Stand for something or you mean nothing: The new political energy of our young people

By Shaun Danquah and Luke Billingham. 

Shaun is Head of Engagement at TSIP and Luke is Youth & Community Worker at Hackney Quest and Charity Development Worker.

Political energy is now discernible everywhere among the young, from entry-level employees refusing exploitation, to radical education movements, to prison abolitionists. Some of this energy can be found in familiar groups: over-educated under-30s continue to produce pseudo-progressive theoretical ponderings about opaque French philosophy, on podcasts these days, rather than just in university bars. But what is far more interesting is the political energy among historically marginalised, disenfranchised groups who tend to be excluded from more formal political engagement: young people living in areas which experience considerable disadvantage, and young people of colour especially. We’re seeing the emergence of a new cohort of highly political and deeply intellectual young people across our cities – a new urban intelligentsia. The social sector can’t afford to ignore them. 

Of course, this shouldn’t be a surprise - these communities have always been the real wellsprings of radical thought and radical change, often driven by necessity. In recent times, though, subversion in multicultural working-class communities has been viewed as merely the volatile expression of mainstream values: the 2011 riots were described somewhat lazily by the mainstream media as the revolt of a bunch of disgruntled consumerists, for instance. Until the last few years, people in these communities were dismissed as hedonistic, narcissistic individuals, more interested in ‘bling bling’ than in commitment to any kind of cause. 

But now, on the streets, in youth centres, in WhatsApp group chats, on podcasts, on Clubhouse – anywhere that inner city young people gather – you find discussion which is unmistakably political. Racial injustice, poverty, over-policing, school exclusions and the PRU-to-prison pipeline, or, perhaps more mundanely, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, are topics of fiery debate. 

Groups like the 4Front Project, Account, Take Back the Power and No More Exclusions have the pulsating energy of youthful activism behind them. And in our own work with young people and communities in Hackney and Lambeth, political fervour is palpable. In some cases this is explicit, tied to certain political parties or to social movements, in other cases it’s more an attitude than an interest: a lot of young people just don’t put up with prejudiced, discriminatory or exploitative systems, which they do not believe in or actively reject. They’re telling us about tokenistic nonsense that they’re being invited to do by charities, subtle or unsubtle racism in school, expectations put on them to work for free by organisations that have plentiful resources, and they’re not putting up with it.

This wave of political momentum was, of course, hugely strengthened by the Black Lives Matter movement, and – to a lesser extent – by the global pandemic, as they spread across the globe last year. Both shone a spotlight on the vast structural injustices and inequalities which too many young people experience every day. But this wave of political zeal was gathering pace before 2020.

Young people are aware that the old world is dying, and they’re fighting for the new world which is struggling to be born. Two books published in the last eight years, Does Capitalism Have a Future? (2013) and How will Capitalism End? (2016), written by prominent social theorists and political economists, concur that we’re in a time of protracted political crisis, and fundamental change is afoot. Everyone now knows this, however dimly. It’s felt not just by the political elite, who increasingly seem lost and bewildered, but also by our young people. The difference is, while the former desperately seek to prop up the established order, the latter are urging on the coming transformations.  The ultra-unequal, ultra-white, smug neoliberalism of the last few decades is teetering on the brink, and we can all see it faltering.

This mood is evident in music, too: though often dismissed as nihilistic, genres like grime and drill are often deeply political. It isn’t just banknotes being sprayed onto scantily clad models, or bullets being sprayed into rivals, it’s visions for a new kind of society.

An amusing sideshow in all this is the tragi-comic attempts of brands to stay relevant. They post black squares on Instagram and tweet out worthy platitudes about justice, and then young activists dig up their hideously racist and exploitative practices. Companies like Amazon now advertise by tenuously associating themselves with progressive ideas like climate change activism. Such laughable attempts to capitalise on the political energy of our time have a habit of alienating just about everybody – the stale old guard and the new radicals alike.

The message to companies and politicians from young people is clear: stand for something or you mean nothing. And don’t just stand for something – put conviction into action to redress injustices and empower communities. Even those decision-makers who would deem themselves paragons of leftism, undertaking radically progressive change, like the Labour councils in London bringing in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, make the very basic mistake of forgetting that alienated communities want the political voice and power that they are entitled to.  Dumping planter boxes around the place to reduce car traffic, without adequate consultation, can draw immense community ire, because it feels like patronising, paternalistic, patrician politicians telling people what’s good for them. Champagne environmentalism will get you nowhere – especially when it looks to be in service of hipster cyclists more than anyone else. Radical change in light of the climate crisis is urgently needed, but it must tap into the political energy of communities, rather than plonking change on top of them.

The times, they are a changin’. The recent school student protests at Pimlico Academy could be yet another sign of the beautifully rebellious energy reverberating through urban areas. They demonstrate that the new breed of radicals are shrewd political operators, mixing old forms of “analogue” activism with new kinds of technological tactics. 

The terrified elite response to this simmering resistance can be seen in legislation, such as the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, and in official attempts to shape the political narrative, such as the Sewell Report. Both are panicked attempts to project a simplistic image of British society as just and fair, to wrestle greater authoritarian powers into the hands of the state and to dispel any threat of rebellion. 

It won’t work. History isn’t static, whatever resources are chucked at trying to prop up the present order of things. The seeds of profound disruption and change, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the 1960s, are being planted by the young. 

There’s a new urban political chic, now taking hold of the passions of many young people, and it’s much more powerful and much more explosive than the old entrapments of the “bling bling”.