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General election: Voter registration spikes by 236 per cent on day Stormzy endorses Labour

Some 150,000 people under the age of 25 registered to vote on Monday

Ellie Harrison
Tuesday 26 November 2019 12:13 GMT
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Michael Gove describes Stormzy as a 'better rapper than he is a political analyst'

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Voter registration saw a 236 per cent spike on the day Stormzy tweeted in support of Labour (Monday 25 November).

The grime star wrote that he believed Boris Johnson to be a “sinister man” with a “long record of lying and policies that have absolutely no regard for the people that our government should be committed to helping and empowering”.

According to a performance breakdown on the GOV.UK website, 366,000 people registered to vote on Monday, compared to 109,000 the day before.

Some 150,000 of those registration applications were from people under the age of 25, while 114,000 were from those aged 25 to 34.

The figures also show that around the time of Stormzy’s tweet on Monday evening, the number of users on the site jumped by almost 40,000 from 8,296 to 47,920.

Voter registration statistics
Voter registration statistics (Statista)

Alongside Stormzy, artists including Kano, Akala and Professor Green have signed an open letter in support of Labour, put together by the resurfaced Grime4Corbyn movement.

The letter urges voters to back Labour as “they offer an urgent alternative to the destructive policies of the Conservatives” and an end to austerity.

“Ending austerity will, for the first time in many of our lifetimes, use the taxes we all already pay into, to reinvest in the housing, youth clubs, community groups and cultural centres being destroyed by the current government,” the letter declares.

Voting registration for the 2019 general election closes at midnight on Tuesday 26 November.

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