PopCon Head of Campaigns Andrew Allison looks at the case for and against the 'votes at 16' pledge in the Labour manifesto

Votes for children were not formally announced in this week's King’s Speech, although I am sure that I am not the only person wondering what this section from the speech actually means:

“My ministers will strengthen the integrity of elections and encourage wide participation in the democratic process.”

What we do know is that Labour’s manifesto stated that it intends to reduce the legal age of voting in all elections to 16-years-old, so if it's not going to happen during this Parliamentary session, it is coming down the track. We will soon see images of children who haven’t taken their GCSEs walking to polling stations to cast their ballot. Labour, of course, sees this as a way of increasing its vote share as the party assumes, probably correctly at the moment, that most younger people will vote for left-wing parties. 

During the general election campaign Sir Keir Starmer said that as 16 and 17-year-olds can pay tax, they ought to be able to vote, conveniently ignoring the fact that children are required to be in education and training until they are 18. Very few children of that age pay tax. Taking his argument to its logical conclusion, five-year-old child actors pay tax. Shouldn’t they be allowed to vote? No taxation without representation and all that. Ridiculous, I hear you say, but it highlights the illogicality of Starmer’s argument. 

What Labour does not plan to do is remove the numerous restrictions already in place for 16 and 17-years olds, so it is worth listing them. Under-18s cannot buy tobacco products*, alcohol, National Lottery and the Health Lottery tickets, scratch cards, cigarette lighter refills, butane, e-cigarettes or e-liquids, fireworks and sparklers, PEGI 18-rated games, 18/R18 rated videos (DVDs/Blu-Ray/streaming videos), knives, axes, razor blades (except safety razors), newspapers/magazines with any R18/R18 videos/games attached, solvents, including glues and intoxicating substances, crossbows, imitation firearms and air weapons. 

(*The King announced that “a Bill will be introduced to progressively increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes and impose limits on the sale and marketing of vapes.” Basically the same Bill that Rishi Sunak was going to introduce in the last Parliament) 

There’s more. Restrictions on venues and services include bars and pubs, nightclubs, cinema movies rated 18, shisha lounges, adult entertainment stores, tattoo parlours, and betting shops. They can’t apply for a credit card, use a sunbed, and they cannot get married. 16-year-olds cannot drive a car on the public highway, and although 16 and 17-year-olds can join the armed forces, they cannot fight on the front-line until they are 18.

Some would argue that many of those restrictions are sensible, although why anyone is legally allowed to go online and order a crossbow is beyond me, especially after the murders of three innocent people at the hands of a crossbow-wielding madman last week. But the point is the law states that children are not deemed mature and responsible enough to buy a long list of products and engage in many activities. For decades that included voting in elections, but that changed ten years ago in Scotland (where else?), although the campaign for votes at 16 goes back to the early 2000s. 

David Cameron agreed to Alex Salmond’s request to votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in the Scottish Independence referendum in 2014. As a result, a precedent was set, and the following year The Scottish Elections (Reduction of Voting Age) Act 2015 was passed, and 16 and 17-year-olds can now vote in Scottish Parliament and local government elections. 

There is a better argument for raising the legal voting age back to 21 than there is to lowering it to 16. When you are 21 you have more life experiences. You have more maturity and are capable of making more adult decisions. Indeed, there is an argument that as human brains do not finish developing and maturing in the mid-to-late 20s, the voting age should be raised even further. But I am not going to go down that particular rabbit hole. 

The UK, in common with most Western countries, legally recognises 18-year-olds as adults and anyone below that age as children. Left-wing politicians in Scotland thought that they could gerrymander elections by allowing children to vote in certain elections, and now we have a left-wing Labour Government trying to do the same for all elections in the UK. Although I will continue to argue against votes at 16 for all the reasons stated above, I know that as Labour has such a massive majority in the House of Commons, sadly, it will become a reality. But it doesn’t mean that it’s right, and once 16-year-olds are enfranchised, it will be virtually impossible to reverse it. 

One final thought. In the opening paragraph I said that, for the moment, most younger people in the UK vote for left-wing parties. But in Europe in recent elections, the opposite appears to be true. Data shows that many younger people on the continent have voted for right-wing parties, and when I say right-wing, I don’t mean cuddly Thatcherites like me! But in potentially even worse news for Starmer, polling has shown that Reform UK is in second place behind Labour amongst 16 and 17-year-olds. If this trend grows, the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for” may start ringing in Starmer’s ears.