Britain appears ripe for a Trumpian-style political revolution, with half of young men in the country saying they would vote for the American leader if given the opportunity.
A survey published by Jim Blagden, associate director of the More In Common polling consultancy firm, found that 50 per cent of men aged between 18 and 35-years-old in the United Kingdom would vote for Donald Trump if they could.
The results of the poll showed a wide disparity between those who would vote for Trump and who they supported in the UK general election in July, with just a quarter of young men backing the Conservative Party or Reform UK.
Of those who would support Trump and did not vote for the Tories, a third (34 per cent) are young men, over a fifth (22 per cent) are from ethnic minorities, and 38 per cent are university degree holders.
“Young men are clearly not buying what the UK Conservatives are selling, but something about Donald Trump really appeals to them,” Blagden remarked.
The survey follows similar trend lines in the United States, where Mr Trump won a larger proportion of young voters than any other Republican presidential candidate since 2008, beating Democrat Kamala Harris by two points among men under the age of 30, according to NBC News. This was a marked shift from 2020, when Joe Biden won the group by 11 points.
The results may be a boon for longtime Trump ally Nigel Farage, who is seeking to court young voters before the next general election in 2029.
The Reform UK leader, who shares a similar policy platform to Trump, particularly on issues like immigration — as opposed to the neo-liberal Tories — has seen social media success on youth-oriented platforms like TikTok, where he has amassed over a million followers and nearly 18 million likes.
Speaking of his experiences on the campaign trail in June, Mr Farage said: “This is fascinating… Generation Z, ‘Gen-Z’, the 15-25s, something remarkable is happening, I mean truly remarkable is happening. And our support in that age bracket, is rapidly going up. The followings I’ve built up on TikTok, Instagram is amazing.”
This trend looks to continue, with a group of young students flocking around the Brexit boss in Parliament on Wednesday asking to take selfies with Mr Farage while telling him that they and their friends support his Reform UK party.
The social media strategy targeting young voters on platforms like TikTok has also been successfully deployed by French populist National Rally leader Jordan Bardella in his successful campaign in the European Parliament elections earlier this year.
Turning Point USA director Charlie Kirk also credited the platform with helping his get out the vote efforts for Donald Trump, saying last week: “It was the most effective way I ever reached the working class in my career the muscular class, janitors, waiters, waitresses, uber drivers, police officers, fire fighters, even more so than YouTube and and Instagram.
“For whatever reason something about TikTok really reaches people that Donald Trump was trying to win.”
The shift to the right among young men in Britain has also been seen on continental Europe, with the recently published Shell Youth Study finding that one in four young men identifying as right-wing, compared to less than one in five in 2019. This has coincided with growing support for the populist anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has become the most popular political party for Germans aged between between 14 and 29.