UK ELECTION: Youth turnout swings result

A surge in youth turnout fuelled by last year's shock Brexit vote played a pivotal role in stripping British Prime Minister Theresa May of her parliamentary majority, observers said yesterday.

An energising campaign by Labour's firebrand leader Jeremy Corbyn and simmering anger among many voters over uncertain plans to leave the European Union sent young Britons streaming to the ballot box.

Corbyn, a 68-year-old staunch leftist, harnessed popular anti-establishment sentiment to lead Labour to beat expectations and gain 29 seats in the House of Commons.

After a campaign marked by rallies that had the buoyant mood of music festivals, Corbyn said his success was built on hope for change.

"Politics isn't going back into the box where it was before," he told cheering supporters.

Some 56 percent of under-35s voted, according to an exit poll for NME magazine, which recently splashed Corbyn's face across its cover.

They showed overwhelming support for Labour, at 60 percent, with 36 percent of them being first-time voters, according to the survey among 1,354 voters.

Half cited Brexit as the "main factor" in their decision to cast a ballot.

While an official breakdown of voting patterns was still outstanding, official data showed a spike in both youth registrations ahead of the vote as well as turnout in districts with large numbers of younger voters on election day.

By contrast, only 45 percent of British voters aged 18 to 34 voted in 2015, compared to 84 percent of over-55s, which the OECD has called the biggest gap in the Western world.

"The movement of Remainers and young voters towards Labour explains why the Conservatives have lost their overall majority," political scientist John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde said yesterday.