Lessons from Russell Brand #1

When Mark Field, MP, came to speak to a group of sixth formers, I don’t think he was really prepared for what faced him. Perhaps he, like many members of our society, fell into the trap of considering young to be synonymous with immature and uninformed… or perhaps he simply hasn’t met very many “feisty women” in his lifetime.

He admitted that he finds engaging young people in politics difficult and many other politicians would concur because, of course, it is difficult to nourish a passion for politics in a generation of young people that feel increasingly disaffected and stigmatized by our society and political system.

The idea that British politics is middle ground, middle class and middle aged is entrenched in society and the public, particularly younger people, are conditioned to feel dissociated from their political representatives. It is no wonder that in a climate such as this, in which rhetoric and tradition have taken precedence over principles and progress, that young people increasingly seek their politics from figures like Russell Brand.

And is that really such a bad thing? Sure, his suggestion that we should boycott elections because all politicians are homogenous was rash but one can’t deny that at least it got people talking. Because no one talks about politics! ‘Politics is boring, politics is stupid, politics is the unknown and, anyway, what difference does it make what I think? No one cares.’

And the truth is that fair enough, it doesn’t seem like any one does care.

Young people are poorly represented in parliament because they are often not yet voters and in the tussle for power that is party politics, it is those of voting age that the politicians really want to win over. Politics in our current climate is not about securing long term support for your party or introducing long term solutions, it is about the quick fix, the next PR stunt, the next ballot box.

Russell Brand offers a form of politics that is about revolution, that stems from a desire to sweep aside the web of bureaucracy that is entangled with our democracy. He is not condescending, he is animated. He questions the authority of our government and urges us to discover our autonomy. Certainly, his political motivations and ideals are controversial and I do not suggest that the only way to enthuse young people to start a youtube channel and start yelling “come the revolution” from the rooftops of London, but our central party politicians could learn a thing or two from Russell Brand’s attitude. A bit less tiptoeing round the issues, a bit less shifting the blame, a few less U-turns and Freudian slips and, more than anything, a few less beige policies aimed at gaining the support of the older voters at the expense of the younger.

Politicians NEED to engage young people because our voices do matter and the excuse that it is young people’s responsibility to engage of their own account simply does not cut it anymore. Yes, every citizen has to take a certain amount of personal responsibility for keeping up with politics and engaging with it but this problem is not about individuals not making an effort- this is about a whole demographic of people being side lined. This is about young people being passed around by politicians and used as a device to win the support of their parents rather than being addressed directly or consulted. This is about young people being empowered to hold politicians accountable for the bad decisions they make. This is about young people not being stereotyped or patronised. And this is about recognising that young people are still people… they were just born more recently.