Europe’s Right-Wing Parties Can’t Afford to Neglect Young People

By Matthew X. Wilson

Friday, April 03, 2026

 

This week, Reform UK, the insurgent right-wing party that continues to maintain a decisive lead in opinion polling ahead of Britain’s next general election, pledged that, if elected, it would oppose any adjustments to the country’s state pension system. Announcing that Reform would leave intact Britain’s “triple-lock” guarantee — the longstanding commitment that state pension payments will increase annually by whichever is the greatest of the annual inflation rate, average earnings growth, or 2.5 percent — Reform leader and odds-on prime ministerial favorite Nigel Farage argued that “[t]he people to whom pensions are being paid, in vast majority, certainly compared to a younger generation today, are those that have actually worked and paid into the system.” 

 

Farage and Robert Jenrick, the party’s spokesman for economic affairs, asserted that the fiscally unsustainable (particularly given Britain’s bleak economic trajectory) triple-lock guarantee could be preserved through a combination of slashing foreign aid, cutting funds spent on housing illegal migrants, and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in public benefits spending. 

 

There’s no doubt that Reform’s announcement made political sense: The triple-lock guarantee is broadly popular among the British public and, unsurprisingly, enjoys colossal support among those aged over 65 (though a plurality of young people have no opinion on it). No major British political party supports abolishing guaranteed annual pension increases. Even the Conservative Party, which has tried to position itself as the right’s fiscally responsible alternative to a supposedly heavy-spending Reform, has stood by the triple lock. 

 

Still, that Britain’s major political parties unanimously support the continuation of guaranteed annual pension increases did not stop Farage’s announcement from being met with a wave of online backlash — particularly from young right-wing voices. Critics observed that young people — already in a historically perilous position in modern Britain, with housing costs at record highs and graduate job postings extraordinarily limited — would singularly bear the long-term cost of keeping the triple lock through higher taxes and increased borrowing. Others noted that retirees’ contributions to the pension system during their working years fell far short of the amount that they are receiving now. 

 

Reform’s commitment to guaranteed pension increases also provided an opening for Restore Britain — a small, breakaway right-wing party that has yet to emerge as a national political force but has amassed a youthful, online, and intensely committed base of support. Restore leader and member of Parliament Rupert Lowe published an open letter to Britain’s young people, arguing that his party was “on your side” and was committed to a “meaningful debate” about the triple lock, which he noted “simply isn’t financially sustainable in its current form.” 

 

“You’re told by people who bought their house for 40k and got university education for free that cutting down on the cappuccinos will solve all of your financial problems,” Lowe wrote. “That’s just not true. The system is crushing you.”

 

Britain is not the only European country in which generational tensions have spilled into politics. France has long been beset by similar debates over reforming the country’s unaffordable state pension system. Last year, the country’s prime minister was forced to resign after the National Assembly moved to oust him for seeking to freeze annual pension increases and allow a raise in the national retirement age from 62 to 64 to move forward.

 

In a series of blistering statements just before he left office, Francois Bayrou blamed “boomers” for bringing France’s politics to a standstill and not permitting the country’s grave financial woes to be seriously addressed. But in France, as it could be in Britain, it was not the tax-and-spend left that blocked the country’s finances from being brought into working order — it was the right-wing National Rally party that provided the crucial legislative votes to block much-needed pension and retirement reforms. 

 

To be sure, National Rally’s moves to court older voters by upholding France’s untenable fiscal status quo could be just enough to propel them into power. Their likely candidate in next year’s presidential election, Jordan Bardella, commands a wide lead in first-round polls and would be the favorite against a hard-left candidate in the runoff.

 

Similarly, it’s increasingly looking as though Britain has but two options at its next general election: a Reform government or Reform-led right-wing coalition with Farage as prime minister, or a hard-left coalition hell-bent on an agenda of mass migration, illiberal multiculturalism, crippling taxation, unsustainable spending, and net-zero authoritarianism that would probably push the country past the point of no return. 

 

It’s a simple reality: The right must win if Britain is to be brought back from the brink, and so Farage must walk through the doors of 10 Downing Street as soon as possible. But if Britain is to be saved, the leaders capable of doing the saving must first be elected — and those leaders must be unflinchingly committed to enacting the policies necessary to do the saving, such as aligning state pension systems with financial and demographic realities.

 

Across the world, the votes of young people have made the crucial difference in elevating right-wing torchbearers of change over the architects and enablers of failed left-wing governance. Donald Trump would not have won the White House in 2024 if not for the enormous and historic gains he made among young voters. In Argentina, Javier Milei rode a wave of youthful dissatisfaction with a corrupt Peronist establishment to capture the country’s presidency. 

 

Whether it’s Britain, France, or elsewhere, Europe’s right-wing parties must be cognizant of the risks and limitations of building an electoral coalition around pension-drawing retirees. Placing the concerns of young people second and selling older voters the fantasy that fiscal status quos can be maintained without change is a recipe for electoral and policy failure.