Almost immediately after the UK general election was announced on 22nd May, the meme wars began. Social media campaigns for both the Labour and Conservative parties shared hundreds of memes, from Labour’s viral TikTok using the English singer and TV presenter ” Surprise ! Surprise ! » by Cilla Black to mock the Conservative Party’s plans compulsory national service at 18, to conservatives TikTok video showing only blank slides titled “Here are all the Labour Party policies.” Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party have all chipped in with their own memes in the run-up to the election; meanwhile, the two leading parties in the polls have engaged in a back-and-forth of “trolling” on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and X.
“Shitposters have become mainstream,” says political strategist Jack Spriggs of Cavendish Consulting, who specializes in TikTok’s influence on politics.
But reactions to the meme wars have varied, especially among Gen Z voters, from amusement to disgust. “Although it does spark conversation, it feels infantilising,” says Maya Hollick, a 20-year-old voter from London. “They’re trivialising a very serious event.”
The Labour Party launched its TikTok account as soon as the July 4 election date was announced and has since gained 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 is even greater. “The most important power of TikTok is not how long it stays on the platform, but how long it travels,” says Hannah O’Rourke, co-founder of Campaign Lab, an organization that studies campaign innovation.
“A meme is a way for the Labour Party to get someone to look at party policy,” says O’Rourke, referring to the viral Labour Party meme. Cilla Black TikTok.
WIRED spoke to students at the University of Bristol, as Bristol Central is a constituency where Labour and the Green Party, which also attract young voters, are leading. (It’s also the university where this author studies.) Some voters, like Ed Sherwin, a 20-year-old student, say they don’t find the memes helpful: “I don’t really use TikTok, but I’ve seen the video,” he says, referring to the Cilla Black meme. “It didn’t make me look at the national service policies though. I did when I saw it on the news.” Sherwin called the memes “a bit pathetic and insensitive given the state of the country.”
Charlie Siret, a member of Extinction Rebellion Youth Bristol, a youth wing of the climate-focused lobby group XR, says he personally thinks Labour 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 have also criticised the simplification of political issues that occurs in the meme format. “The use of memes suggests that young people need a simplified version of politics – we are smarter than they think,” says Grace Shropshire, 21. “Their marketing is fast, loud and short.” Alisha Agarwal, a marketing student, says she “likes the Labour Party, but not the overly simplified way they market their campaign.”
