Our changing demographics will transform politics, perhaps disastrously for the Right

Telegraph

15-05-2025

This week, the Telegraph will be publishing a series of essays from experts on the demographic crisis facing much of the world, with falling birth rates and ageing populations seen across many regions. A list of published articles can be found below this one
There is a long tradition of forecasting Britain's political future through the crystal ball of demographic change.
In the 1960s the then doyenne of British psephology, the late Sir David Butler, argued that demographic change favoured Labour. The party was popular among younger generations of voters who had come of age since Labour had established itself in the post-war era as the principal challenger to the Conservatives. It did less well among older voters, whose loyalties had been formed when elections were still a battle between the Conservatives and the Liberal party. However, these older voters were gradually leaving the electorate for a better place.
Alas, for Labour, along came the winter of discontent and Margaret Thatcher, and by the 1990s the future looked Conservative. Labour's roots were in the working class, while the Conservative party was more popular among middle class voters. Unfortunately for Labour, Britain's occupational structure was becoming increasingly middle class as blue-collar manufacturing jobs were replaced by the white-collar occupations of the knowledge economy. Part of the reason why, after losing four elections to the Conservatives, Tony Blair's 'New Labour' party focused on 'middle England' was to boost its popularity among middle class voters.
These days, the job people do is no longer reflected in whether people vote Conservative or Labour – partly because of the changes made to Labour under Tony Blair, and partly because the Conservatives' pursuit of Brexit, not least under Boris Johnson, enabled the party to reach parts of the working class that had hitherto been beyond its reach.
Forecasting the political future through the crystal ball of demographics is then a dangerous game. Skilled politicians are not the prisoners of demography. Rather, they make their own fortune by adapting their party's appeal to a changing British society.
However, skilled politicians still need to understand how changing demographic patterns might influence the opportunities and challenges their party is likely to face in future. And there is little doubt that demographic changes that are already happening in Britain present the right with potentially significant challenges, both electorally and for its vision of the role government plays in our lives.
These days, voting choice in Britain is shaped above all by age. Younger people are more likely to vote for Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens or one of the nationalist parties. Older people are more likely to support the Conservatives or Reform. According to YouGov, for example, in last year's general election only 19% of 18-24 year olds supported either the Conservatives or Reform, compared with 58% of those aged 65 and over.
Of course, the significance of this pattern depends in part on why it has arisen. Perhaps it is simply the case that people become more inclined to back parties of the right as they get older. If so, many of today's twenty somethings who vote Labour might be Conservative supporters by the time they become fifty somethings.
But perhaps the divide is a generational one. Maybe today's younger generations have distinctive aspirations and values that are unlikely to change as they get older. In that case, the right in Britain could – unless it adapts – potentially be facing an existential crisis.
Previous academic research by Prof. James Tilley of Oxford University has suggested that some people do swing towards the Conservatives as they enter the comfort of middle age. Meanwhile, some of the current support for parties of the left might reflect the discontent of a post-financial crash generation that is struggling to get on the housing ladder, let alone looking forward to being better off than their parents. If that economic discontent eventually abates, perhaps their political views will change too.
Yet there is also good reason to believe that much of the difference is generational. Brexit brought into our electoral politics a division that is variously labelled as 'culture wars', 'woke' issues, or the 'equalities and diversity' agenda. Examples include arguments about immigration, the treatment of Britain's ethnic minorities, and whether and how we should celebrate Britain's imperial past.
Leavers and Remainers typically have divergent views on these issues. Unlike Leavers, Remainers are less concerned about immigration, more supportive of equalities initiatives for black and Asian people, and less inclined to celebrate Britain's past uncritically. Crucially, not only is this Remainer perspective more popular among younger people (who mostly voted against Brexit), but in many instances it looks as though each new generation of young adults has been more supportive of the pro-equalities agenda than was the generation before it. In tying themselves to a pro-Brexit, anti-woke agenda both the Conservatives and Reform are – in the long term - seemingly at risk of being cast away by a gradually ebbing tide.
Of course, at present, being more popular among older people is advantageous. The ageing of Britain's demographic profile means it is already the case that approaching one in five of us is aged 65 or over, a figure that is set to rise further. But this ageing process also poses a challenge to any politician of the right who would like to reverse the significant expansion of the role of the state that occurred during the last parliament .
Ageing populations are potentially expensive. They demand more in the way of health care and pensions, both paid for by the state. Governments can hope that we not only live longer but also more healthily, but the health of today's older people often reflects habits and lifestyles that were adopted half a lifetime ago. They can also try to persuade us to work for longer and in so doing raise the age at which the state pension is paid. Yet this is far from a poplar policy (especially among the older voters on which the right currently relies) and, so far, the state pension age for men has only been increased from 65 to 66, with a rise to 68 still projected to be 20 years down the track.
Alternatively, we can bring – and indeed have brought - more women of working age into the labour market. But working women have fewer babies, thereby contributing to demographic ageing, while in the meantime governments have increasingly been taking on financial responsibility for the provision of childcare. Or we can – as we have also done – increase the working age population by admitting more migrants many of whom, not least, provide the social care that our ageing population increasingly needs. However, that approach is also unpalatable to voters on the right.
Currently, the right is consumed by a seemingly existential fight between Reform and the Conservatives. But however that battle turns out, the victor will need to develop a strategy that enables the right to tackle a demographic tide that threatens both to undermine its electoral prospects and its hopes for smaller government. Whoever emerges as the victor in the current battle will need to be a highly skilled politician.
Other articles in our series on demography: