Jeremy Corbyn actually lost a large number of young voters in the election

Will Taylor
·News Reporter
Updated
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves his home in Islington, north London.
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to step down as Labour leader. (PA Images)

Predictions of a “youthquake” that would propel Labour to election success proved unfounded as Jeremy Corbyn actually shed young voters on Thursday.

Polling from Tory peer Lord Ashcroft shows Labour was still the most popular choice for 18-24 year olds but appears to have lost a chunk of them to the Liberal Democrats in Thursday’s vote, which delivered a big majority for Boris Johnson.

57% of people in that bracket voted Labour, but that is down from a massive 67% who backed Mr Corbyn in 2017.

Instead, the Lib Dems were voted for by 12% of that age group, up by nearly double from the 7% of 18-24 year olds who voted in 2017.

Just 19% backed the Tories, up from 18% at the previous election, while 5% backed the Greens, 4% went for the SNP and 2% voted for the Brexit Party.

Lord Ashcroft's poll breakdown for 2019.
Lord Ashcroft's poll breakdown for 2019.
Lord Ashcroft's findings from 2017.
Lord Ashcroft's findings from 2017.

The Labour leader has said he will step down following his party’s disastrous night.

Lord Ashcroft’s demographic breakdown gives an insight into how effective the parties’ campaigning was.

Media headlines early in the election campaign considered the impact of the “Workington man”, an imagined voter conjured by centre-right think tank Onward, which said was crucial to any Tory victory.

The Workington man is older, white and northern - he is named for the former mining town in Cumbria - and voted to leave the EU.

Locals were unimpressed with the tag, which also said he liked rugby league, didn’t have a degree and typically voted Labour.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson seen outside No 10 Downing Street, London after his gamble on early election paid off as the Conservative Party won a majority in the 2019 General Election. The Conservative Party's commanding majority will take United Kingdom out of the European Union by the end of January 2020. (Photo by Steve Taylor / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)
The Tories beat Labour in all social grades, returning Boris Johnson to Downing Street with a majority. (Photo by Steve Taylor / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)

The Tories were much more popular with men than women, the Ashcroft poll - which spoke to 13,000 people on election day - found.

“Men chose the Conservatives over Labour by a 19-point margin (48% to 29%), while women did so by just 6 points (42% to 36%),” Lord Ashcroft wrote.

The Tories also beat Labour in every social grade, including the working class grades C2 (50% to Labour’s 30%) and DE (43% to 37%).

That compares to Labour winning in the DE category in 2017 (taking 46% of the group’s vote to the Tories’ 34%) and taking the same as the Conservatives in the C1 category (both 41%).

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