Britain’s Labour Party is winning the meme wars, but young voters think it’s all incredibly embarrassing

Almost as soon as the UK general election was called on May 22, the meme war began. Social media campaigns from both the Labour and Conservative parties shared hundreds of memes, from the Labour Party’s viral TikTok using the British singer and TV presenter “Surprise! Surprise!” by Cilla Black to mock the Conservative Party’s plans compulsory national service at age 18, for the Conservative Party The TikTok video simply shows blank slides titled “Here are all the Labour Party’s policies”. Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party have each contributed their own share of memes in the build-up; meanwhile, the two parties leading in the polls have engaged in back-and-forth “trolling” on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and X.

“People posting nonsense have become commonplace,” said political strategist Jack Spriggs of Cavendish Consulting, who studies TikTok’s influence on politics.

But reactions to the meme war have been mixed, especially among Gen Z voters, ranging from amusement to disgust. “Even though it’s sparked conversation, it’s being seen as childish,” said 20-year-old voter Maya Hollick of London. “They’re trivializing a very serious event.”

The Labour Party launched its TikTok account shortly after the July 4 election date was announced and has since amassed more than 200,000 followers, with hundreds more videos than any other party. Many of its posts have more than a million views, but its reach extends even further. “TikTok’s most important strength is not how long it stays on the platform, but how far it travels,” says Hannah O’Rourke, co-founder of Campaign Lab, a campaign innovation think tank.

“Memes are the Labor Party’s way of getting someone to consider party policy,” O’Rourke said, referring to the Labor Party’s viral meme Cilla Black’s TikTok.

WIRED spoke to students at the University of Bristol, with Bristol Central being a constituency where Labour and the Green Party, which also attract young voters, are leading. (This is also the university where this writer attends.) Some voters, like Ed Sherwin, a 20-year-old student, said they didn’t find the meme helpful: “I don’t really use TikTok but I watched that video,” he said, referring to the Cilla Black meme. “It didn’t make me look up national service policies, though. I did when I saw it on the news.” Sherwin labeled the memes “a bit pathetic and insensitive given the state of the country.”

Charlie Siret, a member of Extinction Rebellion Youth Bristol, a youth branch of climate-focused campaign group XR, said he personally thought the Labour memes were “blatant and embarrassing” and “showed a complete lack of self-awareness”, while the Conservative memes were “a half-hearted attempt to appeal to a generation that largely despises them”.

Some have also criticised the simplification of political issues in meme format. “The use of memes implies that young people need a simplified version of politics – we’re smarter than they think,” said Grace Shropshire, 21. “Their marketing is fast, loud and short.” Marketing student Alisha Agarwal said she “likes the Labour Party, but doesn’t like how simplistic their campaign marketing is.”