Almost immediately after 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 Labour’s viral TikTok using English singer and TV presenter Cilla Black’s “Surprise! Surprise!” to mock the Conservative Party’s plans for mandatory national service at the age of 18, to the Tories’ TikTok video showing only blank slides titled “Here are all of Labour’s policies.” Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party have contributed their own share of memes in the lead-up; meanwhile, the two leading parties in the polls have been engaged in a “trolling” back and forth on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and X.
“The shitposters have gone mainstream,” says political strategist Jack Spriggs from Cavendish Consulting, who specializes in TikTok’s influence on politics.
But reactions to the meme war have been a mixed bag, particularly among the Gen Z electorate, ranging from amused to disgusted. “Although conversation provoking, it reads as infantilizing,” says 20-year-old voter Maya Hollick from London. “They’re trivializing a very serious event.”
The Labour Party launched its TikTok account as soon as the election date of July 4 was announced, and has gained more than 200,000 followers since then, with hundreds more videos than any other party. Many of its posts have more than a million views, but its reach spans even further. “The most important power of TikTok isn’t how much it stays on the platform, but how much it travels,” says Hannah O’Rourke, cofounder of Campaign Lab, an organization that researches campaign innovation.
“A meme is Labour’s way of getting somebody to look into party policy,” O’Rourke says, referencing Labour’s viral Cilla Black TikTok.
WIRED spoke to students from the University of Bristol, with Bristol Central being a constituency where Labour and the Green Party, which also appeals to young voters, are frontrunners. (It is also the university where this writer studies.) Certain voters like Ed Sherwin, a 20-year-old student, say they don’t find memes useful: “I don’t really use TikTok but I did see the video,” he says, referencing the Cilla Black meme. “However, it didn’t make me go and look at the national service policies. I did that when I saw it on the news.” Sherwin labeled the memes “kind of pathetic and insensitive considering the state of the country.”
Charlie Siret, a member of Extinction Rebellion Youth Bristol, one youth branch of the climate-focused pressure group XR, says that they personally think Labour’s memes “are transparent and embarrassing” and “show a complete lack of self-awareness,” while Conservative memes are “a half-hearted attempt to appeal to a generation that largely despises them.”
Some also critiqued the simplification of political issues that happens in the meme format. “The use of memes infers that young people need a simplified version of politics—we are more intelligent than they give credit for,” says Grace Shropshire, 21. “Their marketing is quick, loud, and short.” Marketing student Alisha Agarwal says she “likes Labour, but not the oversimplified way they’re marketing their campaign.”
Although many strategists say Labour’s campaign has been successful due to its simplicity—particularly as they’ve centered their campaign around the word “change”—even researchers think memes could be a step too far. “When politics is ‘memefied,’ it is drastically oversimplified,” says Samuel Woolley, an associate professor in journalism and media who directs a propaganda research lab at the University of Texas at Austin. “At its worst, this allows for insult politics, misleading messages, and sensational issues to take center stage.”
Gen Z users of social media have also highlighted the outdated meme formats and templates employed by the Labour Party, like the Ghost Car meme from 2005 that they put Rishi Sunak’s face on, posted on X just over a week ago. “Labour really misses the mark when it comes to their audience,” says Alex McDermott, a politics undergraduate at the University of Bristol. “They’re millennial in their delivery. It doesn’t translate well. My sister who is 19 said the memes are so weird and cringe.”
Some, like 20-year-old Emily Taylor, don’t like what they perceive as mudslinging in this meme war. “[The Labour Party] should focus more on actual policies and less on making fun of Tories—the Conservative Party manage that on their own without Labour’s help.”
Quin Lievesley, a member of the University of Bristol’s Labour Club, feels differently. “I know some people find the memes a bit tiresome, but they are a vessel for the message that Labour is saying to the country,” he says, arguing that they could be seen as the virtual version of leaflets or doorstep conversations with the electorate.
Targeting the youth vote using what parties think is their own language makes strategic sense. Only 47 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 voted in the 2019 general election. This number is likely to decline further this year: By the registration deadline on June 18, only half of people between the ages of 18 and 25 were registered compared to the 2019 equivalent period, with just 746,000 Gen Z voters registering to vote compared to 1.4 million in the lead-up to the previous general election.
Like them or not, memes have made an impact.
Despite the critiques, the Labour Party’s memes have had a wide reach—16 of its TikTok videos exceed 1 million views. Recently, Labour parodied the viral “looking for a man in finance” song to accompany a video of Keir Starmer, with lyrics saying “I’m looking for a new prime minister, big plans, good vibes, change lives,” and using TikTok influencers such as @girl_on_the_couch to expand their campaign. The video has been viewed more than 600,000 times.
“I found the memes annoying at first, but they have grown on me,” says Finley Cooper, a 19-year-old student from Greater Manchester. “I know a bunch of people who are pretty politically apathetic, yet have been reposting Labour’s TikTok memes. It genuinely gets conversation started between young people, widens the engaged electorate and creates a more accessible and engaging (if oversimplified) synoptic view of policies.”
“Labour’s strategy has been to get young people to vote at all, because all the evidence suggests that if young people vote, they disproportionately vote Labour,” says Jim Murphy, a former Labour MP and current chief executive at communication company Arden Strategies. He believes that the meme campaign has been less about persuading young voters on policy and more about engagement, registration, and turnout.
“Labour already has overwhelming support from young voters when they’re polled,” says Sam Jeffers, executive director and cofounder of Who Targets Me, an organization that researches political campaigns and adverts. “It’s just about whether those young voters turn up.”
Gen Z voters are still most likely to vote for Labour, according to a Statista poll on June 11 which showed that 43 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 24 plan to vote for the party—a drop from the 57 percent YouGov prediction from May, but still the largest draw for that demographic.
Young voters, however, may not be the campaign’s end goal. “The Labour Party is targeting this middle ground of elder Gen Zs and millennials,” says Cavendish’s Spriggs. This may be why certain younger Gen Z-ers think Labour’s social media game lacks relevance. “Because Labour is so far ahead in polls, they don’t feel the need to do anything that is new or controversial,” says political strategist Lee Whitehill, director of communications at Whitehouse Communications. “I suspect that’s why they’re relying on older memes.”
Though many young voters don’t enjoy the Labour Party’s use of memes, the campaign has sparked significant engagement and has allowed the party to remain relevant in an election where many assume a Labour victory. “Talking to Labour’s own strategists, they are very pleased with how the social media game has played out,” says Arden’s Murphy. “However, is it consequential? Is it game changing? We will only know that after election day.”