16 & 17 year olds to be given the vote

[Whereishenow]

Just seen this announcement on BBC now. Amazing news!!! Now we just need to try and get youngsters out USING those votes.

Young voters skew left heavily, in the 18-24 demographic 79% of the votes went to the lib dems, greens or labour.

Young people don't tend to vote for populist twats like Farage.

Does your hatred extent to elderly and disabled people who need help, or is it just a made up stereotype you don’t like?

I wonder if half the people on here realise they are making the EXACT same arguments that people made over a century ago when the suffragettes were campaigning for women to have the vote - the EXACT same arguments.

Hugely disheartening (and unenlightened - which is a polite way of saying 'not applying brain cells'). 16-year olds have been able to vote in Wales since 2021 and guess what it hasn't dismantled our whole political system...

Old enough to go to war (and give their lives), old enough to earn and be taxed (I remember getting my national insurance card a couple of months before my 16th birthday), but apparently not to have a democratic stake in the future of their country...

Yes we need more education in schools - because you can't reply on parents to be politically interested or literate - but it shouldn't be a barrier to encouraging younger people to take an interest in politics - it's their future after all.

No, that isn't what I mean. I mean that she makes more effort to actively inform herself and engage with current affairs and politics.

"No taxation without representation" as the saying goes. The US fought a war and initiated a revolution over this issue.

If 16 and 17 year olds can work and pay taxes then they have a right to vote on how that tax is spent. This is one of the rights of a constitutional democracy.

Yes they are probably too young in maturity levels to vote in some cases but the reality is that some of them will be working and paying taxes, or serving in the military therefore by rights they should also be allowed to vote.

They are also the group most likely to be in daily contact with arsey, gobshitey, irrational, and infuriating 16 and 17 year olds.

This topic has really brought out a lot of ageism against the elderly.

We must be reading different threads

Or Corbyn’s party when set up. That helps other parties too.

I’ve a feeling this might backfire on Labour when they are all voting Reform.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX fair bit, I think the average user is alot older than then media portrayal. Nothing wrong with that but so many references are before my time & Im not young!

Come on people! They will have to use a pencil...no selfies with your voting slip...aint going to happen.

fair point!

They will do at the next election!

True.

Regardless, just because we don't like who people might vote for, doesn't mean they should be denied the vote in the first place.

Otherwise, we should have prevented everyone over 65 voting in the brexit referendum, if we didn't want to leave the EU.

Which can equally said to be true about adults over 18, but we still permit them to vote.

Really support this change. They will be paying for the polices that are implemented by the government. There should be voter education alongside (focused on making your own decisions, not voting for who your parents or mates tell you to).

Young people face high education costs; high housing costs and an uncertain employment environment. They should absolutely be given a say in how the country is run

However, in these scenarios, I think it is expected that the young person will have adults guiding and advising them in these decisions. Of course, that doesn't always happen, in the same way that some teens are politically motivated, and some aren't. It's hard to decide on what they should and shouldn't do at that age simply because the range is still quite large. Some are very sensible and know a lot, some will have life experience and pay attention to what's around them and some will spend all their spare time on TikTok and fart in each other's faces for fun. I think we all hope that by the time people have reached their early 20s they have much more (yes, not all!) universally got their heads out their own arses and are ready to engage with the world

Yep!

DS is 21 this year. He has yet to use his vote. I have tried to encourage him but his answer is that he hasn’t the life experience to confidently vote. His upbringing and education would probably put him firmly right of centre but he wants more time to decide where his affiliation lies. He is a critical thinker and does not feel that any one party provides a firm base for his individual beliefs.

There are plenty of people in their midlife who know nothing about politics and just hate brown people so vote for whatever party blows the loudest dog whistle. Wish they'd be denied the vote tbh. Miles on the clock dont count for much if those miles are spent in a furious social media echo chamber.

Ooooh a lot of haters here. 16 year olds should of COURSE be allowed to vote. In a GE they would be allowed to vote for a government who would set the policies for the next 5 years of their lives. They are embarking on adulthood and facing life changing decisions about higher education, training, careers, travel, relationships, housing, finances… They should be (and hopefully will be) more politically aware and active than a lot of older people whose lives are more stable.

I literally never said that at all. In fact in subsequent posts, I made that abundently clear.

Asking why one persons opinion is more valid than another based on age is a genuine question. Maybe work on your reading comprehension skills.

@Digdongdoo and she does so in the abstract, because she is a child. Hardly any 16 year olds have lives that allow them to critically contextualise whatever information they consume about politics.

Whilst I'm totally for providing children opportunities to become more politically aware, we are light years away from having systems to do that. Simply chucking them a vote is like throwing condoms at them without giving them the supporting social and emotional education that scaffolds safe use of them (for example). This is not about engaging young people, it's about exploiting them

We say 16 year olds are children. So how can they do an adult thing such as voting? Ridiculous. But of course, they are all brainwashed, so it's obvious why this would be a thing.

I wouldn't give my 15 or 17 year olds a vote. They are immature and would vote for whoever tiktok told them too. Labour are obviously worried about Reform.