Generation Brexit project needs views from under-35s
People aged under 35 are invited to take part in an online project called Generation Brexit which aims to ‘crowdsource’ a vision of what future UK-EU relations should be.
The project will go live on the anniversary of the EU membership referendum, June 23, and is hoping to canvass views of tens of thousands of young people, in order to feed into a report that will be sent to the UK and EU parliaments.
The deputy head of the London School of Economics’ European Institute, Jennifer Jackson-Preece, said they were inspired by a previous LSE project which gathered ideas about what could go into a future written constitution for the UK.
She said: “The aim is to get as many under-35s as possible, not just from the UK, but from all across the EU, to come together to discuss key themes of significance to the post-Brexit relationship between the UK and EU. The ones we have identified are: political cooperation, economic cooperation, freedom of movement and migration controls, and fundamental rights and values.
“We hope that as many people as possible will engage in conversation and generate proposals, which the crowd will vote up and down. The ones which generate the most support will feed into an event at LSE, which will involve leading participants from the online platform, who we will pay to come to London, as well as leading figures from the under-35s in industry, politics and creative arts, as well as students with support from academics. The aim will be to produce a written report for the UK and EU parliaments. We hope it will be referenced in the final debates that happen there.”
Dr Jackson-Preece said they will make interim reports and blog posts to boost awareness of young people’s priorities. “We will also take all of this to produce a free educational toolkit which we hope will be useful to schools and youth groups for 12-18-year-olds who want to understand the referendum and the EU.”
She added: “We want to underscore the extent to which under-35s were those most in favour of remaining, with over 70% of the youngest group, under 24, voting to remain. There were initial suggestions in the media that they voted in low numbers, but further research at the LSE has shown that was not the case – the rate at which they went to the polls was comparable to older groups. Every 10 years up, age groups became slightly less in favour, but still a majority of those under around 45-48 were in favour of ‘remain’.
“We also want to highlight the fact that it’s younger people, who we’re calling ‘Generation Brexit’, who will live longest with the results and be most affected by them but they’ve not had a significant role in the debate and dialogue so far and their views haven’t really been heard.”
Dr Jackson-Preece said they did not want to limit the project to young people in the UK, because Brexit will affect both sides on the UK-EU divide. “The online platform we are using can host tens of thousands and the greater the number of those involved, the greater the possibility for political impact will be.”
The project will conclude with an event publicising the findings, on the anniversary of the article 50 trigger, March 29, 2018. See generationbrexit.org
An expert in French politics and the political participation of Britons abroad has launched an anonymous survey to find more about Britons living abroad. Visit: https://goo.gl/aVcbqb Dr Susan Collard of the University of Sussex will post the results in due course at her new page facebook.com/britonsabroad
