A Final Say on Brexit is just the start for young people, who look in despair at a parliament that doesn’t represent them

As a National Union of Students officer, I’ve been on my fair share of demonstrations and marches but the Put it to the People rally on Saturday felt different.

It wasn’t just the fact that it was one of the largest demonstrations in British political history, drawing an estimated million people to the streets of London; there was a vibrancy, liveliness and determination that I felt more strongly than ever before.

And it’s clear in my mind that this was down to the young people and students who led the march and who made up a significant section of the protesters.

The People’s Vote campaign is often branded by critics as run by a mysterious “elite” who want only to retain the status quo – but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Perhaps the most striking example was personified by those who travelled from the Highlands and Islands Student Association in Scotland. They covered over 500 miles from Orkney, Inverness, Stornoway, Perth, Oban, and Elgin, taking over 50 hours to get from their homes to London in order to have their voices heard. I struggle to see how anyone could brand them as the “liberal metropolitan elite”.

And this typifies the increasing number of ordinary young people who are engaging with the debate. Groups like For Our Future’s Sake (FFS), which organise young people to campaign for a People’s Vote, are represented by individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds from all over the UK, demanding that they have a say on their future.

This couldn’t be more different from the scenes in Westminster. In a debate which is dominated and driven largely by older white men on the right of politics, the machinations inside the Westminster bubble are causing the British public to largely switch off.

Words like “chaos”, “meltdown” and “crisis” now seem overused to the point of being redundant when attempting to describe the political deadlock.

Young people in particular seem to be baffled by what they see in parliament. I’m struck by the number of students and young people I meet who no longer care about the latest defection, factional infighting or government defeat.

But this isn’t to say that they have switched off from the debate. In fact, the complete opposite is true.

Recent polling from FFS and Our Future our Choice showed that 74 per cent of those too young to vote in 2016 but able to vote now (roughly 2 million new voters) are in favour of a People’s Vote and of those certain to vote, 87 per cent would vote to remain. For young people and students, whatever deal is agreed with the EU must be put to the public in a referendum so that they can have their say.

But there’s another reason why getting a final say on Brexit is so important: young people realise that a People’s Vote is only the beginning. A new generation is finding its political voice and is starting to shake politics up, as we saw in the 2017 election.

They are demanding equity, representation, action on climate change, an end to austerity, and a more open and tolerant society; a stark contrast to the vision of the Brexiteers whose lies in the 2016 referendum are catching up with them at pace.

As the Put it to the People demo showed at the weekend, this tide can only go one way; and those in positions of power would be foolish to ignore the strength of feeling from young people and students up and down the country on Brexit.

They are demanding that their voices are heard and politicians will soon realise that their own political future will depend on how they respond.