Voting Age To Be Lowered To 16.

That'll guarantee Farage is the next PM.

Lib dems and greens delighted

Tories can't believe it, lol

2024 General Election.

18 - 24 year olds.

Labour 33%
Green Party 25%
Liberal Democrat 21%
Reform 9%
Conservative 6%
Others 6%

It'll be interesting to see how those figures read when 16 - 18 year olds enter the fray in four years time.

16 year olds can currently vote in Scotland in many elections.

No young person is going to vote Labour after 5 years of Starmer..

Wales also can currently vote at 16.

England playing catch up again then.

After a poll of 500 16 and 17 year olds showed a split of 51:49 in favour of being able to vote, ITV did their own groundbreaking research to get to the bottom of all this:

ITV News went to Cockshut Hill School in the Birmingham Yardley constituency, one of the areas with the highest percentage of 16 and 17-year-olds, which also has a very slim majority.

We asked the group of five whether they thought 16-year-olds should have the vote, and only one of them did.
Maryam Panjsheri told us she doesn't think the voting age should be lowered, "because we haven't got the right life experiences - we wouldn't know who to vote for."

"Because we're 16, we're not fully developed yet, and we're easily influenced", she said.

Rehan Shafi said: "I don't think 16-year-olds are mature, because the frontal lobe develops around 25, 24.

"Even with the age of consent, I don't think it should be 16, I think it should be 18 or older."

Aaireen Fatima said: "When you're 16 you have other things like our GCSEs, I feel like my choice would be very influenced by my surroundings like my friends and family.

"Politics isn't something I'm very interested in right now, so I feel like I could make a biased decision rather than a fair one."

The best part of this "research" was that it was done by ITV, so it wasn't paid for by TV license holders

No Taxation without representation

About time, if you're old enough to work full time you should be entitled to vote.

We currently probably have half a million voting with early dementia...

It will not take the young long to find out you are better off not voting. That is my advice.

Jul 17, 2025 -- 5:04PM, brentford wrote:

We currently probably have half a million voting with early dementia...

Absolutely. Perhaps we should stop folks in care homes/hospitals and the like from voting. Most have no idea where they are, what their name is, who their family are. Why should they be able to vote?

If you were born in July or August, you officially leave school at 15 at the end of June, and you can work from then, so should be 15 if that's the principle.

Well it would be 16 but 15 if you fit the criteria you described..arguably un-necessarilly complicating it..

Poor advice Metro

The only thing I would say is that these MP’s need to feel the pain. Many have snouts in the trough with tickets on the Gravy Train. People like Jess Phillips have given  backing to a terrorist sympathiser and a man who I’d not fit to lead our country.

I hope the locals ditch her and send a message to others like Wes Streeting.

Don’t waste your vote. Use it to let them know they cannot take you fir granted and have to start listening.

These scumbags are trying to go after Diane Abbott again. It’s about time they feel some heat.

No representation unless you pay tax. Most 16yos would vote to double the spend on NHS and make Universities free.

If voting changed anything they wouldn't allow people to vote. 

Jul 17, 2025 -- 5:31PM, sageform wrote:

No representation unless you pay tax. Most 16yos would vote to double the spend on NHS and make Universities free.

Universities are free, depending where you stay in the UK.

We asked a group of 5

Great sample size.

Maybe end voting for pensioners
who don't pay tax...

Get a sample of 5 to decide

We have Hobson's choice

I wouldn't decrease it, in fact I'd increase it to 21, give kids the chance to make an informed decision.

I agree with you in principle, Aspro, but on what do we base our' informed' decisions when most

politicians are liars!

The message that 16 year olds can work & pay tax so should be allowed to vote should be taken with a bucket of salt.

16 year olds can’t just get a job, they need to be in education or training. Much said that can join the army but again are restricted in what can actually do there. Hardly any 16 year olds are in the army


Need to be 17 to drive
18 to…
Gamble
Buy a beer
Buy cigarettes
Get a tattoo
Marry
Get loans/ general contracts

Even age of consent is 18 in some circumstances to prevent 16 year old children from being exploited by people in a position of trust.


To allow 16 year old to vote , government have changed ID rules so can use non photo ID of a bank card.

fair point roggrain

good news for further education - they may get more money from government going forward instead of being the outcasts of the education system

are kids more intelligent at 21 ? have you read the muck on here from fannygoat,casemonkey/irishone,dancingbravethebest/ronaldmacdonald/cider about 500 years combined ?
16 is grand for voting

How many 16/17 year olds actually pay tax. anybody any idea ?

Labours only chance of getting in again

How many 16/17 year olds actually pay tax.

Very nearly 100% of them

How much income tax and/or  NI would that be then YHTL ?

Oh, income tax

Not just any tax, do kids get chocolate bars and takeaways vat free?

Bit of a childish remark YHTL but not unexpected given your past form and penchant for deflection.

Toddlers eat such stuff so i suppose they would get the vote in your world ?

Starmer said that if they are old enough to work and pay taxes then they(16/17 year olds) should be able to vote.  So any chance of actually answering my question ?

Lol, you have changed your question having not liked
my accurate answer to your first.

I am not deflecting, you are.


Your logic is flawed, as that is not my point
at all, but strawmen seem a strong part
of your straw clutching.

Lol

Who did you used to be before you were banned

Have you been on the sauce Donny ?

You have basically proved my point ,you can't answer a simple question so deflect and play the @rse.

I asked a perfectly fair question that simply needed a factual response. I suggest you look up what a "straw man" argument actually is. 

And pray tell,  what am i supposed to have been banned from ?

I answered your question

It's nearly 100%


So you changed the question
and strawmanned about toddlers

Lol

A straw man, in the context of logic and rhetoric, is a form of argument where one person misrepresents or distorts another person's argument to make it easier to attack, essentially creating a "straw man" to knock down instead of addressing the real argument.

Exactly what you did

Starmer was asked in an interview how he justified 16/17 year olds  being allowed to vote.

His reply was because if they can work and pay taxes then they should be entitled to.

I then asked the question on here, how many 16/17 year olds pay tax ?  It was quite obvious which tax i was referring to and only a quarterwit would fail to grasp this and hey presto one came along.

It was you Donny  who deflected and indeed essentially straw manned with your infantile response.

And you never answered as to what i was supposedly banned from, what are you inferring ?

OAP's who have clearly lost the plot are still allowed to vote so what's the problem with 16 - 18 year olds being given the same opportunity?

Am I bovvered if 16yo’s get the vote?

The blue rinse voted for Brexit.

The farmers voted for Brexit

The Fishermen voted for Brexit

The car workers in Sunderland voted for Brexit

The country voted for the LIAR Doris Bunter Johnson

Most of the kids probably won’t get off the sofa. Who cares, nobody cares.

Jul 18, 2025 -- 6:36AM, Blake@1658 wrote:

OAP's who have clearly lost the plot are still allowed to vote so what's the problem with 16 - 18 year olds being given the same opportunity?

Indeed.


Mum got out of hospital yesterday. The number of people in the ward who are plainly not compos mentis was astounding. And given how much politicians have focused on the older voters, surely it's self-defeating. Time to stop the short-termism and focus on a cohort able to make long-term decisions.

His reply was because if they can work and pay taxes

I then asked the question on here, how many 16/17 year olds pay tax ?  It was quite obvious which tax


So obvious that the one answer you got
sent you loopy, but at least you
now know what a straw man is even
if it's beyond your comprehension.

As I understand it a strawman is a type of fallacious argument that distorts an opposing stance in order to make it easier to attack. 

No jobs more customers than ever more taxes than ever, is the ideal of Capitalist pigs, their system is failed.

Politicians will be standing outside McDonalds offering a free burger and fries to any 16/17 yr old

that will vote for them!

Next thing you know they will make it legal for 16/17 year olds to sit as MPs.

Yep can be prime minister but can't be an mp
aged 16/17

Still waiting for you to say what it is i was supposedly banned for/from YHTL.

Or is that another question that you can't or won't answer ?

Jul 18, 2025 -- 6:31PM, DixieDean60 wrote:

Still waiting for you to say what it is i was supposedly banned for/from YHTL. Or is that another question that you can't or won't answer ?

Desperation.

Any chance of explaining that one word post yak ?

Dixie asks obvious questions but cannot
provide an answer.

He is desperate, and give the lad
a bigger spade, could be more fun.

It's on days like this that I feel sorry for all these 16 and 17 year olds that have just done a full working week and paid all that income tax only to be told they can't buy a pint and a £2 footy acca on their well earned day of rest.

What kind of monstrous dictatorship bans 16 year olds from purchasing beer?

If it's anything like it was when I was 16..you get a drink as easy if you want..of course if the legal age were 16 it might have been easy @ 14...not so clever imo..

Voting a bit more reliant on documentation (supposedly).

I would guess, back in the day, most of us were going in pubs at 16. I know I was.

With Challenge 25 etc though probably harder these days for a 16 year to get a pint than it is for a dead person to vote in Tower Hamlets.