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.

That could apply to all the idiots who think "stopping the boats" is the answer to everything that is wrong with the present.

Perhaps everyone should have to pass an exam to demonstrate they know what is wrong with the present before they are allowed to vote?

When they did it in Austria it didnt sway results to one party, but it did educate their teens.

16 year olds can:

Work full time,
Live independently without parental consent,
Raise children,
Get married/ enter into a civil partnership,
Open bank accounts,
Claim benefits,
Consent to medical/ dental/ surgical treatment.

It's absolutely bonkers that they can do all this but do not get a say in how the country is run.

I thought NF there meant National Front and then I realised it was Nigel Farage. 👀

Not much difference

We do not pick and choose who gets to vote based on their understanding of 'complexities of politics, the economy, the NHS etc'.

We also do not only allow people to vote who support families/ pay rent and mortgages/ work.

If we did, huge swathes of over-18's also wouldn't qualify.

Reform wasn't an option in those years so I'm not sure what your point is?

This will do absolutely nothing for Labour. The beneficaries of the 16-18 vote will be the Greens and Reform.

Then he’ll have to do it regardless of how other parties will benefit.

I also thought he could be trying to ingratiate with the age group as other parties get stronger support. Not sure it’ll do much, they’ll just vote for who they hear from and like.

Fundamentally this is the problem with the voting system - plenty of people are not really competent to vote but my argument would be that if you take the cohort of 16/17 year olds NONE of them are competent to vote. Even the bright and best of them lack experience and understanding of the practicalities of life.

Well I agree that a lot of people look back on the past as a utopia, and that really isn't the case.

OTOH I think that not all changes that happen in our world are for the better. So there is valuable experience in older peoples recollections of how things used to work in society and how it might be better sometimes if we turn back the clock.

An example in modern policy might be council housing. I think few people out there celebrate the demise of the council house. That's something we had in the past and could work again now.

Similarly how some businesses worked before privatisation, eg water companies.

The point is not to look back on the past as a utopia, but not to ignore it as something we can't learn from either.

As a former Labour activist, I fully understand why the party are doing this. It was in their manifesto and it’s very obviously in their political interests to allow 16 & 17 year olds to vote.

Personally, however, this is an issue on which I have changed my mind and I don’t support it. When I was growing up in a small, very working class town in the Midlands in the 1980s, the vast majority of my classmates left school at 16 & started work. They were young adults in all but name, working full time, earning wages which gave them a degree of financial independence from their parents & paying taxes. In that world, I supported lowering the voting age to include them.

But that’s no longer the world we live in. Today’s 16 & 17 year olds are still in FT education & still completely financially dependent on their parents. They are still children and society rightly treats them as such. Voting is for adults, not children.

Also it's dismaying but not surprising that a secondary school head thinks so little of teenagers, given the attitude of secondary schools is to consider them a problem and treat them like felons before they have done anything. They are just meaningless pawns for the pointless layers of academy school chain management to cash in on large public sector salaries and pensions and the braindead teachers who merrily trot along with the system.

Perhaps we might get a better state education system if younger people have their say.

Utter nonsense.

I know 16 and 17 year olds who are smarter and better informed than many over-18's. You don't suddenly become worldly wise and mature when you hit 18.

By your logic, we also shouldn't be allowing people with certain disabilities to vote.

There are so many reasons why this sort of attitude towards voting is wrong, and why we do not and should not enforce these kinds of restrictions based on what we think people know/ understand of the world.

Hope this will balance out all the very old people who have voted the same all their lives without even looking at the issues. Like the ones who voted for Brexit.
Note, I am old. I did not vote for Brexit and neither did any of the relatives an generation older than me.

Exactly that. A cursory scan of some of the comments online shows how woefully ignorant some people are about politics and how society works. I wish voting was being made compulsory like it is in Australia but I guess you can’t have everything.

Absolutely stupid idea, but that’s Labour for you

They can go off to fight for their country though. Can be trusted with a gun but not a pencil and a ballot paper?

Mixed feelings on this but I do wonder if Brexit would have gone ahead if 16/17 year olds could have voted then. My kids were a similar age then and they (and most of their mates) were appalled by it.

I'd also make voting possible online and make it compulsory. If census returns, passports, banking etc can be done online then voting can.

It's only a proposal, may not happen.

I would love to see the voting age raised to 21 because it is true that the 18 month olds are not much better but nothing else in society is restricted at 21 so we have to just get on with it. I just don't think you should be voting if you need someone else to tell you which way to vote - seems unethical to me.

Well, not if their voting intentions are similar to the rest of the 25 and under cohort. Do you have any statistics to back up what you are claiming?

Well hopefully it will prevent the brainwashed Reform disciples from voting in the incompetent Reform!

Under FPTP 16-17yos having the vote is a drop in the ocean. It won't make any difference and any it does will almost all be in favour of minority parties and Reform.

What it will make a difference to is ensuring that most people first become eligible to vote in an election while at school or college which is a huge opportunity to encourage engagement and discussion around voting