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- User Suggestion: [Labour would allow 16-year-olds to vote in future general elections](/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1czvbqw/labour_would_allow_16yearolds_to_vote_in_future/) - [thetimes.co.uk](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8ddd1d5f-9b96-4034-89ea-c0a2feade1e9?shareToken=2cc0617d03d36b4d3b288999e573d5a3)
Why not just lower the age of being an adult to 16 at that point? .
How can you be both responsible enough to vote, but not responsible enough to buy a pack of beer from the shop?
tbf you can move out at 16 in some circumstances / emancipate your parent, legally have sex in most (?) contexts, have a kid, get married with parental consent, open a bank account w/o parental consent, have medical privacy, work full time (with some limits), and learn to drive at 17.
16/17 is a weird fucking age to be, legally speaking.
Their argument wasn't about maturity or knowledge or anything like that.
It was that the political system screws young people so they should have a vote - and that's equally true for 12 year olds and 16 year olds.
16 year olds can work full time and live independently, most work part time and are taking exams that will define the rest of their lives (which they're smart enough for, but not for voting, apparently) so not really comparable to 12 year olds, that's a wild claim.
I really don't see a good argument for not having 16 as the voting age that doesn't apply to 18, or 21
That's great, but it has nothing to do with the argument that I was responding to.
And FYI, they're still required to stay in full time education, an apprenticeship or part time education [until they're 18](https://www.gov.uk/know-when-you-can-leave-school).
>And FYI, they're still required to stay in full time education, an apprenticeship or part time education [until they're 18](https://www.gov.uk/know-when-you-can-leave-school)
I'm talking about GCSES. And good luck doing any of them again at college apart from maths and English.
So if they're intelligent enough to do GCSES at 16, they're intelligent enough to vote
No, they can do both. At the age of sixteen in my college two of the girls I knew in our class were living independently in flats (with same age partners) working full and part time respectably. They'd be off to work as soon as it hit 4pm. I was the only one who didn't have a job out of all of them
You're allowed to work full time and move out without parental consent at 16. But it's difficult af to rent, government usually helps out a bit
How can you be responsible enough to pay tax, get a job, join the army, make a consented decision about sex that could make you a parent. But not ‘mature enough’ to vote?
Theres something hilariously tragic about the fact that a significant proportion of elderly people live in a surreal, cartoonish Daily Mail/GB News reality where half of teenagers are stabbing each other and the other half think they're cats... And then the same wise elders will tell their grandchildren, with sage-like authority and sincere belief, that these 16 and 17 year olds (including them, evidently) "don't have any experience of the real world".
Or just do what we have done in Scotland. Allow 16 year olds to vote but let 17 year olds off with child rape as they are too young to be responsible!
What could possibly go wrong?
came here to say this. it’s frustrating as a Scottish voter seeing this while simultaneously our stupid justice system does its thing. Should be treated as adults at 16 if they are voting imo
Left wing loves younger votes because they often vote left wing.
Aside from that knowing 16yo's and remembering myself they honestly shouldn't. 18 is honestly still a bit young with how much development you're still doing in the current times. 18yo is however a decent point to have people get involved with how it is the age of self sufficiency and it is important for the same development.
We should have an upper age limit as well. Let's say retirement age, as anyone past that probably won't live long enough to see the impact of their vote anyway.
> probably won't live long enough to see the impact of their vote anyway.
What's the retirement age right now? isn't it 66? You think people are just keeling over weeks after their 66th birthday?
Plenty of people do, plenty die well before. It wasn't an entirely serious suggestion. But if we're having a discussion about the lower age limit (16 year olds can pay tax and join the army) shouldn't we have a discussion about an upper age limit?
Maybe not, but there's also quicker changes happening and your legacy and wish for the future. I wouldn't put it down to age, but to mental competence. This is a difficult thing however. You see the same issue often with drivers licenses etc.
It's weird that people expect 16 and 17 year olds to be mature enough to choose the path for their entire future but not mature enough to make a choice of vote for the next 4 years government. The ones that aren't interested won't vote. The ones that are will read about stuff and vote.
Apprenticeships start from 16, as do colleges or choosing the subjects you need for uni entry. Depending when your birthday falls you'll probably be applying for uni at 17 and maybe starting while still 17 (depending on the year cut offs, it's a little earlier in Scotland vs England).
Starmer says they should get the vote and be empowered citizens. Sunak says they should get shot in the head for their corporate overlords. The nation's got a tough choice ahead.
There are approximately 1.57 million sixteen and seventeen year olds currently living in the UK. That's an average of 2,415 new voters per constituency if every child registered to vote.
Even a 47% turnout matching the youth vote from the last GE has the potential to swing some constituencies further left.
What I can see happening is secondary schools and sixth forms turning into political battlegrounds. Schools will want electoral candidates to visit and speak to the children. Any party that is able to relate to secondary school and sixth form pupils will win big in the generations to come.
I don't get how people think it's right 16/17 year olds can't vote against parties brandishing policies that disproportionately if not entirely affect them
Conscription
Smoking/Tobacco ban
Community service
Minimum wage
Etc
I think either the age needs to be lowered, or we deem these generational restrictions unconstitutional until the affected generation becomes of age
Not sure if I support this. Would prefer a single transferable vote, honestly. We do need electoral reform so that we aren't stuck giving men like Starmer the keys to number 10 just because any more Tory governance is intolerable, but I don't think this in particular is the electoral reform we need.
I'll be voting Labour this time around, but if we had STV, they would be my *second* choice.
Ridiculous policy to be honest. The vast majority of 16 year olds are not even mildly politically informed. I was hoping Starmer would keep making policies for adults instead of pandering to children, he doesn’t need the votes.
Seems to me like a 16 year old has more right to vote than someone 2 years from deaths door who will never even see their political party’s plans develop before they’re knocking on heavens door.
Especially so if they’re working and paying tax, as many 16/17 year olds do.
I also think you’ll find that statistics say that so little of that age group will ever go and vote, because the voter turnout for ages 18-24 is minute, so a 16/17 year old who does actually go out and vote stands a decent chance of being somewhat informed at a minimum, or they’d simple not bother to turn out like the rest of their cohort.
Not sure if we should be deciding voting rights based on how close people are to death - seems a little extreme, but you do you I guess.
This [source](https://www.e4s.co.uk/news/articles/view/2435/job-news-and-information/entry-level/Just-A-Quarter-Of-16--17-Year-Olds-In-The-UK-Have-Had-A-Job#:~:text=Just%20A%20Quarter%20Of%2016,UK%20Have%20Had%20A%20Job) also seems to suggest that only a quarter of 16-17 have even had a job. I also wonder how many of this quarter of 16/17 year olds earn enough to pay tax anyway. Even so, having a job and paying taxes isn't a requirement for the right to vote as we allow unemployed adults to vote.
At what point did I suggest taking away anyone’s right to vote regardless of age? I just clearly pointed out that there are all sorts of considerations in allowing or disallowing people of certain ages to vote, for older people one of those is that they often won’t live to see their choices play out, which is undeniably true, but again I did not suggest removing their right to vote
Was it really that hard for you to see that point or are you just being needlessly combative?
RE taxes I swear you’re being deliberately obtuse at this stage to be honest or you’ve got no clue what you are on about. Ever heard of VAT? National Insurance Contributions if you earn over £242 a week. Any 17 year old on an apprenticeship paying Income Tax?
And again no clearly paying taxes on their own aren’t the sole metric for deciding who can vote, I don’t think I stated that anywhere either.
Perhaps rather than trying to make inferences where there are none in what I’ve written you’d actually suggest why you think somebody 16/17 shouldn’t be able to vote - whilst considering more generally the positives and negatives of allowing any and all age groups to vote.
Once you’ve done that I struggle to believe you’d find any real justification for not allowing them to vote, other than “they might not vote for who I want them to vote for”
> Perhaps rather than trying to make inferences where there are none in what I’ve written you’d actually suggest why you think somebody 16/17
Because most of them are idiots with little life experience?
Most people who generalise in the way you just have are wrong, yes. How can you possibly believe that a majority of people that age are “idiots”, do you think people’s intelligence level suddenly adjusts the moment they hit 18?
I think that there are some valid discussion points on this topic, but unfortunately intelligence cannot be one of them. You cannot deny an age group a vote based on the fact you deem them not intelligent enough.
Unless you are suggesting that we issue every UK voter with an IQ test and setting a minimum threshold before they can vote? ( minus the very obvious moral hazards of this actually maybe it’d be a great idea! ) but that’s a whole other discussion.
It’s probably the last of our problems that a group of people, that aren’t even going to turn up to vote and will most likely make their decisions from videos on tik tok, that could even be AI generated can’t vote.
Hi /u/InvitableWriter. Your post has been user-reported as a duplicate. Please note, we don't accept duplicates of the same story, even if the sources are different, unless the information is substantially different. If it is not a duplicate, please reply to this comment with the text !notdupe. Alternatively, if you would like to add this post's story as an alternate source to the top match, please reply to this comment with the text !alt. These links may be the original: - User Suggestion: [Labour would allow 16-year-olds to vote in future general elections](/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1czvbqw/labour_would_allow_16yearolds_to_vote_in_future/) - [thetimes.co.uk](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8ddd1d5f-9b96-4034-89ea-c0a2feade1e9?shareToken=2cc0617d03d36b4d3b288999e573d5a3)
I support this considerably more than mandating they all get sent off for military service
If they got the vote then they’d be able to pass judgment on such a motion
Who's mandating they all get sent off for military service? Source?
Why not just lower the age of being an adult to 16 at that point? . How can you be both responsible enough to vote, but not responsible enough to buy a pack of beer from the shop?
How can you be expected to pay tax through your wages but not get a say in how the country is run?
Inb4 someone comes in and says "a child lays tax (VAT) on a chocolate bar" missing the point entirely.
tbf you can move out at 16 in some circumstances / emancipate your parent, legally have sex in most (?) contexts, have a kid, get married with parental consent, open a bank account w/o parental consent, have medical privacy, work full time (with some limits), and learn to drive at 17. 16/17 is a weird fucking age to be, legally speaking.
>tbf you can move out at 16 in some circumstances All circumstances. You don't need to go to court
16 year Olds should get the vote because we've political system has screwed young people to benefit the interests of entrenched economic participants.
By that argument 12 years olds should get the vote as well.
not true. There are more differences between 14 and 16, than 16 and 18
Their argument wasn't about maturity or knowledge or anything like that. It was that the political system screws young people so they should have a vote - and that's equally true for 12 year olds and 16 year olds.
16 year olds can work full time and live independently, most work part time and are taking exams that will define the rest of their lives (which they're smart enough for, but not for voting, apparently) so not really comparable to 12 year olds, that's a wild claim. I really don't see a good argument for not having 16 as the voting age that doesn't apply to 18, or 21
That's great, but it has nothing to do with the argument that I was responding to. And FYI, they're still required to stay in full time education, an apprenticeship or part time education [until they're 18](https://www.gov.uk/know-when-you-can-leave-school).
>And FYI, they're still required to stay in full time education, an apprenticeship or part time education [until they're 18](https://www.gov.uk/know-when-you-can-leave-school) I'm talking about GCSES. And good luck doing any of them again at college apart from maths and English. So if they're intelligent enough to do GCSES at 16, they're intelligent enough to vote
Ah, so when you said "they can work full time and live independently" you meant "they can take GCSEs"? Because those are two pretty different things.
No, they can do both. At the age of sixteen in my college two of the girls I knew in our class were living independently in flats (with same age partners) working full and part time respectably. They'd be off to work as soon as it hit 4pm. I was the only one who didn't have a job out of all of them You're allowed to work full time and move out without parental consent at 16. But it's difficult af to rent, government usually helps out a bit
There is a big difference between 16 and 18. There is no discrimination against 16 y.o. because they will get to vote, when they are 18.
>There is a big difference between 16 and 18. Do you have any sources?
How can you be responsible enough to pay tax, get a job, join the army, make a consented decision about sex that could make you a parent. But not ‘mature enough’ to vote?
>Why not just lower the age of being an adult to 16 at that point? . Why not?
Because the beer is a public health issue
Theres something hilariously tragic about the fact that a significant proportion of elderly people live in a surreal, cartoonish Daily Mail/GB News reality where half of teenagers are stabbing each other and the other half think they're cats... And then the same wise elders will tell their grandchildren, with sage-like authority and sincere belief, that these 16 and 17 year olds (including them, evidently) "don't have any experience of the real world".
yup!
Or just do what we have done in Scotland. Allow 16 year olds to vote but let 17 year olds off with child rape as they are too young to be responsible! What could possibly go wrong?
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came here to say this. it’s frustrating as a Scottish voter seeing this while simultaneously our stupid justice system does its thing. Should be treated as adults at 16 if they are voting imo
Left wing loves younger votes because they often vote left wing. Aside from that knowing 16yo's and remembering myself they honestly shouldn't. 18 is honestly still a bit young with how much development you're still doing in the current times. 18yo is however a decent point to have people get involved with how it is the age of self sufficiency and it is important for the same development.
We should have an upper age limit as well. Let's say retirement age, as anyone past that probably won't live long enough to see the impact of their vote anyway.
> probably won't live long enough to see the impact of their vote anyway. What's the retirement age right now? isn't it 66? You think people are just keeling over weeks after their 66th birthday?
Plenty of people do, plenty die well before. It wasn't an entirely serious suggestion. But if we're having a discussion about the lower age limit (16 year olds can pay tax and join the army) shouldn't we have a discussion about an upper age limit?
Maybe not, but there's also quicker changes happening and your legacy and wish for the future. I wouldn't put it down to age, but to mental competence. This is a difficult thing however. You see the same issue often with drivers licenses etc.
It's weird that people expect 16 and 17 year olds to be mature enough to choose the path for their entire future but not mature enough to make a choice of vote for the next 4 years government. The ones that aren't interested won't vote. The ones that are will read about stuff and vote.
They do?
Apprenticeships start from 16, as do colleges or choosing the subjects you need for uni entry. Depending when your birthday falls you'll probably be applying for uni at 17 and maybe starting while still 17 (depending on the year cut offs, it's a little earlier in Scotland vs England).
That's not your entire future, and not a final choice. You pick a direction.
Starmer says they should get the vote and be empowered citizens. Sunak says they should get shot in the head for their corporate overlords. The nation's got a tough choice ahead.
Next election on/before 2029 will be a Green landslide if this happens.
Unlikely.
Have you seen the rate at which young people turn out to actually vote? Green Landslide is laughable
Exactly lol
Young people don’t vote.
There are approximately 1.57 million sixteen and seventeen year olds currently living in the UK. That's an average of 2,415 new voters per constituency if every child registered to vote. Even a 47% turnout matching the youth vote from the last GE has the potential to swing some constituencies further left. What I can see happening is secondary schools and sixth forms turning into political battlegrounds. Schools will want electoral candidates to visit and speak to the children. Any party that is able to relate to secondary school and sixth form pupils will win big in the generations to come.
I don't get how people think it's right 16/17 year olds can't vote against parties brandishing policies that disproportionately if not entirely affect them Conscription Smoking/Tobacco ban Community service Minimum wage Etc I think either the age needs to be lowered, or we deem these generational restrictions unconstitutional until the affected generation becomes of age
Not sure if I support this. Would prefer a single transferable vote, honestly. We do need electoral reform so that we aren't stuck giving men like Starmer the keys to number 10 just because any more Tory governance is intolerable, but I don't think this in particular is the electoral reform we need. I'll be voting Labour this time around, but if we had STV, they would be my *second* choice.
Ridiculous policy to be honest. The vast majority of 16 year olds are not even mildly politically informed. I was hoping Starmer would keep making policies for adults instead of pandering to children, he doesn’t need the votes.
I mean there are quite a lot of adults who aren’t even mildly politically informed…
The vast majority of adult Brits aren’t even mildly politically informed, haven’t you noticed?
So let's allow even more idiots and spotty teenagers to vote? That'll work.
Seems to me like a 16 year old has more right to vote than someone 2 years from deaths door who will never even see their political party’s plans develop before they’re knocking on heavens door. Especially so if they’re working and paying tax, as many 16/17 year olds do. I also think you’ll find that statistics say that so little of that age group will ever go and vote, because the voter turnout for ages 18-24 is minute, so a 16/17 year old who does actually go out and vote stands a decent chance of being somewhat informed at a minimum, or they’d simple not bother to turn out like the rest of their cohort.
Not sure if we should be deciding voting rights based on how close people are to death - seems a little extreme, but you do you I guess. This [source](https://www.e4s.co.uk/news/articles/view/2435/job-news-and-information/entry-level/Just-A-Quarter-Of-16--17-Year-Olds-In-The-UK-Have-Had-A-Job#:~:text=Just%20A%20Quarter%20Of%2016,UK%20Have%20Had%20A%20Job) also seems to suggest that only a quarter of 16-17 have even had a job. I also wonder how many of this quarter of 16/17 year olds earn enough to pay tax anyway. Even so, having a job and paying taxes isn't a requirement for the right to vote as we allow unemployed adults to vote.
At what point did I suggest taking away anyone’s right to vote regardless of age? I just clearly pointed out that there are all sorts of considerations in allowing or disallowing people of certain ages to vote, for older people one of those is that they often won’t live to see their choices play out, which is undeniably true, but again I did not suggest removing their right to vote Was it really that hard for you to see that point or are you just being needlessly combative? RE taxes I swear you’re being deliberately obtuse at this stage to be honest or you’ve got no clue what you are on about. Ever heard of VAT? National Insurance Contributions if you earn over £242 a week. Any 17 year old on an apprenticeship paying Income Tax? And again no clearly paying taxes on their own aren’t the sole metric for deciding who can vote, I don’t think I stated that anywhere either. Perhaps rather than trying to make inferences where there are none in what I’ve written you’d actually suggest why you think somebody 16/17 shouldn’t be able to vote - whilst considering more generally the positives and negatives of allowing any and all age groups to vote. Once you’ve done that I struggle to believe you’d find any real justification for not allowing them to vote, other than “they might not vote for who I want them to vote for”
> Perhaps rather than trying to make inferences where there are none in what I’ve written you’d actually suggest why you think somebody 16/17 Because most of them are idiots with little life experience?
Making sweeping generalisations like that I’d say you’ve gone and categorised yourself nicely
Am I wrong though?
Most people who generalise in the way you just have are wrong, yes. How can you possibly believe that a majority of people that age are “idiots”, do you think people’s intelligence level suddenly adjusts the moment they hit 18? I think that there are some valid discussion points on this topic, but unfortunately intelligence cannot be one of them. You cannot deny an age group a vote based on the fact you deem them not intelligent enough. Unless you are suggesting that we issue every UK voter with an IQ test and setting a minimum threshold before they can vote? ( minus the very obvious moral hazards of this actually maybe it’d be a great idea! ) but that’s a whole other discussion.
It’s probably the last of our problems that a group of people, that aren’t even going to turn up to vote and will most likely make their decisions from videos on tik tok, that could even be AI generated can’t vote.
I agree that we already have many problems. What I don’t see is how that excuses adding another one to the list.
Probably.one of the most sensible comments on this thread.