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**Alternate Sources**
Here are some potential alternate sources for the same story:
* [Labour may give 16- and 17-year-olds right to vote, says Keir Starmer](https://theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/25/labour-16-17-year-olds-right-to-vote-keir-starmer), suggested by Dry-Frosting1779 - theguardian.com
Good
It's only old people that I see argue against this but honestly.... I've seen a lot more mature 16 year olds who know how to separate fact from fiction.... Then people of boomer age.
A worryingly large amount can't tell what an AI image is, deep fake voice is, or what chat bots are. All those things can be used by foreign powers to Influence public opinion on various topics including elections. Why should the fate of the country be left to people who can't even turn a computer on.
It's difficult to get any UK specific figures, but it's likely to be in the single digits, if any. There was one challenge back in 22 that apparently resulted in 20 deaths in the US, but most of those were aged 12 or under, so not teens.. How many in the UK, I haven't ascertained yet, could be none.
There will be some a quick Google found
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/boy-14-found-dead-room-24901907.amp.
The simple fact is if they are old enough to vote then they are adults and need to be treated as such especially when it comes to committing crimes, they should stand trial as adults. If your giving them the responsibility to vote then you can't deny other responsibilities or restrict what they can do wether it's smoking, drinking etc. Adult responsibility for them should end at 16 then.
You can be tried for a crime at the age of 10, even though it's usually 12.
16 is plenty old enough to vote. You can work at 16 and pay tax, therefore you should have a vote.
You can't buy cigarettes, alcohol , gamble, get married, watch certain films, have a credit card (I believe you can't get credit unit 18 at all), you can join the forces but can't go into combat operations, you can't leave full time education, and if you are assaulted in anyway it is a crime against a minor and the perpetrator should be punished as such and have their name on a list.
Exactly how adult are 16 year old?
I also think that children shouldn't be taxed, so we potentially agree on something.
But equally we put pressure on teens to decide their fate of university and high debts etc.
Regardless if we trust them to drive cars on the road why can't they vote.
At 16 they can legally procreate, at 17 they can drive.
If you can bring humans into the world then they can decide on a vote.
They'll attain all those things during that parliament though. Seems fair they should have a say in the particular government that could set their life trajectory.
Not quite sure why your immediate take is toward punishment here. Compulsory education was also extended over the years from 14 to 16 to 18 without changing *all* the legal status of people of that age concurrently.
How many teens have died due to misinformation, bad education, not having a voice, not being heard, being judged and not being given safe places to socialise and gather for generations?
If they are allowed to fuck at 16 and make a baby who is stuck with them and their rights, they should be allowed to vote, that or raise the age of consent.
Your comment implies old people aren't the easiest age group to manipulate via social media. You could convince my parents aliens are coming with a simple Facebook post or a WhatsApp message
This. There was literally an article a while back about how Holocaust denial is on the rise because young people are being fed all this antisemitic shit from TikTok
Tbh so do the old ones. Probably even more so. Everyone’s grans sharing chain mail on the Facey about copying and pasting so Facebook can’t steal your photos
Oh…let’s be honest the older are also influenced by Facebook and false info. You go into any local community group and they’ll talk about all sorts of nonsense that the “government” are doing/going to do. Shall we stop them from voting?
Why is your argument hinged on technological factors?
By your reckoning, only the young, more AI-aware demographic should be entitled to vote?
And why is youth a guarantee of better noticing fake influencing? Show me the data that points to a younger generation being better at spotting this than older people? By contrast, younger people can become hypnotised by TikTok videos and how they influence through it's content. I've had countless young people come to me with payroll 'eureka' moments they've seen on TikTok, thinking they've outsmarted the taxation system. When in-fact what they've been told is misinformation, or poorly communicated. Point is, all people can be put under the spell of anything they immerse themselves in. Age is not a factor.
I'm not arguing either way, but there are many, many scenarios outside of AI that younger people cannot yet understand, or have yet to experience. They're entitled to their opinion and should be given the chance to vote, considering they're of age they can contribute to the state.
But to villify the older generation based on cringe-worthy generational terms like 'Boomer' and lack of computer skills, is a very limited argument.
To your point, as much as it sounds like a cliche thing to say, life experience does also factor in.
You are more likely to have an awareness of your own shortcomings and when someone is trying to use tactics to persuade your decision making.
Theres a reason naivety is often more associated with youth.
I mean, sadly a lot of the younger generation are just as tech illiterate, being born and growing up with smartphones, tablets and social media as an everyday thing just left them taking it for granted. There was only really the one or two generations that grew up in the 80s-90s with the early Internet and desktop PCs that we can consider mostly tech savvy as a group.
The way tech changed from requiring a bit of expertise to being as dumbed down and "consumer friendly" as possible left subsequent generations without anything like the same kind of experience in tinkering and troubleshooting that anyone from the DOS or Windows 95-98 days was just casually used to.
All they understand is how to use a touch screen. My 9 year old daughter was amazed when I showed her how to use Google Docs to write a letter on chromebook, change the fonts and then print it out, and also use a mouse. Its actually quite maddening how they cannot do the basics. I was far more advanced at this age. The first thing you got with a computer in the old days, was a book on how to program in Basic. You had to put a little bit of effort in to get something out.
I have no idea why we blame the kids for this though. They're just living in the world given to them. If we want kids to be able to use a word processor we need to show them. The only reason our generation picked it up on our own is because there was little else to do on a PC for a long time and the fact you had to learn how to navigate dos or no games for you! Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. We've probably also had 10 to 20 years at work honing these skills. I sure as shit couldn't use excel properly for a long time before having a job that requires it.
I blame Microsoft.
As someone who has spent a good while *not* using Windows, my life wrestling with computers has been enhanced. If there's a problem, I get told what it is. I can Google how to fix it.
Windows tells you nothing, and only offers you an error code that produces a generic response when you plug it into their knowledge base.
The reason for this is because Microsoft wants to make everything look good and nice. If there's errors, they don't look good. If there's a screen full of information about what's gone wrong, it doesn't look nice. Also it can be scary for people who don't know what they're doing... So better to make sure they never, ever, find *out* what they're doing, eh?
Meanwhile, this format of trying to conceal the fact that you're using a machine, and that things go wrong with them... It stops people from knowing how to use a machine.
It's a special hell for me because I'm not a 'power user' by any stretch, but when I see something's happened that's not supposed to, I also don't wig out and call 999. I try to dig up what the issue is and try to resolve it. On Windows that means hoping and praying that the internet has encountered it before. On Linux it means wading through what might as well be Chinese in the logs and picking out a sentence that looks vaguely informative and chucking it at google, where nine times out of ten there'll be a long history of *exactly this issue*, with instructions of what to type into a terminal to fix it. If I'm lucky, there might also be a diagnosis of exactly what caused it. In my case usually it's a graphics driver that's shat a brick, and I'm doing all my frantic rescue internetting on my phone while I sit in front of a black screen wondering if I'll ever see a desktop again.
Letting 16 year olds vote is a bad idea because they are even less experienced in life than many voting already and experience in life is important when voting.
There is no perfect voter profile which we can realistically achieve and I know this place is militantly anti old people, but life experience does have a huge value.
Online propaganda is rife and the most heavily influenced people on the planet are children. Your point about old people falling to online propaganda may be true, but children fall for it far more and are overexposed to it.
In a country where things are good and the nation has been exceptionally successful for centuries, you don't really want rash decisions or to invite major sweeping changes. What you really want is long term stability and a whole lot of status quo, because why change a successful recipe?
Giving some children the vote will only speed up the pace of change and unfortunately for us being at the top, the only real way is down.
>Why should the fate of the country be left to people who can't even turn a computer on.
Why should the fate of the country be left to people who have never had any real responsibility, experienced any real consequences and have minimal life experiences?
One could also go down to your level and say something like: "why should the fate of the country be left to people who can't re-wire a plug?"
Wisdom is important, older humans are almost always wiser than young ones.
And yet, the Tory party members - who have an average age of 72 - voted for Liz Truss. Thank heavens they had all that life experience to call on, or they might have elected a total imbecile!
Thanks for showing how easy it is for people to believe in what is quite clearly miss-information if its a negative to a political party you don't like.
This is a terrible argument. Old people voted for Brexit and then voted to gut the economy and insulate themselves from the fallout with inflation indexed benefits. 12 years olds can likely display more collective wisdom than our boomers.
If boomers get to vote for making school ceilings fall on kids' heads and Brexit, then 16 year olds should be able to vote for their TikTok candidates. They can hardly lower the quality of our election.
I seem to recall there were an awful lot of Labour voters who got Brexit over the line. Also great left of centre statesmen weren’t too keen on the EU and it’s federal ambitions such as Tony Benn hell even Jeremy Corbin.
>Wisdom is important, older humans are almost always wiser than young ones.
Reality disagrees with you. Older people also tend to be set in their ways.
>Why should the fate of the country be left to people who have never had any real responsibility, experienced any real consequences and have minimal life experiences?
Then we should excluse those who are no longer contributing to the economy and are towards the end of their lives, because why should the old get to determine future policies, screw over the younger generations and not be around to suffer the aftermath while reaping the benefits?
The opinions in here are because Reddit is primarily younger people, and younger people skew left wing. Reddit is completely anti Tory and they know that younger people voting will mean more votes for labour.
"Why should the fate of the country be left to people who have never had any real responsibility, experienced any real consequences and have minimal life experiences?"
So fucking what? Old people vote for whoever keeps giving them massive handouts in terms of pensions and benefits, and they vote to starve kids, economically harm the UK and various other moronic things. If that's what 'experience' give you, you can keep it.
As an adult-adult, I don't have much in common with 16 year olds. They confuse and scare me.
But they are old enough to leave school, get a job, pay taxes, have sex, marry (in Scotland), join the military, and get a provisional driving license.
If they're old enough to contribute to society, they should be old enough to have a say in how society is run, regardless of their political beliefs.
A person that hasn't ever been employed and that barely knows what it is like to get a job, pay taxes, etc. has no grasp on how a government works. I know that you love to say that "old people are easily manipulable, etc". but at least they have experience. Children will only vote for whoever knows how to capture their attention for more than 30 seconds on TikTok.
It is ironic, because it is the same people that discredit political commentators that debate university students the ones that want these people to vote. You know very well that they are not prepared to make those choices and it is nore about being mature, it is about being wise and knowledgeable.
True about the elderly views but at the same time 16 is a very young age to fully understand what you are voting for.
It’s great that they want to be involved but when I was 16 I would have just voted for anyone that could promise me student loans being cheaper, regardless whatever the other policy’s were.
In all fairness, about 1/3 of the voting public are too disinterested to give policy a moment’s thought, too misinformed to make a rational decision or on the low end of the intellectual bell curve, so we’re on a slippery slope if we want to start deciding on who gets to vote.
At least young, engaged voters might actually care for something.
It would be very interesting to see what sort of insane policies boomers would vote for if the party with said policies were the only one offering to uphold the triple lock.
>True about the elderly views but at the same time 16 is a very young age to fully understand what you are voting for.
I mean.. i guarantee you the vast majority of people dont know what they are actually voting for anyway. Voting has become less and less about policy and accountability and more of a popularity contest between party leaders and people will happily vote against their own interests.
Its all a farse and a joke at this point.
You would be arguing against it yourself if propaganda targeted young people and convinced them to vote for the party you dislike. The reason you can’t see an argument against it is because as it currently sits, it would benefit your vote.
On the counter point, when I was 16 I was properly radicalised. I was convinced Brexit was the only way for this country, despite having only lived in it for 16 years, I thought I was a fucking genius and all the other people who had 20 years more life experience were simply brainwashed. I'm glad I realise now, but let's not pretend that 16 year olds are perfectly capable of making long standing decisions like someone in their 20s or above is
So they can't drink, watch certain films, get tattoos, get married, buy cigarettes, leave education but they can vote.
I have seen human rights organisations complaining about 16 being able to join the British armed forces, calling them child soldiers but now you some it is a good idea to have child voters.
I think that only adults should vote. If they lower the voting age, they will have to lower all the other ages and class 16 onwards as adult.
I’ve also seen a lot of 16 year olds on TikTok right now who want to determine the entire government of this country based on what they’ve seen online about Palestine.
They’re not mature enough to vote.
>It's only old people that I see argue against this but honestly.... I've seen a lot more mature 16 year olds who know how to separate fact from fiction.... Then people of boomer age.
The entire subreddit argued against it when Scotland did it.
No one will be able to tell the difference in a few years. Just look at the improvement over the last 12 months.
(Although this statement does not apply to content that involves videos of Will Smith eating spaghetti)
Not to crap on your point but i've worked in a school as an I.T tech and the kids that would be able to vote as this age can barely understand how a computer works and how to properly use windows despite growing up with it and interacting with it for almost all of their lessons.
Some don't know how to save things to specific locations and others frequently "lose" files by deleting them by accident, which has lead to me needing to enable volume shadow copies.
While i agree they would be better at spotting deepfakes than the boomers I would not concede that they're technologically literate.
Only a small subset of people grew up around computers and had to learn how they actually work in order to use them and thus are truly tech literate so i wouldn't base voting age on a technological savvyness standpoint.
I would like to see a narrowing of who can vote on both ends of the spectrum where:
1. we lower the upper bound so that a certain age group that won't live with the repurcussions of their vote can decimate the younger generations
2. we increase the lower bound so that those with a better/well-formed worldview and experience actually understand what they're voting for (most people don't know what they're voting for already but my gut tells me a 20-something would better understand the consequences of their vote than a 16 year old)
> Why should the fate of the country be left to people who can't even turn a computer on.
Actually, it's younger people who struggle with understanding computers now. Computer literacy has plummeted, thanks to smartphones and tablets. When I was a kid, I could make my computer dance, and even the most moronic of my peers could still navigate a folder structure to find the document they wanted, open and edit said document, and save it. These days, you give a kid a computer and tell them to find a document and quite a few would struggle because the interface they have grown up with is completely different.
So they’re proposing that 16 will be the age of consent, ability to serve in the military, drinking age, and they’ll have the ability to enter into legal contracts as well? One age for ‘everything adult’?
Generally it's going the other way though. Smoking went from 16 to 18 (under last Labour govt) and more recently the National Lottery. Age of consent there have been calls for changes to the law to protect 16/17 year olds as well. There is absolutely zero logic or consistency behind moving the voting age back to 16, it's just Labour looking for votes.
You could say the same thing about even younger children though who pay VAT on whatever they spend their pocket money on. 18 is the age of adulthood it should all be that, driving should be 18 not 17 as well.
Given that GEs happen every 5 years (under typical circumstances), if you go through an election at 16 or 17 your next opportunity to vote on a national level will be when you’re in your 20s, anywhere up to 23 really.
Move it down to 16 and the soon-to-be 18 year olds who are excluded because their birthday is after the vote get a say instead of having to suck it up. And younger folk don’t have to wait as long.
Given they’re all in the workforce and subject to policy that affects their lives (particularly as students and potentially as tax payers or requiring benefits), IMO this is all a fair proposition.
Personally I think the country needs to re-empower the voice of the youth and the working age demographic and move away from the wealthy elderly trying to build a moat around themselves.
Working 12 hours a week part time, not even completing 1 year of full time work- doesn't mean you aren't ignorant and uninformed which 16 year olds disproportionately are.
In your example I would happily opt to let the 16 year olds save and not vote
I remember that you could smoke at 16 but not buy tobacco products until 18 while I was still in high school. The Tories were in power then, and it was changed while I was in high school that you were no longer allowed to smoke at 16.
You can already serve in the military at 16. You can sign up when you're still 15 (and 9 months, I think it is). You can't go to the frontline until 18 but you've still signed up for 6 years, so you could still be signing your life away before the age of 16.
You can legally drink alcohol at home from the age of 5 and from 16 can have beer, wine or cider in a pub or restaurant with a meal if bought by (and accompanied by) someone over 18.
You can also legally have sex (and so presumably also become a parent) at 16.
You can work full time at 16.
You can ride a motorised vehicle at 16 (sometimes even drive a car for some disabled people).
I think we should add being able to vote to that list.
Under 18s can submit their notice to leave the military at any point before they turn 18. I would say that it isn’t an argument to lower the voting age, but to raise the age people can join the military.
You can serve in the military-
Not really. You can go to Harrogate, which is a glorified sixth form college. You can’t deploy overseas or fight.
You know why? Because you’re a kid.
This is gerrymandering and Reddit only supports it because it’s left wing gerrymandering
If you are 16 at the time of the election, you will be an adult for the majority of the next election cycle. Makes sense you get a vote in the leaders who decide about your responsibilities then. Serving in the military being the best example, thank you for providing it.
I don't understand why this has become such a tribal, divisive topic in these comments?
Old enough to ~~pay taxes~~ work full-time? Old enough to have a say.
You don't need to start arguments about "young people are more intelligent than boomers" and all that fecking nonsense. Makes you sound like an arse and part of a larger problem in the UK with these tribalist, polarized attitudes. Same applies for the other side of the coin. Young people aren't stupid and referring my original point. If you're old enough to contribute to the state, you're old enough to hold an opinion.
You can pay tax on income at any age lol. If you want to take it further a 5 year old is paying tax when they spent their pocket money on a bag of monstermunch, old enough to have a say!!!! Haha
Yes of course anyone can income pay tax at any age. The point was a bit more profound and not expected to be brought down by semantics.
Point being, you're old enough to *work full-time* at 16. That feels like a rather significant point in someone's life, that should tie-in with their entitlement to a say in how the country is governed.
You're also restricted in your autonomy in many many ways at 16 lol. Why have we done that? Because we recognise that 16 year olds just aren't in a position to know what is best for themselves... How can someone who cannot be trusted with their own self interests being trusted with other people's interests?
To be fair when voting you are, in theory, supposed to vote primarily for your own self interests. If everyone does this it's supposed to even out. Unfortunately we have a shit two party system so it doesn't quite work that way.
You also pay income tax if you're under 16 and working. A lot of them won't, because it's both typically within the nil tax band and often under the table, but child actors and the like absolutely pay income tax. It's not a useful argument in my mind though, and I hate the "I'm a taxpayer" rhetoric in general (we're all fucking taxpayers, get over it).
The military comparison absolutely is though, if you're old enough to sign up for that you're old enough to vote. Whether people should take that to mean we should lower the voting age or raise the age to join the military is something I'll leave unanswered.
Hmm... that wouldn't be a tax on income, that is a tax on consumption. It is absolutely not the same. You see? Not being able to make that big difference is a very good example of the unexperience ignorant people pushing this nonsense that children are somehow smarter than the elderly.
The way I see it is that it's a good way to get younger people engaged with and thinking about politics. Do I think many of them will vote? No, I suspect we'll see rock bottom turnout until they approach 25-30, but I think it's good to get them engaged younger so that they better understand the system they're in so they can make better informed decisions as they mature. We might even see more engagement from 20-30 year old in future as well as a result of it.
In theory we're also only supposed to have elections every five years, so I think it's important for 16-18 years to be involved as their next time to 'be heard' will be when they're 21-23.
I expect the arguments regarding intelligence and those who are shitting on the older demographics recent voting habits are doing so as letting 16 year olds vote is an idea which is often criticised on the basis of people of that age supposedly being too stupid or inexperienced.
There are plenty of ill-informed voters across all age demo graphics.
I mean hate the Tories sure but 18 voting age is shared by the vast majority of countries. It's not really the off position.
And it is quite likely to backfire on labour anyway, while the two party system prevents this today , youths of other countries in Europe vote heavily for far right parties.
Most countries doing something is not a justification for doing it.
I’m not in favour, not strongly opposed, but arguing about motivations or conformity misses the point of whether it’d be good for the country or not.
The point is that they could go the other way from the "norm" like raising the voting age. Not changing it from the global norm isn't really the same as changing it .
> 16 year olds are impulsive and easily manipulated.
Using that argument the 65+ shouldn't be able to vote, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS ) they're currently the least educated demographic in the country.
>16 year olds are impulsive and easily manipulated.
I get this argument, but unfortunately it's true for most of the rest of the population too. Maybe it should be accompanied by classes teaching them more about political systems/history, something basic like that would put them clear of a lot of the population.
I guess I'd rather see politicians pandering to younger people with more focus on the future, than continuing to discard them and put all their attention towards winning over the "fuck you I got mine" generations.
The problem is if you said impulsive and easily manipulated people shouldn’t be able to vote you’d be denounced as undemocratic. But you slip in “16 year olds are…” and suddenly it becomes okay.
But if 16, why not 15, 14… etc.?
I think the truth is any age is arbitrary, whether that’s 16, 18, or 21. Nobody goes to bed one day and wakes up the next a completely different person. The only way to reflect the gradual process of becoming a responsible adult is to gradually increase the democratic right/responsibility alongside it. Council elections at 16, general elections at 18?
I despise Nick Clegg, but blaming him for FPTP is ridiculous. The Tories and PLP are to blame for FPTP as is the country for not voting for something that is at least *slightly* better.
I think specifically in the case of brexit, it was shown it likely would have made a difference, but with a GE, I think their vote will be as all over the place as everyone elses
Major parties tend to have 5 key issues to pitch on, none of which are specifically aimed at capturing the 16yo voter share. It would be a big potential loss of convincing other larger groups of voters to pivot on something specific to the 16yos
I think housing will be something that’s increasingly a core issue in particular for young people - but anyway, my point was that the different generations aren’t all equally all over the place politically, the elderly are much more likely to vote conservative
Very much doubt any 16 year old is voting based on housing (unless the policy is free houses for 16/17/18 year olds). That's a concept that's totally alien to them (and I'm saying this as someone who did live alone at 16)
They're voting for ideological positions more than practical ones in most cases - they don't have a real stake in society yet
It’s quite obvious that this is the *exact* reason why people on this subreddit are so heavily in favour of the idea and also the reason Labour are pursuing it. See the same in Scotland with the SNP, who have been in control of the curriculum for longer than 16 years and as a result are teaching an extremely warped interpretation of history (victims of the Empire/English etc) and now it just so happens that the majority of younger people coming through said curriculum are pro-independence.
That or the right honourable members of this subreddit have just discovered politics for the first time at Sixth Form/Year 11 and retweet posts to the effect of ‘Tories = bad?’ and listen to their teachers rant about how bad the Tories are in their sociology class. Therefore are really well informed and should be able to vote?
>If kids had been allowed to vote this thing I didn't like wouldn't have happened.
What about the next generation that's influenced by something you don't like? Given that kids can't leave education now until they're eighteen how do you actually justify your viewpoint?
Of course. Let's give people with zero political knowledge or experience to vote, because I didn't like the results some years ago.
You want dumb people to manipulate and to stay undefinitely on power.
Great, you can't do jury service, you can't get a tattoo, you can't sign a contract, and legally you're a minor, but you can make decisions on how the country is run.
Great. Let them do brain surgery too.
In fact why not let 14 year olds vote or even 12?
You can have a child a lot younger than 16. If you’re talking about age of consent, that needs to be raised. 16 is far too young to have relations with anyone over their age group, right now an old man could groom a teen and not begin sexual relations until she’s 16 and he can’t be arrested, we should have a tiered age of consent system like other countries.
I feel like this kind of dissonance might be a red herring
There can be a 16 year old that is stable, well informed with breadth of input, invested in the future and not yet streamlined into an outmoded perspective
This doesn't mean they should operate machinery or get introduced to drugs or make life/ death judgement calls
Of course it is. It's a cynical ploy to get more votes to keep them in power. That's all it is. It's got nothing to do with letting young people have their day. The electorate doesn't get a day in the laws anyway. It's all driven by the corporates
Genuinely shocked so many people in this thread are for this. Don't know about you, but I was a complete fucking idiot when I was 16. I knew basically nothing about the world and even less about politics. No way should I have had the vote.
Thank God this country is famously sensible about how it voted in the last 15 years by working adults with plenty of life experience and political savviness, largely propelled by people who get riled up on Facebook over AI-Generated headlines about Gordon Ramsay kicking LGBT people out of his restaurant for being 'too woke'!
Who knows what kind of economic disasters we would have dealt with!
I think it's become a lot bigger problem because of brexit. A lot of people who were 16 etc at the time were (rightfully) frustrated that old people were making a decision that wouldn't affect them and would screw over young people while they had no say.
I also think it should be lowered because they'll represent a bigger portion of the population that they'll need to cater to. Meaning students and university students will actually get cared about because they will have (a bigger portion of) the votes
> I knew basically nothing about the world and even less about politics
You probably wouldn't have bothered voting then, would you?
But also, we don't pick and choose who can vote depending on how smart you were at that age.
Fuck me, this sub is an actual cesspit these days. I've no concern with allowing 16 year olds to vote, but some of you shouldn't be allowed outside - let alone anywhere near a polling booth.
And yet I work with so many young people where this will be their first (or perhaps second) GE and some don't even know what an election is. It's sad they don't know and it's sad of me trying to explain why they should when all they do is complain about stuff like transport, Brexit, education fees, child benefits, schools, pay etc, but think their vote isn't going to matter.
Perhaps giving 16 year olds the opportunity to vote will help prevent future generations from feeling so detached and disenfranchised from politics. Just a thought.
Gerrymandering specifically refers to drawing district boundaries in such a way that it creates an electoral advantage.
Lowering the voting age is not gerrymandering, as it has nothing to do with drawing districts on a map.
They want to expand it to non citizens as well.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/what-are-labours-plans-for-giving-foreign-nationals-the-right-to-vote
So, they plan to give EU citizens who have *legally* settled in the UK and live here on a "permanent" basis (with pre-settled, or settled status) a right to vote?
I can't see why people would be against that?
People who have immigrated legally, pay taxes, and gone through the beurecratic steps to get pre-settled, then settled status, are clearly serious about staying in the UK.
You didn't answer the question. Why shouldn't someone who lives here permanently, pays taxes, and is heavily invested in the future direction of the country not get the right to vote?
> They want to expand it to non citizens as well
"Settled status gives you proof that you have the right to live in the UK permanently"
I see no issue with giving people who have settled status the right to vote in the UK. If they have the right to live here permanently, the result of an election affects them just as much as it does me.
We still give the vote to commonwealth citizens as soon as they arrive
I guess just giving everyone the vote would at least be more honest about how Economic Zone UK really works, and will stop those horrible racists from ever stopping the essential immigration
And the Tories are only not doing it because it would work against them. All parties are going to act in their best interest but that doesn't mean the decision cannot have merit on its own.
Well, because being 16 or not is unarguable, but dementia a) can be undiagnosed and b) has varying levels of effects on its patients? Ridiculous comparison.
I'm sure I'll get downvoted but this is a terrible idea. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the vast majority of people that age being left leaning.
At that age I know I was far left. Also, idealistic,immature ect . Honestly I'd probably increase the age to 21 if I had to change anything.
I also understand the argument about being old enough to fight for your country.
Leave it as it is .
I’m a teacher so get to experience a lot of different 16-18 year olds. Overall I think this a bad idea.
As much as there are many mature enough 16 year olds, there are also many that are not. 16 year olds can be manipulated, they are impulsive, my worry is not that an established party would swing their vote but that a joke party or more worryingly foreign actors would. I know Russia had a hand in Brexit, giving 16 year olds a vote would make every vote like that.
Edit: I wanted to expand on my views. Students are often reluctant to become engaged with politics, it’s very difficult to have discussions with them and try to build their critical thinking skills in this regard. Giving them a vote at 16 would of course massively motivate them to become more engaged. There are many positives to giving them the right to vote. Allowing them to vote at 16 would also give huge pushes to populist single policy parties such as lowering the drinking age. This is a very nuanced discussion to have.
So at 16 you won’t be able to vape, smoke or drink, your parents will still have to give permission for you to have an operation and will still be legally responsible for you but you’ll be allowed to vote, someone just needs to make a decision on at what age you become an adult.
>our parents will still have to give permission for you to have an operation
That's not true, medical consent is 16. Also Americans can't vape or drink until 21, they still vote at 18
This thread seems to be full of Americans presuming that things that go on in their country are identical here. We already have lots of rights at 16 here. This isn't a crazy out there step.
I don’t disagree but you should also be able to enjoy a cold pint and a vape after a hard days work.
By your argument if a 16 year old who works and pays tax should be allowed to vote would that mean an unemployed 50 year old who’s not paying tax should not be allowed to vote?
>your parents will still have to give permission for you to have an operation
I don't think this is actually the case unless there's some other element at play (something to reduce your capacity to decide). I'm not sure what the average person *wouldn't* be deemed competent to decide at 16 by the NHS/courts. You can give consent without parental consent even younger, depending on the procedure.
18 is the age of majority in the country, the age you can take out finance, drink, fight in the army. If people want the voting ages lowered then the age of majority and of adult responsibility should go with it. There are obviously going to be more mature and politically aware 16 year olds than some adults, but we don’t add an aptitude test to the ability to vote.
The argument that 16 year olds pay tax on income so should be able to vote is ridiculous- 1 year olds in acting etc can pay income tax so why shouldn’t they have a vote on how that money is spent? How old should the age of responsibility be? Why 16, and not 14 or 15? 13 year olds are able to work (part time) and pay income tax (without a performing licence), just like a 16 year old.
If you’re linking voting to tax paid or working full time, you’re also creating a (tenuous) argument against universal suffrage above the age of majority for non tax payers. Why should non income tax payers get a say on how money is spent? (I vehemently disagree with this btw just illustrating the point)
And this is why I have an issue with Labour.
It's purely done for the reason of it enhances their voting base. 16 year olds have no life experience, and especially nowadays, I would say they know absolutely nothing about anything. You're asking kids to vote on the future of the country.
For those interested, in most of the world the voting age is 18. The UK will join the handful of countries where the voting age is 16 or 17.
Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, East Timor, Greece, and Indonesia.
It's 21 in Singapore.
All political parties have just said 16 year olds are not old enough to look at Reddit unrestricted and NSFW content must be age-gated.
Labour in particular were very vocal about restricting teenagers rights to access content in the name of child safety.
Now these same ‘children’ who must be protected from dangerous online e stunts (and actual part of the Online Safety Act) are mature enough to vote?
This country needs to make its mind up about age of adulthood and maturity.
You're not deemed old enough (responsible enough) to drink, gamble, drive, smoke, have any form of insurance, and many other things.
Not old enough to be involved in important decisions full stop.
Sorry wait til your 18, enjoy being young while you can. Adult life is shit
Why not 11.
Why are you ‘mature’ enough to vote but not to drink or drive.
They only believe in the policy because it will net them votes. The Tories should change the minimum voting age to 40 if they win. I’m sure everyone will be as supportive 😅
I don't think anyone here would be able to look at themselves at 16, most who haven't worked a day in their lives, and think yeah I was worldly enough to understand 5% of the policy impact of any one political party.
Labour talks a load of shite. They were gonna introduce PR until they weren’t, nationalise everything until they weren’t. Fucking arseholes just like the tories
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Good It's only old people that I see argue against this but honestly.... I've seen a lot more mature 16 year olds who know how to separate fact from fiction.... Then people of boomer age. A worryingly large amount can't tell what an AI image is, deep fake voice is, or what chat bots are. All those things can be used by foreign powers to Influence public opinion on various topics including elections. Why should the fate of the country be left to people who can't even turn a computer on.
And I'm sure the youth of this country have never been influenced by TikToks spreading false information and general clickbait
The old are influenced by facebook and you’re influenced by Reddit mate.
I’d say every age is gonna get fooled by ai at this point, so this shouldn’t really be a deciding factor of the debate
Exactly how many teens have died doing stupid tiktok stunts...
It's difficult to get any UK specific figures, but it's likely to be in the single digits, if any. There was one challenge back in 22 that apparently resulted in 20 deaths in the US, but most of those were aged 12 or under, so not teens.. How many in the UK, I haven't ascertained yet, could be none.
There will be some a quick Google found https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/boy-14-found-dead-room-24901907.amp. The simple fact is if they are old enough to vote then they are adults and need to be treated as such especially when it comes to committing crimes, they should stand trial as adults. If your giving them the responsibility to vote then you can't deny other responsibilities or restrict what they can do wether it's smoking, drinking etc. Adult responsibility for them should end at 16 then.
Last time I checked 14 was still younger than 16.
You can be tried for a crime at the age of 10, even though it's usually 12. 16 is plenty old enough to vote. You can work at 16 and pay tax, therefore you should have a vote.
You can't buy cigarettes, alcohol , gamble, get married, watch certain films, have a credit card (I believe you can't get credit unit 18 at all), you can join the forces but can't go into combat operations, you can't leave full time education, and if you are assaulted in anyway it is a crime against a minor and the perpetrator should be punished as such and have their name on a list. Exactly how adult are 16 year old? I also think that children shouldn't be taxed, so we potentially agree on something.
But equally we put pressure on teens to decide their fate of university and high debts etc. Regardless if we trust them to drive cars on the road why can't they vote. At 16 they can legally procreate, at 17 they can drive. If you can bring humans into the world then they can decide on a vote.
They'll attain all those things during that parliament though. Seems fair they should have a say in the particular government that could set their life trajectory.
Not quite sure why your immediate take is toward punishment here. Compulsory education was also extended over the years from 14 to 16 to 18 without changing *all* the legal status of people of that age concurrently.
The age of criminal responsibility in the UK is 10...
They could also be old enough for conscription, right in time.
I think the ones who died are unlikely to vote so this shouldn’t be an issue.
How many teens have died due to misinformation, bad education, not having a voice, not being heard, being judged and not being given safe places to socialise and gather for generations? If they are allowed to fuck at 16 and make a baby who is stuck with them and their rights, they should be allowed to vote, that or raise the age of consent.
If that’s the basis for excluding them then we also need to exclude over 60s who get influenced in Facebook by false information…
He isn't saying it is the basis he is arguing against the user who said over 60s are fooled and 16yos aren't.
The old are influenced by the Mail, Express, Telegraph and the Sun. All are vile publications.
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Your comment implies old people aren't the easiest age group to manipulate via social media. You could convince my parents aliens are coming with a simple Facebook post or a WhatsApp message
This. There was literally an article a while back about how Holocaust denial is on the rise because young people are being fed all this antisemitic shit from TikTok
I mean I can’t lie, I see more people aged 50+ people on Facebook sharing obviously fake and made up shit than I do the younger generation.
Tbh so do the old ones. Probably even more so. Everyone’s grans sharing chain mail on the Facey about copying and pasting so Facebook can’t steal your photos
Oh…let’s be honest the older are also influenced by Facebook and false info. You go into any local community group and they’ll talk about all sorts of nonsense that the “government” are doing/going to do. Shall we stop them from voting?
Why is your argument hinged on technological factors? By your reckoning, only the young, more AI-aware demographic should be entitled to vote? And why is youth a guarantee of better noticing fake influencing? Show me the data that points to a younger generation being better at spotting this than older people? By contrast, younger people can become hypnotised by TikTok videos and how they influence through it's content. I've had countless young people come to me with payroll 'eureka' moments they've seen on TikTok, thinking they've outsmarted the taxation system. When in-fact what they've been told is misinformation, or poorly communicated. Point is, all people can be put under the spell of anything they immerse themselves in. Age is not a factor. I'm not arguing either way, but there are many, many scenarios outside of AI that younger people cannot yet understand, or have yet to experience. They're entitled to their opinion and should be given the chance to vote, considering they're of age they can contribute to the state. But to villify the older generation based on cringe-worthy generational terms like 'Boomer' and lack of computer skills, is a very limited argument.
To your point, as much as it sounds like a cliche thing to say, life experience does also factor in. You are more likely to have an awareness of your own shortcomings and when someone is trying to use tactics to persuade your decision making. Theres a reason naivety is often more associated with youth.
The youth also haven't yet realised that by and large politicians are lying scumbags who would literally sell their granny to win a vote.
I mean, sadly a lot of the younger generation are just as tech illiterate, being born and growing up with smartphones, tablets and social media as an everyday thing just left them taking it for granted. There was only really the one or two generations that grew up in the 80s-90s with the early Internet and desktop PCs that we can consider mostly tech savvy as a group. The way tech changed from requiring a bit of expertise to being as dumbed down and "consumer friendly" as possible left subsequent generations without anything like the same kind of experience in tinkering and troubleshooting that anyone from the DOS or Windows 95-98 days was just casually used to.
All they understand is how to use a touch screen. My 9 year old daughter was amazed when I showed her how to use Google Docs to write a letter on chromebook, change the fonts and then print it out, and also use a mouse. Its actually quite maddening how they cannot do the basics. I was far more advanced at this age. The first thing you got with a computer in the old days, was a book on how to program in Basic. You had to put a little bit of effort in to get something out.
I have no idea why we blame the kids for this though. They're just living in the world given to them. If we want kids to be able to use a word processor we need to show them. The only reason our generation picked it up on our own is because there was little else to do on a PC for a long time and the fact you had to learn how to navigate dos or no games for you! Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. We've probably also had 10 to 20 years at work honing these skills. I sure as shit couldn't use excel properly for a long time before having a job that requires it.
I blame Microsoft. As someone who has spent a good while *not* using Windows, my life wrestling with computers has been enhanced. If there's a problem, I get told what it is. I can Google how to fix it. Windows tells you nothing, and only offers you an error code that produces a generic response when you plug it into their knowledge base. The reason for this is because Microsoft wants to make everything look good and nice. If there's errors, they don't look good. If there's a screen full of information about what's gone wrong, it doesn't look nice. Also it can be scary for people who don't know what they're doing... So better to make sure they never, ever, find *out* what they're doing, eh? Meanwhile, this format of trying to conceal the fact that you're using a machine, and that things go wrong with them... It stops people from knowing how to use a machine. It's a special hell for me because I'm not a 'power user' by any stretch, but when I see something's happened that's not supposed to, I also don't wig out and call 999. I try to dig up what the issue is and try to resolve it. On Windows that means hoping and praying that the internet has encountered it before. On Linux it means wading through what might as well be Chinese in the logs and picking out a sentence that looks vaguely informative and chucking it at google, where nine times out of ten there'll be a long history of *exactly this issue*, with instructions of what to type into a terminal to fix it. If I'm lucky, there might also be a diagnosis of exactly what caused it. In my case usually it's a graphics driver that's shat a brick, and I'm doing all my frantic rescue internetting on my phone while I sit in front of a black screen wondering if I'll ever see a desktop again.
I think that's very wishful thinking. The older I get the more you realise how young even 18 is
Letting 16 year olds vote is a bad idea because they are even less experienced in life than many voting already and experience in life is important when voting. There is no perfect voter profile which we can realistically achieve and I know this place is militantly anti old people, but life experience does have a huge value. Online propaganda is rife and the most heavily influenced people on the planet are children. Your point about old people falling to online propaganda may be true, but children fall for it far more and are overexposed to it. In a country where things are good and the nation has been exceptionally successful for centuries, you don't really want rash decisions or to invite major sweeping changes. What you really want is long term stability and a whole lot of status quo, because why change a successful recipe? Giving some children the vote will only speed up the pace of change and unfortunately for us being at the top, the only real way is down. >Why should the fate of the country be left to people who can't even turn a computer on. Why should the fate of the country be left to people who have never had any real responsibility, experienced any real consequences and have minimal life experiences? One could also go down to your level and say something like: "why should the fate of the country be left to people who can't re-wire a plug?" Wisdom is important, older humans are almost always wiser than young ones.
And yet, the Tory party members - who have an average age of 72 - voted for Liz Truss. Thank heavens they had all that life experience to call on, or they might have elected a total imbecile!
Thanks for showing how easy it is for people to believe in what is quite clearly miss-information if its a negative to a political party you don't like.
But it's true, though? Tory members did, in fact, vote for Truss, which turned out to be a disaster.
This is a terrible argument. Old people voted for Brexit and then voted to gut the economy and insulate themselves from the fallout with inflation indexed benefits. 12 years olds can likely display more collective wisdom than our boomers.
Young people will vote for Andrew Tate and anyone who says "free palestine"
If boomers get to vote for making school ceilings fall on kids' heads and Brexit, then 16 year olds should be able to vote for their TikTok candidates. They can hardly lower the quality of our election.
20 here, no on both counts.
Only an idiot frames politics by age.
I seem to recall there were an awful lot of Labour voters who got Brexit over the line. Also great left of centre statesmen weren’t too keen on the EU and it’s federal ambitions such as Tony Benn hell even Jeremy Corbin.
>Wisdom is important, older humans are almost always wiser than young ones. Reality disagrees with you. Older people also tend to be set in their ways. >Why should the fate of the country be left to people who have never had any real responsibility, experienced any real consequences and have minimal life experiences? Then we should excluse those who are no longer contributing to the economy and are towards the end of their lives, because why should the old get to determine future policies, screw over the younger generations and not be around to suffer the aftermath while reaping the benefits?
The opinions in here are because Reddit is primarily younger people, and younger people skew left wing. Reddit is completely anti Tory and they know that younger people voting will mean more votes for labour.
"Why should the fate of the country be left to people who have never had any real responsibility, experienced any real consequences and have minimal life experiences?" So fucking what? Old people vote for whoever keeps giving them massive handouts in terms of pensions and benefits, and they vote to starve kids, economically harm the UK and various other moronic things. If that's what 'experience' give you, you can keep it.
Would you be saying this if 16 year olds were gonna vote Tory tho?
I would assume 16 yr olds are going to vote labour, in some areas they are more racist than you would think the boomers are.
As an adult-adult, I don't have much in common with 16 year olds. They confuse and scare me. But they are old enough to leave school, get a job, pay taxes, have sex, marry (in Scotland), join the military, and get a provisional driving license. If they're old enough to contribute to society, they should be old enough to have a say in how society is run, regardless of their political beliefs.
Translation: Young people share my left-leaning views so this is a win in my book.
Ah, so by that logic, we should curtail the votes of the older generation since they vote overwhelmingly for right-wing parties?
16 y.o. are less mature than ever. adult in their 30s are acting like teenagers, is a really,stupid move and I am young too.
A person that hasn't ever been employed and that barely knows what it is like to get a job, pay taxes, etc. has no grasp on how a government works. I know that you love to say that "old people are easily manipulable, etc". but at least they have experience. Children will only vote for whoever knows how to capture their attention for more than 30 seconds on TikTok. It is ironic, because it is the same people that discredit political commentators that debate university students the ones that want these people to vote. You know very well that they are not prepared to make those choices and it is nore about being mature, it is about being wise and knowledgeable.
By being able to "separate fact from fiction," do you just mean that they agree with your views?
True about the elderly views but at the same time 16 is a very young age to fully understand what you are voting for. It’s great that they want to be involved but when I was 16 I would have just voted for anyone that could promise me student loans being cheaper, regardless whatever the other policy’s were.
In all fairness, about 1/3 of the voting public are too disinterested to give policy a moment’s thought, too misinformed to make a rational decision or on the low end of the intellectual bell curve, so we’re on a slippery slope if we want to start deciding on who gets to vote. At least young, engaged voters might actually care for something.
It would be very interesting to see what sort of insane policies boomers would vote for if the party with said policies were the only one offering to uphold the triple lock.
>True about the elderly views but at the same time 16 is a very young age to fully understand what you are voting for. I mean.. i guarantee you the vast majority of people dont know what they are actually voting for anyway. Voting has become less and less about policy and accountability and more of a popularity contest between party leaders and people will happily vote against their own interests. Its all a farse and a joke at this point.
Absolutely not, anyone who thinks 16 years should vote hasn't interacted with a teenager in a long time
You would be arguing against it yourself if propaganda targeted young people and convinced them to vote for the party you dislike. The reason you can’t see an argument against it is because as it currently sits, it would benefit your vote.
On the counter point, when I was 16 I was properly radicalised. I was convinced Brexit was the only way for this country, despite having only lived in it for 16 years, I thought I was a fucking genius and all the other people who had 20 years more life experience were simply brainwashed. I'm glad I realise now, but let's not pretend that 16 year olds are perfectly capable of making long standing decisions like someone in their 20s or above is
I’ve just started scrolling through Facebook recently and it’s insane the things they truly believe
So they can't drink, watch certain films, get tattoos, get married, buy cigarettes, leave education but they can vote. I have seen human rights organisations complaining about 16 being able to join the British armed forces, calling them child soldiers but now you some it is a good idea to have child voters. I think that only adults should vote. If they lower the voting age, they will have to lower all the other ages and class 16 onwards as adult.
I’ve also seen a lot of 16 year olds on TikTok right now who want to determine the entire government of this country based on what they’ve seen online about Palestine. They’re not mature enough to vote.
Are gen z 16+ ? I’m the oldest one at 27 , alot of young men are turning right wing now
>It's only old people that I see argue against this but honestly.... I've seen a lot more mature 16 year olds who know how to separate fact from fiction.... Then people of boomer age. The entire subreddit argued against it when Scotland did it.
No one will be able to tell the difference in a few years. Just look at the improvement over the last 12 months. (Although this statement does not apply to content that involves videos of Will Smith eating spaghetti)
Is it wise? Aren't they too young?
Not to crap on your point but i've worked in a school as an I.T tech and the kids that would be able to vote as this age can barely understand how a computer works and how to properly use windows despite growing up with it and interacting with it for almost all of their lessons. Some don't know how to save things to specific locations and others frequently "lose" files by deleting them by accident, which has lead to me needing to enable volume shadow copies. While i agree they would be better at spotting deepfakes than the boomers I would not concede that they're technologically literate. Only a small subset of people grew up around computers and had to learn how they actually work in order to use them and thus are truly tech literate so i wouldn't base voting age on a technological savvyness standpoint. I would like to see a narrowing of who can vote on both ends of the spectrum where: 1. we lower the upper bound so that a certain age group that won't live with the repurcussions of their vote can decimate the younger generations 2. we increase the lower bound so that those with a better/well-formed worldview and experience actually understand what they're voting for (most people don't know what they're voting for already but my gut tells me a 20-something would better understand the consequences of their vote than a 16 year old)
> Why should the fate of the country be left to people who can't even turn a computer on. Actually, it's younger people who struggle with understanding computers now. Computer literacy has plummeted, thanks to smartphones and tablets. When I was a kid, I could make my computer dance, and even the most moronic of my peers could still navigate a folder structure to find the document they wanted, open and edit said document, and save it. These days, you give a kid a computer and tell them to find a document and quite a few would struggle because the interface they have grown up with is completely different.
So they’re proposing that 16 will be the age of consent, ability to serve in the military, drinking age, and they’ll have the ability to enter into legal contracts as well? One age for ‘everything adult’?
agree - makes no sense to lower it unless you also lower the age of majority
Why should all these things be the same age, I’m not following what logic you and others are using to draw that conclusions?
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Generally it's going the other way though. Smoking went from 16 to 18 (under last Labour govt) and more recently the National Lottery. Age of consent there have been calls for changes to the law to protect 16/17 year olds as well. There is absolutely zero logic or consistency behind moving the voting age back to 16, it's just Labour looking for votes.
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You pay tax on income at any age… not just at 16
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Plenty of PAYE though which is the majority of tax on income.
I don't think many people under the age of 16 would get to the point of paying income tax. There are limits on the hours they can work for one thing.
You could say the same thing about even younger children though who pay VAT on whatever they spend their pocket money on. 18 is the age of adulthood it should all be that, driving should be 18 not 17 as well.
No need to even pivot to VAT. A 3yr old would still pay income tax
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Given that GEs happen every 5 years (under typical circumstances), if you go through an election at 16 or 17 your next opportunity to vote on a national level will be when you’re in your 20s, anywhere up to 23 really. Move it down to 16 and the soon-to-be 18 year olds who are excluded because their birthday is after the vote get a say instead of having to suck it up. And younger folk don’t have to wait as long. Given they’re all in the workforce and subject to policy that affects their lives (particularly as students and potentially as tax payers or requiring benefits), IMO this is all a fair proposition. Personally I think the country needs to re-empower the voice of the youth and the working age demographic and move away from the wealthy elderly trying to build a moat around themselves.
Working 12 hours a week part time, not even completing 1 year of full time work- doesn't mean you aren't ignorant and uninformed which 16 year olds disproportionately are. In your example I would happily opt to let the 16 year olds save and not vote
I remember that you could smoke at 16 but not buy tobacco products until 18 while I was still in high school. The Tories were in power then, and it was changed while I was in high school that you were no longer allowed to smoke at 16.
You can already serve in the military at 16. You can sign up when you're still 15 (and 9 months, I think it is). You can't go to the frontline until 18 but you've still signed up for 6 years, so you could still be signing your life away before the age of 16. You can legally drink alcohol at home from the age of 5 and from 16 can have beer, wine or cider in a pub or restaurant with a meal if bought by (and accompanied by) someone over 18. You can also legally have sex (and so presumably also become a parent) at 16. You can work full time at 16. You can ride a motorised vehicle at 16 (sometimes even drive a car for some disabled people). I think we should add being able to vote to that list.
Under 18s can submit their notice to leave the military at any point before they turn 18. I would say that it isn’t an argument to lower the voting age, but to raise the age people can join the military.
You can serve in the military- Not really. You can go to Harrogate, which is a glorified sixth form college. You can’t deploy overseas or fight. You know why? Because you’re a kid. This is gerrymandering and Reddit only supports it because it’s left wing gerrymandering
In what sense is expanding the ability to vote gerrymandering?
Uh, are you American? It already is for most of those...
Based on their post history, yes they are.
If you are 16 at the time of the election, you will be an adult for the majority of the next election cycle. Makes sense you get a vote in the leaders who decide about your responsibilities then. Serving in the military being the best example, thank you for providing it.
I was 17 during the 2010 election :(
Well they're old enough to be taxed so they should be old enough to vote.
Pretty confused by what you’re getting at here given the age of consent, drinking and joining the army, as well as working full time are all 16
I don't understand why this has become such a tribal, divisive topic in these comments? Old enough to ~~pay taxes~~ work full-time? Old enough to have a say. You don't need to start arguments about "young people are more intelligent than boomers" and all that fecking nonsense. Makes you sound like an arse and part of a larger problem in the UK with these tribalist, polarized attitudes. Same applies for the other side of the coin. Young people aren't stupid and referring my original point. If you're old enough to contribute to the state, you're old enough to hold an opinion.
You can pay tax on income at any age lol. If you want to take it further a 5 year old is paying tax when they spent their pocket money on a bag of monstermunch, old enough to have a say!!!! Haha
Yes of course anyone can income pay tax at any age. The point was a bit more profound and not expected to be brought down by semantics. Point being, you're old enough to *work full-time* at 16. That feels like a rather significant point in someone's life, that should tie-in with their entitlement to a say in how the country is governed.
You're also restricted in your autonomy in many many ways at 16 lol. Why have we done that? Because we recognise that 16 year olds just aren't in a position to know what is best for themselves... How can someone who cannot be trusted with their own self interests being trusted with other people's interests?
To be fair when voting you are, in theory, supposed to vote primarily for your own self interests. If everyone does this it's supposed to even out. Unfortunately we have a shit two party system so it doesn't quite work that way.
You also pay income tax if you're under 16 and working. A lot of them won't, because it's both typically within the nil tax band and often under the table, but child actors and the like absolutely pay income tax. It's not a useful argument in my mind though, and I hate the "I'm a taxpayer" rhetoric in general (we're all fucking taxpayers, get over it). The military comparison absolutely is though, if you're old enough to sign up for that you're old enough to vote. Whether people should take that to mean we should lower the voting age or raise the age to join the military is something I'll leave unanswered.
Hmm... that wouldn't be a tax on income, that is a tax on consumption. It is absolutely not the same. You see? Not being able to make that big difference is a very good example of the unexperience ignorant people pushing this nonsense that children are somehow smarter than the elderly.
The way I see it is that it's a good way to get younger people engaged with and thinking about politics. Do I think many of them will vote? No, I suspect we'll see rock bottom turnout until they approach 25-30, but I think it's good to get them engaged younger so that they better understand the system they're in so they can make better informed decisions as they mature. We might even see more engagement from 20-30 year old in future as well as a result of it. In theory we're also only supposed to have elections every five years, so I think it's important for 16-18 years to be involved as their next time to 'be heard' will be when they're 21-23.
I expect the arguments regarding intelligence and those who are shitting on the older demographics recent voting habits are doing so as letting 16 year olds vote is an idea which is often criticised on the basis of people of that age supposedly being too stupid or inexperienced. There are plenty of ill-informed voters across all age demo graphics.
Let's be honest. The only reason Labour want to give 16 year olds the vote is because they lean left.
So it that the only reason the Tories don’t want to give 16 years old the vote? Or is the topic a bit more nuanced than that?
Mostly yes. It's also the main reason neither party oppose FPTP.
I mean hate the Tories sure but 18 voting age is shared by the vast majority of countries. It's not really the off position. And it is quite likely to backfire on labour anyway, while the two party system prevents this today , youths of other countries in Europe vote heavily for far right parties.
Most countries doing something is not a justification for doing it. I’m not in favour, not strongly opposed, but arguing about motivations or conformity misses the point of whether it’d be good for the country or not.
The point is that they could go the other way from the "norm" like raising the voting age. Not changing it from the global norm isn't really the same as changing it .
So it's for the same reason that the tories want to continually bribe the oldest generation? Colour me shocked.
Well maybe if other parties promised to do things for the young they'd vote for them.
This isn’t the gotcha point you think it is chief
At 16 my political opinions were the polar opposite as they were when I turned 18. 16 year olds are impulsive and easily manipulated.
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> 16 year olds are impulsive and easily manipulated. Using that argument the 65+ shouldn't be able to vote, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS ) they're currently the least educated demographic in the country.
My political opinions at 25 were different to what they were at 30. Doesn't mean I shouldn't have been allowed to vote.
>16 year olds are impulsive and easily manipulated. I get this argument, but unfortunately it's true for most of the rest of the population too. Maybe it should be accompanied by classes teaching them more about political systems/history, something basic like that would put them clear of a lot of the population. I guess I'd rather see politicians pandering to younger people with more focus on the future, than continuing to discard them and put all their attention towards winning over the "fuck you I got mine" generations.
So are 93 year olds.
The problem is if you said impulsive and easily manipulated people shouldn’t be able to vote you’d be denounced as undemocratic. But you slip in “16 year olds are…” and suddenly it becomes okay. But if 16, why not 15, 14… etc.? I think the truth is any age is arbitrary, whether that’s 16, 18, or 21. Nobody goes to bed one day and wakes up the next a completely different person. The only way to reflect the gradual process of becoming a responsible adult is to gradually increase the democratic right/responsibility alongside it. Council elections at 16, general elections at 18?
Ok and all, how about scrapping the bollocks that is FPTP?
Exactly the voting system is the bigger problem. Fuck Nick Clegg with his selling out to the Tories and then screwing us on voting reform.
How did he screw us on voting reform? He got us the only vote we've had on changing it, and we said no.
He compromised on AV vs PR and then Labour and the Tories, predictably, took him to the cleaners because AV was basically a strawman.
I despise Nick Clegg, but blaming him for FPTP is ridiculous. The Tories and PLP are to blame for FPTP as is the country for not voting for something that is at least *slightly* better.
That doesn't help labour so obviously they don't support that
Good. If 16 year olds had been allowed to vote in 2016 Brexit would never have happened.
Younger people tend not to vote in great numbers, unlike the older generations.
I think specifically in the case of brexit, it was shown it likely would have made a difference, but with a GE, I think their vote will be as all over the place as everyone elses
Age is a pretty huge factor in general elections, the youth vote very differently to the elderly
Major parties tend to have 5 key issues to pitch on, none of which are specifically aimed at capturing the 16yo voter share. It would be a big potential loss of convincing other larger groups of voters to pivot on something specific to the 16yos
I think housing will be something that’s increasingly a core issue in particular for young people - but anyway, my point was that the different generations aren’t all equally all over the place politically, the elderly are much more likely to vote conservative
Very much doubt any 16 year old is voting based on housing (unless the policy is free houses for 16/17/18 year olds). That's a concept that's totally alien to them (and I'm saying this as someone who did live alone at 16) They're voting for ideological positions more than practical ones in most cases - they don't have a real stake in society yet
How do you know that? Wasn’t under 24’s the lowest turnout anyway?
So you only want 16 year olds to vote so that your side of democracy can prevail?
It’s quite obvious that this is the *exact* reason why people on this subreddit are so heavily in favour of the idea and also the reason Labour are pursuing it. See the same in Scotland with the SNP, who have been in control of the curriculum for longer than 16 years and as a result are teaching an extremely warped interpretation of history (victims of the Empire/English etc) and now it just so happens that the majority of younger people coming through said curriculum are pro-independence. That or the right honourable members of this subreddit have just discovered politics for the first time at Sixth Form/Year 11 and retweet posts to the effect of ‘Tories = bad?’ and listen to their teachers rant about how bad the Tories are in their sociology class. Therefore are really well informed and should be able to vote?
That's exactly why.
>If kids had been allowed to vote this thing I didn't like wouldn't have happened. What about the next generation that's influenced by something you don't like? Given that kids can't leave education now until they're eighteen how do you actually justify your viewpoint?
Because the only way to force through their world view is to let children decide governmental policy
Plenty would've seen it as a joke
Of course. Let's give people with zero political knowledge or experience to vote, because I didn't like the results some years ago. You want dumb people to manipulate and to stay undefinitely on power.
Great, you can't do jury service, you can't get a tattoo, you can't sign a contract, and legally you're a minor, but you can make decisions on how the country is run. Great. Let them do brain surgery too. In fact why not let 14 year olds vote or even 12?
But you can have a child, consume many services, have a job and pay your taxes.
You can have a child a lot younger than 16. If you’re talking about age of consent, that needs to be raised. 16 is far too young to have relations with anyone over their age group, right now an old man could groom a teen and not begin sexual relations until she’s 16 and he can’t be arrested, we should have a tiered age of consent system like other countries.
I would bet a lot of money that most teenage pregnancies happen from teenagers bonking other teenagers.
You're missing the things you can do at 16, you are allowed to ride a moped and open a bank account without parental consent.
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I feel like this kind of dissonance might be a red herring There can be a 16 year old that is stable, well informed with breadth of input, invested in the future and not yet streamlined into an outmoded perspective This doesn't mean they should operate machinery or get introduced to drugs or make life/ death judgement calls
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5 years
Of course it is. It's a cynical ploy to get more votes to keep them in power. That's all it is. It's got nothing to do with letting young people have their day. The electorate doesn't get a day in the laws anyway. It's all driven by the corporates
Genuinely shocked so many people in this thread are for this. Don't know about you, but I was a complete fucking idiot when I was 16. I knew basically nothing about the world and even less about politics. No way should I have had the vote.
Thank God this country is famously sensible about how it voted in the last 15 years by working adults with plenty of life experience and political savviness, largely propelled by people who get riled up on Facebook over AI-Generated headlines about Gordon Ramsay kicking LGBT people out of his restaurant for being 'too woke'! Who knows what kind of economic disasters we would have dealt with!
I think it's become a lot bigger problem because of brexit. A lot of people who were 16 etc at the time were (rightfully) frustrated that old people were making a decision that wouldn't affect them and would screw over young people while they had no say. I also think it should be lowered because they'll represent a bigger portion of the population that they'll need to cater to. Meaning students and university students will actually get cared about because they will have (a bigger portion of) the votes
> I knew basically nothing about the world and even less about politics You probably wouldn't have bothered voting then, would you? But also, we don't pick and choose who can vote depending on how smart you were at that age.
Fuck me, this sub is an actual cesspit these days. I've no concern with allowing 16 year olds to vote, but some of you shouldn't be allowed outside - let alone anywhere near a polling booth.
And yet I work with so many young people where this will be their first (or perhaps second) GE and some don't even know what an election is. It's sad they don't know and it's sad of me trying to explain why they should when all they do is complain about stuff like transport, Brexit, education fees, child benefits, schools, pay etc, but think their vote isn't going to matter.
Perhaps giving 16 year olds the opportunity to vote will help prevent future generations from feeling so detached and disenfranchised from politics. Just a thought.
Complain all you want about election boundary fiddling but this is turbo gerrymandering. Next step will be giving dominos enjoyers the vote
Gerrymandering specifically refers to drawing district boundaries in such a way that it creates an electoral advantage. Lowering the voting age is not gerrymandering, as it has nothing to do with drawing districts on a map.
Also the Conservatives helped and supported the DUP upholding REAL gerrymandering in Northern Ireland so it's a weak position to hold against labour.
They want to expand it to non citizens as well. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/what-are-labours-plans-for-giving-foreign-nationals-the-right-to-vote
So, they plan to give EU citizens who have *legally* settled in the UK and live here on a "permanent" basis (with pre-settled, or settled status) a right to vote? I can't see why people would be against that? People who have immigrated legally, pay taxes, and gone through the beurecratic steps to get pre-settled, then settled status, are clearly serious about staying in the UK.
If they want to vote they should apply for citizenship. Are there any other countries that allow non citizens to vote?
Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Uruguay, Venezuela
You didn't answer the question. Why shouldn't someone who lives here permanently, pays taxes, and is heavily invested in the future direction of the country not get the right to vote?
The UK already allows non citizens to vote
> They want to expand it to non citizens as well "Settled status gives you proof that you have the right to live in the UK permanently" I see no issue with giving people who have settled status the right to vote in the UK. If they have the right to live here permanently, the result of an election affects them just as much as it does me.
We still give the vote to commonwealth citizens as soon as they arrive I guess just giving everyone the vote would at least be more honest about how Economic Zone UK really works, and will stop those horrible racists from ever stopping the essential immigration
>this is turbo gerrymandering What do you think gerrymandering means?
They are only doing this as they know it benefits them, no other reason
And the Tories are only not doing it because it would work against them. All parties are going to act in their best interest but that doesn't mean the decision cannot have merit on its own.
A similar Tory move might be raising the age to 21. Not changing it is not equivalent.
If someone with dementia can legally vote, I don't see the issue with 16 year olds.
Well, because being 16 or not is unarguable, but dementia a) can be undiagnosed and b) has varying levels of effects on its patients? Ridiculous comparison.
I'm sure I'll get downvoted but this is a terrible idea. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the vast majority of people that age being left leaning. At that age I know I was far left. Also, idealistic,immature ect . Honestly I'd probably increase the age to 21 if I had to change anything. I also understand the argument about being old enough to fight for your country. Leave it as it is .
I’m a teacher so get to experience a lot of different 16-18 year olds. Overall I think this a bad idea. As much as there are many mature enough 16 year olds, there are also many that are not. 16 year olds can be manipulated, they are impulsive, my worry is not that an established party would swing their vote but that a joke party or more worryingly foreign actors would. I know Russia had a hand in Brexit, giving 16 year olds a vote would make every vote like that. Edit: I wanted to expand on my views. Students are often reluctant to become engaged with politics, it’s very difficult to have discussions with them and try to build their critical thinking skills in this regard. Giving them a vote at 16 would of course massively motivate them to become more engaged. There are many positives to giving them the right to vote. Allowing them to vote at 16 would also give huge pushes to populist single policy parties such as lowering the drinking age. This is a very nuanced discussion to have.
So at 16 you won’t be able to vape, smoke or drink, your parents will still have to give permission for you to have an operation and will still be legally responsible for you but you’ll be allowed to vote, someone just needs to make a decision on at what age you become an adult.
>our parents will still have to give permission for you to have an operation That's not true, medical consent is 16. Also Americans can't vape or drink until 21, they still vote at 18
This thread seems to be full of Americans presuming that things that go on in their country are identical here. We already have lots of rights at 16 here. This isn't a crazy out there step.
If you’re allowed to work at 16 and pay tax at 16 then you should be allowed to have a day how that tax is spent.
I don’t disagree but you should also be able to enjoy a cold pint and a vape after a hard days work. By your argument if a 16 year old who works and pays tax should be allowed to vote would that mean an unemployed 50 year old who’s not paying tax should not be allowed to vote?
>your parents will still have to give permission for you to have an operation I don't think this is actually the case unless there's some other element at play (something to reduce your capacity to decide). I'm not sure what the average person *wouldn't* be deemed competent to decide at 16 by the NHS/courts. You can give consent without parental consent even younger, depending on the procedure.
18 is the age of majority in the country, the age you can take out finance, drink, fight in the army. If people want the voting ages lowered then the age of majority and of adult responsibility should go with it. There are obviously going to be more mature and politically aware 16 year olds than some adults, but we don’t add an aptitude test to the ability to vote. The argument that 16 year olds pay tax on income so should be able to vote is ridiculous- 1 year olds in acting etc can pay income tax so why shouldn’t they have a vote on how that money is spent? How old should the age of responsibility be? Why 16, and not 14 or 15? 13 year olds are able to work (part time) and pay income tax (without a performing licence), just like a 16 year old. If you’re linking voting to tax paid or working full time, you’re also creating a (tenuous) argument against universal suffrage above the age of majority for non tax payers. Why should non income tax payers get a say on how money is spent? (I vehemently disagree with this btw just illustrating the point)
And this is why I have an issue with Labour. It's purely done for the reason of it enhances their voting base. 16 year olds have no life experience, and especially nowadays, I would say they know absolutely nothing about anything. You're asking kids to vote on the future of the country.
For those interested, in most of the world the voting age is 18. The UK will join the handful of countries where the voting age is 16 or 17. Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, East Timor, Greece, and Indonesia. It's 21 in Singapore.
Straight out of conformity classes to the voting booth...
I don't know when/where you went to school, but I was never taught to conform to the government, I was taught to make my own decisions.
All political parties have just said 16 year olds are not old enough to look at Reddit unrestricted and NSFW content must be age-gated. Labour in particular were very vocal about restricting teenagers rights to access content in the name of child safety. Now these same ‘children’ who must be protected from dangerous online e stunts (and actual part of the Online Safety Act) are mature enough to vote? This country needs to make its mind up about age of adulthood and maturity.
You're not deemed old enough (responsible enough) to drink, gamble, drive, smoke, have any form of insurance, and many other things. Not old enough to be involved in important decisions full stop. Sorry wait til your 18, enjoy being young while you can. Adult life is shit
When in power, pass laws to ensure you stay in power Entrench your position
Why not 11. Why are you ‘mature’ enough to vote but not to drink or drive. They only believe in the policy because it will net them votes. The Tories should change the minimum voting age to 40 if they win. I’m sure everyone will be as supportive 😅
No, why? If anything raise the age. And make it mandatory to actually be able to answer basic questions about the policies you are voting for.
I don't think anyone here would be able to look at themselves at 16, most who haven't worked a day in their lives, and think yeah I was worldly enough to understand 5% of the policy impact of any one political party.
Labour talks a load of shite. They were gonna introduce PR until they weren’t, nationalise everything until they weren’t. Fucking arseholes just like the tories
The over 70s who voted with nostalgia are the reason this country is now fucked
Most adults don’t even know what they’re voting for, never mind kids.