Trib Gosain: Bridging the politics generation gap

Politicians' inability to connect with young people is endemic of modern day politics, and modern day life; they don't understand what we want, and they make little effort to do so. Perhaps it is because they simply have no idea where to start, perhaps they don't care. I want to change this.
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As a 15-year-old Member of Youth Parliament, I represented over 10,000 11-19 year olds on a local, regional and national level.

Since standing down from that role, I have worked on several campaigns and now have a rare perspective of both sides of the problem: From politicians’ points of view and from young people’s points of view.

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Essentially, I have spent the past five years understanding the gap between politicians and young people, and now I believe I can bridge it.

I’m launching Millennial Counsel with the aim of doing just that.

There is a reason why the problem of connecting politicians with young voters has not yet been addressed: middle aged consultants cannot do it, they do not have the knowledge. Political consultants have failed politicians for far too long, as they haven’t made any meaningful effort to try and connect politicians with young voters.

The problem I’m trying to solve isn’t exclusive to this country, in fact it could be argued that it’s far worse elsewhere.

I want to change how politics is done.

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The under-25 demographic has a massive amount of voter power that has been almost completely untapped.

We saw, for example, in the 2017 UK general election the highest turnout of 18-24 year olds in 25 years (Financial Times).

What is clear to me is that young people are interested, tuned in and opinionated.

What is also clear is that we’re put off by politicians.

This mutual disillusionment has significant consequences, as the government make decisions about our future without knowing what we actually want.

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It is time that they took the time and made the effort to find out what we want.

I now want to challenge the Prime Minister and all other people in positions of power to come and work with me and my company if they are serious about wanting to build a better future for us.

In the current political climate, a company like this is desperately needed.

With critical Brexit talks occurring over the next two years, the time to be listening to everybody’s opinion has never been greater. In my opinion, politicians need to be trying much harder to do this.

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I set up Millennial Counsel to help change perspectives of Millennials too.

We often get a bad name, unfairly I think. Granted, we don’t help ourselves sometimes, but, for the most part, we are tuned in, opinionated, and certainly not stupid. We know that politicians are often ignorant to our importance, and it is this mutual disillusionment that keeps things the way they are and increases the gap between politicians and young people. Millennial Counsel will work to change this, and try to change perspectives.

Trib Gosain, 19, is studying International Business and Marketing at the University of Leeds. A former Youth MP, he is starting up a political consulting firm – Millenial Counsel – focusing on connecting politicians to young voters and engaging more young people in politics.

Trib Gosain is a former youth MP and founder of the Millennial Counsel website.