Are old people sorry yet?

For most of the post-Brexit weekend, the top story on the Independent’s Indy 100 platform was entitled ‘How Old People have Screwed Over the Younger Generation — in Three Charts.’

Meanwhile, The Telegraph are blaming stubborn old people for the Leave vote.

And here’s Vox laying it on with a trowel.

“Hey young people, blame old people”

It’s a powerful narrative. But it’s not accurate. In fact, it’s unmitigated bollocks.

Figures from YouGov and Sky Data

Of those who voted Remain, more were aged 65+ than 18–24.

In fact, Based on YouGov and Sky Data (see bottom of this page for sources), there were 1 million more Remain voters aged 65 and over than the total turn out of 18–24 year-olds.

Or to bastardise the dominant narrative, a million more elderly northern racists voted to Remain than enlightened progressive youngsters. Weird that.

Collective Guilt

The new media is having an absolute disco sticking it to your racist old granny. She’s their new out-of-the-box hate figure.

Collective guilt — something the progressive new media traditionally hates — is all of a sudden fine.

The emerging post-Brexit narrative has become quite simple.

‘The UK voted Leave because old people are racist. Ban old people from voting. They won’t be around long enough to experience the consequences.”

But since we’re dishing out blame by demographic, let’s send a bit of the good stuff in the direction of the 18–24 year-olds who didn’t vote.

All 4.6 million of them.

They’re just as guilty of fucking it up as anyone. But they’re also the ones moaning the loudest.

Voter age isn’t recorded at the ballots, but a poll commissioned by Lord Ashcroft, involving a nationally representative sample of 12,367 voting age UK residents indicates that 18–24 year-olds — the demographic with the highest proportion of Remain voters according to the YouGov data cited above— had the lowest proportionate turn out.

According to this Ashcroft poll, just 32% cast their vote at the referendum, compared to more than 78% of people over 65.

This is not an official poll. But official statistics do confirm that areas with high populations of young voters just didn’t turn out in the same numbers as areas with older populations.

If you’re 18–24 and angry, blame your mates who didn’t vote.

Collective innocence

If one thing sums up young people letting themselves off the hook, it’s this sign posted around the Glastonbury Festival site.

“I think we’re pretty safe in the knowledge that it’s nobody’s here fault”

Again, it’s a nice narrative to share about. But 22% of Glastonbury attendees didn’t vote, according to a poll conducted by The Times.

So let’s be charitable and base our sums on this year’s attendance being in the region of 153,000, which is the highest ever attendance.

And let’s assume, like the sign says, that nobody at Glastonbury was to blame and everyone who had voted, wanted to Remain.

That’s still 33,000 Remain votes not cast.

That’s 33,000 young people sitting in their tents, Tweeting about how racist old people have robbed them of their futures, while 3.5 million over-65s voted Remain on their behalf.

Sources: *https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates

**http://www.sociology.ed.ac.uk/youth/docs/UK_sociodem.pdf

***Sky Data

****YouGov