are almost invertite- 58 percent supports the Brexit, while 33 percent would like to remain in the EU.
As synthesized a British journalist: “the lower the number of your wrinkles, the greater the probability that you want to remain in the European Union; thinning you do your hair, the more likely that you aspire to a Brexit “.
Since the elderly tend to go to the polls in percentages far higher than those of young people, for the supporters of In, this is a big problem. There are campaigns such as “Bite the Ballot” (pun combining the expression ‘bite the bullet’ to vote, NDT) who sought to arouse more enthusiasm among younger voters, in partnership with Starbucks, Uber Tinder, to promote the upcoming referendum deadline.
the younger voters go to the polls with an average much lower percentage of the elderly, and this is an issue for the pro-European campaign. And yet these young people do not make some trouble to express their enthusiasm for the June referendum.
Liam Brennan, a London-based manager of thirty-four who works in the branch of advertising, a great supporter of staying in the EU, fear that the end of In the countryside to preach only to the converted.
in the evening of last Thursday, just one week after the referendum, it was decided to create the site CallYourNan.com ( ‘calls Grandma’, NDT), to ask the British young people to go to talk to their grandparents to convince them to vote for staying in the EU. The site includes a list of discussion topics on the referendum.
“All the grandmothers are important, but your grandmother can prevent the UK from the EU bait,” he said on the site. “It’s time for an intergenerational chat”.
Brennan explains how its strategy will “operate the passionate audience of under 35 – which simply post on the EU referendum in its social feed, however, turning to people who already feels the same way – by convincing to seek to influence a later demographic with age, who still reads the mainstream media and to which many sources and themes that go beyond the question of identity and immigration do not come. ”
His site recalls the official nature of appeals – the beginning of the year the British education secretary has appealed to young people to get them to “get out of the house and put his case to others, especially to your friends and older relatives. “
There were some grandmothers who did not appreciate this approach.
” I am a grandmother, I have my opinions, and I already voted. During the referendum campaign I was very reserved, but I find it quite insulting, to say discriminate against age, you think that older people need to be told how to vote, “he wrote on Facebook Libby Williams, a London grandmother, in response to CallYourNan.com. “I always try to persuade younger women to exercise their right to vote, given that there are women who have died to make him get. Stereotypes are useless. P.S: I’m going to Zumba! “.
Analysts and commentators have raised a number of possible scenarios to explain the generation gap: younger voters are more educated, cosmopolitan and less prone to risk their future; the concepts of national sovereignty and independence matter most to older voters, who feel most concerned about immigration and absorbed the news of the British Eurosceptic press for a much longer period of time.
“I find it quite insulting, to say discriminate against age, they think that older people need to be told how to vote. I always try to persuade younger women to exercise the right to vote, given that there are women who have died to make him get. stereotypes are useless. “
Libby Williams
the data show as priorities generational diverge. According to the recent survey by YouGov, the main factor influencing the referendum vote of the respondents under 50 is the economy and the job, while the most important issue for those fifty years or more is the right of Britain to act independently.
A recent survey shows how younger voters are more concerned by the manner in which the referendum on the EU will affect the economy and the workplace.
While younger voters have the feeling that older does not have the pulse of the situation, the leaders of the generation below the age argue strongly – for them this it is not the first referendum on Brexit, and maybe younger voters have something to learn from their experience.
in 1975, the United Kingdom expressed their vote at the first national referendum, deciding whether to stay in to part of what was the forerunner of the EU, the Euoprea Economic Community (EEC), to which Britain had joined two years earlier. Eventually 67 percent voted to stay.
After four decades later, there are significant similarities between the two referendums. In both cases a new leader from a traditionally eurosceptic political party came to power, promising to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s relationship with Europe, and then propose to the people a vote to determine whether restarne members. In both cases, the Prime Minister had campaigned to stay in Europe with the political support of the opposition, while a part of his own party was clamoring to get out.
But between the two [referendum] c ‘it is a considerable difference – in 1975 the Eurosceptic party of government was that of the center-left Labour party, while today it is the center-right Conservative party.
the then conservative opposition leader Margaret Thatcher wearing a jersey with European flags campaigning for “Far be Britain in Europe”, London, June 1975.
An important reason is that the political change in 1975 the EEC was made up of nine countries, and the debate on membership focused primarily on economic issues – the leaders of the Labor Party wanted to protect British workers, while conservatives were strong supporters of free trade.
Today the EU has 28 members and a wide range of functions, from human rights to the facilitation of citizens’ freedom of movement between nations. Conservatives focus on the issues of bureaucracy and national sovereignty, while the unions argue that EU policies actually help to protect workers’ rights and jobs.
There are other important differences. In 1975, immigration accounted for only a subject at the edge of the referendum debate. The EEC did not allow its citizens to move freely from one state to another and Britain, with its economic problems, is mainly focused on the problem of those who left the country rather than on those who wanted to enter. This year the migration is at the center of the debate, fueling xenophobia and scaremongering by British nationalist movements.
The exponents of that generation who voted in the referendum of 1975 and saw Europe become what it is today were formed strong opinions about Europe, and far from homogeneous.
Gransnet, a British company that manages a network of older people conducted a survey among a thousand of its members at the beginning of the year. Among those who had voted to stay in the EEC in 1975, 36 percent said that now would vote to stay in the EU, with 38 per cent who argues they would vote to leave.
The WorldPost asked users to an online forum Gransnet whether and how their views have changed since 1975. Here are some of their answers, slightly edited and summarized as follows:
” I was born in 1943 and in August I will have 73 years. The last time we were called to vote in the I chose, but I think we were terribly deceived. We were told that this would allow us to become part of a large market, and the rest of the program rather have it concealed. This time is the same? What are the secret plans today, because I’m sure there are!
I’ve already voted by mail, and how elettrice I definitely I place in the field of Brexit. I can not stand the way that our sovereignty has been eroded, and the power picked up by an EU that is not elected and does not seem to answer to anyone. We are an ancient democratic country with a long and proud history, which has never been of no foreigner subject – in contrast to most European countries. We must not be part of what seems more and more a federation.
I think, however in the end the EU will implode. All empires undergo this fate, in the end, and the EU it makes no difference. Today we would ask perhaps to enter it, if we did not already part? Absolutely not. “
– Kate Wheelwright, 72 years.
“I vowed that the United Kingdom entered into the Common Market. At the time I liked the idea of a federal Europe. Not now. The anti-democratic way in which it was treated Greece after they had voted to ease the pace of austerity measures was one of the decisive factors.
I grew up in Yorkshire and Lancashire. In 1975 he was living in Dundee, and there I was studying at the university. In the last ten years I have lived in Argyll, Scotland, and today botanical study and do the gardener.
Thursday will vote ‘out’, though I suppose you win will be those who will want to stay. The way I see it, in 2015 in Greece have taken to the general elections in which the anti-austerity party, Syriza, won. But under the pressure of the EU Troika, Greece was forced to endure burdensome measures that many Greeks have been devastating. It is not certain what they had voted. For me the main problem is that the European democracies in the individual countries resulting undermined its foundations. ”
– Helen Ap-Rhisiart, 60 years.
“I voted for in the first time, and I will vote for ‘stay’ time too. In the years since my husband worked for a British company in Europe, earning money at all British economy advantage, my son has lived and worked in Spain for over twenty years and when we retired we moved to France. I wish the opportunity to free movement are still available for future generations.
Although she believes that over the past forty years the EU has the well-aimed all, I am deeply convinced that we’re better off being able to make our voices heard in, and working in partnership with Europe instead to look back, towards a kind of mythological view of our past.
For years and years that I watch in horror at the way some sections of the British press published distorted versions, exaggerations and outright lies on behalf of the European Union, and the people fell. I believe that the British economy out by the EU represents a catastrophe in the short, medium and long term, which mainly affect on our children and grandchildren “.
– Mamie [prefers not to reveal his last name], 66.
In the course of forty years many things have changed for the voters of the referendum and Philadelphia 1975. Christopher Stockwell had just been hired as consultants, that year in London. Now run of holiday cottages in the Cotswolds, and have several grandchildren. In 1975 they voted for in, and rifaranno in 2016.
“We are born to a generation that experienced the longest period of peace that Europe has ever experienced,” says Philadelphia Stockwell, 65 years. “It was an opportunity not to be missed, and we were right.”
“The sovereignty is won, not diminish, by working together,” says Christopher Stockwell, 66. “It’s like a couple who gets married – do not lose sovereignty, together you become stronger.”
Translated by Stephen Pitrelli
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