Could Europe's youth protests spread to Britain, according to Alastair Campbell?

Alastair Campbell said the protests across France, Germany and other European countries were too big to dismiss as hard-left agitation, and that the violence and looting in Germany surprised him most. He doubted Britain would see the same violence but warned of a real grievance: graduates sending hundreds of applications that go unanswered or are screened by AI, and no way onto the housing ladder. He is backing a Back Young People Now campaign launching on 9 November with Richard Layard and Gus O'Donnell.

• Rory Stewart compared the spread across borders to the Arab Spring and suspected social media plays a part.
• Stewart noted Britain gives about a third of Germany's support for young people not in education, employment or training, yet Germany still has riots.
• Campbell pointed to Alan Milburn's coming report on young people out of work as a test for Andy Burnham's government.

▸In their words

“what it does to me is remind me of the Arab Spring” Rory Stewart · at 1:00:37 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Rest Is Politics (2026-11-03). Read the whole episode summary →

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