Should the UK support EU-led talks with Russia over Ukraine?

Yes carried the day, but only just — 21 votes to 19, a six-point margin that leaves this closer to a coin toss than an endorsement. On a question this fraught, straddling Ukraine, Russia and the credibility of European diplomacy, a near-even split is itself the story.

The real fracture sits in age, not gender. Voters aged 25-34 broke decisively for engagement, 15 yes to 8 no, while the youngest cohort, 16-24, went the other way by nearly three to one, 9 of 13 against. That is a striking reversal for two adjacent generations, and suggests the usual assumption that younger voters lean dovish on foreign policy doesn't hold here — if anything the youngest were the most sceptical of EU-brokered dialogue with Moscow.

Gender told a milder version of the same story, men splitting 60% yes against women's 45%, echoing a pattern seen in other security and defence votes where men tend to back diplomatic engagement more readily than women do. Together the splits point to a chamber uneasy about talking to Russia at all, with only the thirtysomethings offering anything like solid support — a reminder that scepticism of EU-led diplomacy toward Moscow runs deep across the post-Brexit generation as much as it does among Russia hawks.

In the end, Yes won the vote but not the argument.