Voting age reduced to 16 at next GE

Everyone News and Current Affairs
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Just seen on BBC News about the Government confirming from the next GE, 16 and 17 year olds will be able to vote.

I’m on the fence with this one. Can see the logic of if you are working and paying taxes then you should have a say.

But also a tad worried this’ll lead to an influx of Andrew Tate, populist-minded voters who could be easily swayed by TikTok psyops.

But then again some young people are more politically educated than “Barry down the pub” who’s only political allegiance is whoever “gets our country back”.

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It is a change that will be beneficial to the party who has the best social media team.

But it is no different to the other parties appealing to the red faced gammons and old people the other end of the voting spectrum.

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Most 16-17 year olds are at least as politically competent as the average Reform voter, so let them have their say.

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The thing for me is that we are repeatedly hammered that 16 and 17 year olds are children and that they shouldn’t be adultified, surely that’s contradictory to giving them the vote?

If we are moving the right to vote down to 16 surely we should be dropping the age to drink and smoke as well as the point at which you are an adult in the criminal justice system?

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If you can’t legally pick up a rifle to defend your country, when you commit a crime that means you can’t be sent to adult jail until 21, can’t get married without parental permission.

With that in mind no vote until 18 and some say a brain is not developed fully until 25.

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Some people’s brains aren’t developed well after that. We still let them vote. Look at the number of Tommy Robinson supporters, Andrew Tate aficionados or anyone who thinks Trump and Farage care about them.

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Maybe instead of no taxation without representation, we should say no representation without taxation. So, if you earn under the threshold, or you are a pensioner or benefits claimant who pays no tax, you lose your vote…

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I’m a pensioner and I pay tax, as a high percentage of pensioners actually do! We pay taxes on our workplace pensions in combination with our state pension.

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Do you think any of the political parties in the YK actually cares about the population?

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Uhh, yes.

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Decent idea initially until you think about the chronically disabled. Presumably they’d never get to vote?

Yeah benefit sponges aren’t my number one favourite group of people but very slippery slope to be disenfranchising people.

I’d be in favour of 16-17 year olds who pay tax to get the vote. Seems strange they didn’t until today.

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Read the Casey and Jay reports them tell me they care?

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Sometimes, making assumptions makes you look like an idiot. This is one of those occasions.

Unfortunately for you, that doesn’t mean I adhere to your cynical, populist view.

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If we’re going to expand the franchise beyond universal adult suffrage, I don’t understand the logic behind including some children and not others: unless it’s based on them working and paying taxes (in which case, only applying that qualification to children would be age discrimination and we should apply it to all).

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It can be a combination of factors, it doesn’t need to be just one.

16-17 year olds potentially pay taxes or are at a stage in life where these decisions start to have a significant impact on them, and seeing as many are intelligent enough to make decisions that affect their future (and the future of others), I think it makes sense.

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That’s fine by me, I have my opinions, you have yours, we’ll just have to agree to differ. I see all the usual suspects support you!

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Many school aged children have been adversely impacted by recent government policy (having to find new schools because theirs close or their parents can no longer afford the fees): shouldn’t they get a say too?

The unborn recently saw a big dent to their right to life, with their mothers now able to murder them at any time before birth without legal consequence: shouldn’t they have had a say?

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Good to know you properly read what I wrote and are taking this discussion seriously.

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I would class many of our 16-17 yr old cadets as being sensible. However, would I trust them with a vote? Absolutely not.

When you gently chat with them whilst waiting at a range day, or when in a minibus, it doesn’t take long to realise that their depth of knowledge is minimal (especially for moderately important political topics), they can be swayed at the blink of an eye or focus on one microscopical detail rather than take on the whole (important) picture.

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I would agree with this.

And with the algorithms feeding who knows what, it is more important than ever to have had broad exposure to life.

I recall how my own political beliefs and voting habits have changed over the last 18 years (without going into the detail).

There’s a massive difference between being safely housed, closed, and fed as a child, to then joining the military where I got lots of things provided cheap with a very good wage, to later being much more aware of global affairs, government process etc.

Obviously, that’s my journey and everyone has a different starting point, but the one thing we all start with is a completely blinkered perspective of how everything works and how our would-be decisions could affect others.

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