A generation given everything: free education, golden pensions, and social mobility, have voted to strip my generation’s future. A statement, from a commenter on the Financial Times website that has been widely shared, summed up the sense of furious betrayal among the young: “The younger generation has lost the right to live and work in 27 other countries. We will never know the full extent of lost opportunities, friendships, marriages and experiences we will be denied. The older generation took freedom of movement away in a parting blow to a generation that was already drowning in the debts of its predecessors. But what I will say is that if you are young and you are experiencing feelings of fury and heartbreak about the result, you are justified in doing so. The political is personal; the way that the future weeks, months and years play out will have powerful, definable consequences on the way you live. This is one of those momentous turning points in our personal timelines; if you are pissed off, you are right to be ready drowning in the debts of its predecessors.” Affects on young people: Young people today have found themselves part of a jet-set generation. This is a group of people who have never experienced the worries of visas to live, work and travel across a common European zone and it has shaped how they see their place in the world. Free movement is an inherent part of their ethos. The EU debate leaves young people with many questions about their own futures, which few have answered thus far. The average life expectancy of someone who voted Brexit is far lower than a Remain voter, according to a CNN journalist citing apparent YouGov and ONS data, meaning that “those who must live with the result of the EU Referendum the longest want to remain”. Leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron described the result as a “great injustice to future generations. Their future has been taken away by older generations,” he said, in a speech following the result. It is a tragedy that older voters, the people who have been able to benefit from European integration, have removed the opportunity for those coming behind them. For decades, young Britons have enjoyed the freedom of Europe, able to work, study and travel freely on the continent, and enjoy healthcare and other privileges while they do so. - Megan Dunn, the outgoing NUS president. “It’s possible you would need some kind of visa to work abroad and this would impact on your ability to acquire a job.” Freedom of movement across the EU currently means young people have a wider pool of graduate jobs to choose from, as more and more organisations work across Europe or specific targeted industries graduates find attractive are booming in other EU countries,” she said. Restricting freedom of movement means finding a job abroad becomes much harder for young people. If Brexit does prompt a recession, it is young people who are most likely to suffer. Research shows that graduates who enter the jobs market during a recession earn less than those who do so in a buoyant economy, and that the differential persists for years. Researchers at the Centre for European Reform (CER) note that if unemployment were to rise, it would be the under 30s who would be most vulnerable. But on a national level, a drop in immigration would not necessarily help young people looking for work because of the impact on the economy. Remain campaigners repeatedly make the point that immigrants put in more to the economy in terms of taxes than they take out. “Immigration into the UK is positive, it boosts the economy and it makes our society richer and more diverse,” said Vieru. Also, not all migrants come into the UK to do graduate-level jobs, they fill roles right across the jobs market. Leaving the EU is likely to have an impact on businesses wanting to set up and develop in the UK, and that is what will have an impact on the graduate jobs market, not immigration. The prospect of Brexit has already hurt the pound, and if sterling were to fall dramatically in the days and weeks ahead, it would have an inevitable impact on inflation, making the cost of living dearer. George Osborne’s threat of an emergency budget would take further steam out of the economy. The effect of Brexit on the economy is the key reason for many young people supporting remain. The process of the UK leaving the European Union would not be complete until late 2018 at the very earliest, assuming Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is triggered when a new prime minister is appointed in the autumn of this year. Even then, that’s just the basic settlement — trade deals and movement regulations could take decades to hammer out - Put simply: The long-term effects of Brexit will not be felt by those who overwhelmingly voted for it. Because they will be dead. This is a final middle-fingered salute to the young from the baby boomer generation. Not content with racking up insurmountable debt, not content with destroying any hopes of sustainable property prices or stable career paths, not content with enjoying the benefits of free education and generous pension schemes before burning down the ladder they climbed up, the baby boomers have given one last turd on the doorstep of the younger generation. My generation will not enjoy the free movement to 27 different countries and the workers’ rights that rescued Britain from the "sick man of Europe" era of the 1970s. For us, there will be no golden age of economic hope and glory. UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage’s sickening elation at "independence day for the United Kingdom" (surely a joke, given the context of violent colonialism that Britain herself exported to the world over the last centuries, yet sadly deadly serious) heralds nothing but a grim forecast of turmoil. It didn’t matter. The UK voters ignored them. In fact, Michael Gove, a leading figure in the Leave campaign, and a potential candidate for the next prime minister of the United Kingdom, not only said, "Britain has had enough of experts," but also likened those same experts to Nazis. There was a total and institutional rejection of the advice of economic experts by the Leave campaign. Their campaign peddled lies, and our country will pay the price. My parents voted Remain, and understand the negative consequences of Leave. But the generation before them, seem blind to what they have unleashed. They don’t see the hypocrisy of adopting a staunchly anti-immigration stance in line with the Leave campaign’s xenophobic tactics I am a member of a generation that was supposed to represent hope — we were meant to solve the problems left by the last generation, usher in an era of progressive and unified humanity. We were meant to be the people to finally harness the technological potential of the 20th century for something other than a world war. We were the eternal optimists. The United Kingdom is anything but united. With this vote, the cynicism that my generation was supposed to have left behind has been reborn. The vote will undoubtedly erode the last of any optimism that we could have carried forward from the last few years. It’s a lesson that I feel my own generation learned too late, the result of which has been apathy, a lack of political engagement, and the feeling that there is no point participating in a system that does not have our interests at heart. And so we do not vote as much as we should, or even bother to register, and then politicians continue to make policy without considering us. Because why should they tailor their policies to you, when they do not feel they need your vote? Depressingly, and despite having the power to swing the result, it is predicted that turnout among young people was low – though we won’t know exactly how low just yet – and for this we can only blame ourselves. If you are young, and especially if you voted, I hope that the outcome of this referendum doesn’t put you off voting again. Yes, as a demographic, we have lost, but at the same time we have made a powerful statement about the kind of country we want to live in. That we are to be deprived of it is a crying shame, but at least we know that we are part of a collective of people who want a better world. Don’t let that feeling dissipate; mobilise, organise, strategies, and above all hope. Take heart in the fact that you’re more than likely part of this optimistic, open-minded gang, that there is a potential there simmering beneath the surface. By all means feel bitter, and miserable, and worried about what is going to happen next, but after that, please take heart: you are the 75%, and what you voted for was noble, and one day will be again. By (Twitter - @JUUUUKES.) - For Rozina, who has motivated me to keep writing and has always pushed me to increase my knowledge, just so I can keep her up to date.
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