Faisal Islam, Political Editor

It was at the crucial meeting ahead of the PM's Florence speech that the Cabinet discussed whether the Brexit settlement was going to be "sustainable" in the long term.

One Cabinet minister was candid about what that meant: a Brexit deal that did not carry younger voters would "simply be overturned" by a new generation of voters. It is being discussed at the most important meetings determining our stance on Brexit.

Brexiteer Cabinet ministers dismiss this type of window on Brexit demographics as a slightly more polite version of the Nick Clegg argument that older Leave voters are going to be replaced in the electorate by younger Remainers, as they pass away.

Indeed that argument was also made by a Conservative minister warning his party about the "natural wastage" in the age demographics around Brexit at his conference. One newspaper calculated that no one needs to have changed their mind about Brexit for a slim demographic majority for Remain to emerge by 2021 - coincidentally the planned end of the implementation phase.


Older means wiser, some would argue. But, perhaps more relevantly these days, in politics, older means difference. Not wholly - there are both teenage ultra-Brexiteers and fanatical Remainer pensioners. But on average, the statistics don't lie.

Every poll has had under-25s backing staying in the European Union around the 70% mark, 30 and 40-somethings around the 60% mark. These numbers are reversed for the over-60s and 70s.

So there is a special demographic quality to the Brexit vote, that one might try to ignore. Or one might identify it all as a fundamental axis of British politics - a perception amongst many younger voters that Brexit is something that is being done to them, not for them.

Image: The young have been outvoted by their grandparents - but they will have to deal with the consequences

These divides don't just express themselves within a nation, a society or a city - but within individual families too. There are plentiful stories of households split down generational referendum-voting lines.

The general election was a chance to settle this all - a "mopping up operation", as the ex-UKIP MP Douglas Carswell put it. But it instead transposed that same age demographic split seen during the referendum a year ago, directly on to the party system.

It is a matter of alarm to some Tories that pollsters tracking the age of vote share for the Conservatives see a correlation between the decade of your age and the proportion of your peers likely to vote Conservative:

Nineteen percent of 18-19-year-olds; 22% of 20-24-year-olds; 23% of 25-29-year-olds; 29% of 30-39-year old; 39% of 40-49-year-olds; 47% of 50-59-year-olds; 58% of those in their 60s; and 69% of septuagenarians, on YouGov's post-election supersample poll.

Lord Ashcroft found similar numbers and, interestingly, the demographic pattern against Brexit and the Conservatives is particularly marked for younger women.

It is difficult not to notice that the average age of the parliamentarians writing to the PM to advise a walkout of Brexit talks is in the 70s, nor that this is also the average age of the Labour MPs rebelling against their whip.

Senior Cabinet Brexiteers believe that this generation will come around when they see opportunities from Brexit

Can there ever have been an issue of such fundamental importance to the future where young and old have been so split?

Two things matter:

Is it a cohort effect or not? Is this a younger generation who will largely retain these views as they age, or instead as the political cliche goes, will people become more comfortable with Brexit and euroscepticism as they age, as is observed with left-right politics?

If it is a cohort effect, the Conservatives are on a slow train to oblivion. The party is riding the baby-boomer wave into their and its retirement.

For now, the truth is, we can't say.

Does scepticism of supranational pooled sovereignty really develop with age in the same way scepticism of a big spending state might do? It seems plausible that there is a cohort, an Easyjet/ Ibiza/ Champions League/ Free Movement generation who are not defined by the newspaper and Westminster bubble debates on the EU.

More relevantly, the cohort faces having been outvoted by its grandparents, and yet will be the generation that will deal with the consequences, and as taxpayers, will eagerly await the dividends, while fearing footing the bill.

The second thing is how a government responds to an unprecedented generational split.

The reality may well be that how the Conservatives shape Brexit will determine whether this generation that, on the whole, did not vote for it, defines itself against leaving the European Union.

The rational response to this might be to ensure that all the high-profile tangible freedoms enjoyed by the under-40s within the EU are protected for as long as possible, if not indefinitely. Freedom of movement to work, visa-free travel, the Erasmus scheme of educational exchanges would be high priorities on this view.

Senior Cabinet Brexiteers believe that this generation will come around when they see opportunities from Brexit, when it becomes clear that sporting EU facepaint is not the same as genuine internationalism.

But this requires tangible upfront benefits to be visible pretty much immediately. Instead the public so far seems, on the basis of polling evidence, to believe that the negotiations are dragging on longer and are far more complicated than it had envisaged.

Meanwhile, EU leaders believe that the election result was a Brexit backlash, and have begun to drop suggestions into speeches that the UK would be welcome back into a wider EU architecture in a few years' time.

The age axis is unavoidable in British politics. The way that the Government effects Brexit will determine its sustainability amongst the generation most affected by it, and whether it becomes defined against leaving the EU, especially on the terms of a Brexit Gerontocracy.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning

Previously on Sky Views: Hannah Thomas-Peter - A 'chilling' warning on American life