The EU hopes that Taylor Swift and other pop starlets will come to its rescue in June’s European elections. With pollsters predicting significant gains for the right, Brussels’ ruling elite is preparing to turn to ‘famous artists, actors, athletes and other stars for help’. Their ambition is to persuade these personalities to encourage their young fans to vote in the elections – and to vote for them, the ruling centrist elite.

‘No one can mobilise young people better than young people, that’s how it works,’ said Margaritis Schinas, the EU Commissioner for Promoting the European Way of Life, recently. ‘That works better than commissioners speaking from the press room.’

A generation ago, rockers and movie stars revelled in their rebellious image, but the 21st Century has spawned a new breed of celebrity: bourgeois, bland and excruciatingly conformist. Among the artists on whom the EU is pinning its hopes are Spanish singer Rosalía, the Belgian rapper Stromae and Dua Lipa, the British pop star of Albanian heritage.

The EU elite would love Swift to rally their young against the right

But it is an American that Brussels is banking on. ‘Taylor Swift will be in Europe in May,’ said Schinas, a reference to the European leg of the singer’s world tour. It kicks off on Paris on May 9 and takes in most major European cities, including Stockholm, Lisbon, Madrid and Dublin. Swift emphatically endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 and the Democrats want her to do the same again ahead of November’s presidential election, believing she will mobilise the young to vote against Donald Trump.

The EU elite would love Swift to rally their young against the right. ‘I very much hope that she does the same for young Europeans and I very much hope that someone from her media team follows this press conference and relays this request to her,’ said Schinas.

Evidently, irony is not Schinas’ strong suit or else he would see the absurdity of the EU’s Commissioner for Promoting the European Way of Life begging an all-American gal from Pennsylvania to promote the European way of life.

Schinas wants the continent’s youth to ‘become a wall of democracy… against this wave of populism and hate that threatens to attack Europe. Now it is the moment for [youth] to have a say in the ballot box, to attribute praise or blame on European policies.’

There is a small flaw in Schinas’s cunning plan. If the youth do vote, recent evidence suggests it won’t be for the centrists. The policies Schinas speaks so proudly about, be they economic or on immigration, have not been appreciated by a great many of Europe’s young.

That is why Brussels is so jittery about June’s elections. In his New Year’s Eve message Emmanuel Macron told the French people the elections represented a choice, namely ‘affirm the strength of liberal democracies or give in to the lies that sow chaos.’

The results of two polls published this week in France will not have pleased the president. One revealed that were the European elections to be held tomorrow, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally would romp home, 13 points clear of Macron’s Renaissance party. Macron’s appointment of the 34-year-old Gabriel Attal as his prime minister, intended to excite the nation’s young, is not having the desired effect. The second poll found that if Le Pen and Attal went head to head in the presidential election she would win, even coming out top among the under-35s.

There are, however, two demographics which are proving most resistant to Le Pen and her party: the metropolitan affluent and the retired. The latter have always been the most loyal followers of Macron and without their support he might not have won the 2022 presidential election.

The young, however, particularly in the provinces, are more likely to vote for Le Pen. This should be no surprise. It is as hard for the French young to get on the housing ladder as it is for the British; wages have stagnated and inflation has risen.

This is not just a French phenomenon. Geert Wilders triumphed in last November’s Dutch election with the support of the young, including many students. Insecurity was an issue but so was the housing crisis and the deterioration in health care and public transport.

In 2022, Swedish youngsters voted substantially for the right in their national elections. In the former, the once reviled Swedish Democrats were the second most popular party for the 18-21 demographic, gaining 22 per cent of the vote, a ten percentage point increase on the 2018 election.

A poll of young Italians, carried out by Tecnè in 2021, also revealed that Giorgia Meloni – who would win power the following year – was a big hit with 18 to 21-year-olds: 23 per cent backed her party, while 22 per cent supported her coalition partner, Matteo Salvini’s Lega. This level of support was attributed by some to gloomy attitudes among young people about deteriorating life prospects and a disillusionment with a centrist establishment that had done nothing for them in the preceding decade.

Ditto for Spain, where Vox scored well with the 18- to 24-year-olds in last year’s election, particularly young men. Those least likely to vote for the right-wing party are the over 75s. According to El Pais, two significant reasons for Vox’s popularity among many young are ‘disappointment with a society that had failed to deliver on its promise of welfare’ as well as ‘the rejection of greater European integration’.

Margaritis Schinas is wrong on two counts. He’s mistaken to think that Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa or any other pop star can help the EU construct a ‘wall of democracy’ – and he’s deluded if he believes the young are shifting right out of ‘hate’. It’s hopelessness, not hate, that motivates them.

Like the farmers, the youth of Europe have been abandoned by Brussels and they have lost hope in a Union that no longer appears to act in their interest.

As Taylor Swift once sang, ‘We are never ever getting back together’.