Scotland and Wales have both reduced the voting age, should England & Northern Ireland be next? Yes.
There are currently 1,454,000 UK citizens who are denied the right to vote in general elections. They are unable to elect the MPs who would impact every part of their lives. 1,454,000 young people who can’t make themselves heard, leaving politicians less accountable and nearly a million and a half people in Britain stranded without a democratic voice. I am talking about 16 and 17 year-olds.
In local elections in Scotland and Wales the voting age was reduced to 16 allowing thousands more young people to vote in local and devolved elections. However, in all general elections and in English & and Northern Irish local/devolved elections, you must be 18 to vote.
16 year-olds can marry, drink and serve in the army with a parent’s permission. So why can’t they vote with a parent’s permission?
Most 16 and 17-year-olds don’t pay tax so it would apparently be “representation without taxation”. But we all pay VAT on the items we buy and there is no law that says you can’t pay tax as an under 18. Anyone who earns under £12,500 a year doesn’t pay income tax yet they can still vote. And I didn’t realise we had to pay to vote. It’s why a ballot box or polling station doesn’t come with a bill. The impact that elected officials have on our lives extends well beyond taxation. It covers education, transport, the environment, policing. Everything they do affects us.
A teacher once told me they had met many 16 year-olds over their 30-year career and there were many they wouldn’t want to give the vote to. A valid argument but we can’t simply pick and choose who gets the vote or not. There are many over 18 year-olds I wouldn’t give the vote to – most MPs probably! There is also an argument that there is no political education in schools so under 18s are not informed enough. The lack of political education in schools is a failure of government not young people. Furthermore, the routes where we can learn about politics are just as open to us as they are to over 18s. There’s no secret seminar that happens when you turn 18; no clandestine conference where the political parties are explained to you. Young people are just as informed as the older generations when it comes to making political decisions. Sometimes we have more knowledge on the issues that affect young people the most like education, transport, job opportunities and the climate and environment.
The issue of the voting age is more than one of taxes or whether people are capable of making sound decisions. It is one of democracy, the fundamental right that the people choose the politicians. The longer government drags its feet and refuses to follow Scotland and Wales’s example of lowering the voting age, the longer democracy suffers. If the government wants to put action behind levelling up, young people must be a part of that and youth democratic agency must be levelled up across the UK.
