Emily Cole
Naked Politics Blogger
Politics is more confusing than ever and it can be pretty hard to know what each political party is offering- especially as a young person. We know you don’t have time in between working or studying for exams, to be reading through shit tonnes of pages.
But as a young person, your opinion matters- massively. So to give you a hand, here’s Naked Politics’ election breakdown. We’ve broken down the Liberal Democract’s manifesto in terms of how positive we think they would be for young people.
Brexit
- These guys are all about cancelling Brexit. They want to revoke Article 50 and not give the public a second referendum to decide- which has led to criticism from some, including the Green Party candidate Caroline Lucas who said “you don’t give a f**k about what 17.4 million people voted for.” Punchy.
- But the Labour Party have moved their policy to a second referendum, the Lib Dems have been desperate to stay relevant and the most remainery party.
- One of the other parts of their Brexit policy is the idea of a £50bn remain bonus. They say that if we remain in the EU, this is the amount of money raised in tax revenue we can expect over the next 5 years. Obviously, this is based on forecasts, so while the logic might be sound-ish, the actual figure would be uncertain and therefore sounds like it’s plucked out of nowhere.
Climate change
- In other areas the Lib Dem’s policies aren’t that bad. They’re calling for 80% of the UK’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2030 and their proposals to combat climate change are extensive.
Work
- They have some interesting policy suggestions such as instead of abolishing zero hours contracts, to set a 20% higher minimum wage for workers on zero hours. This is supposed to help to compensate for the uncertainty of these contracts, but it might also persuade employers to commit to guaranteed hours if they knew they’d have to pay more if they don’t.
- They are also proposing giving people a ‘Skills Wallet’ of £10,000 over their lifetimes to go towards retraining – with £4,000 at 25, £3,000 at 40, and £3,000 at age 55.
Education
- They want to extend free school meals to all primary school pupils and any secondary pupils with parents on Universal Credit.
Other
- They’d legalise cannabis and introduce voting for 16 and 17 year olds.
If you’d like to find out more about who Naked Politics is officially reccomending young people vote for, check out our main Manifesto Breakdown.
Check out our more detailed breakdowns on our homepage!