I’m in favour of this, however it’s only a fraction of what needs to be done to overhaul our voting system. We need to get rid of FPTP and reform the lords.
UK to lower voting age to 16
Submitted 2 months ago by Codpiece@feddit.uk to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c93kkg37n3kt
Comments
G4Z@feddit.uk 2 months ago
wewbull@feddit.uk 2 months ago
To me this is tinkering with the edges of a broken system. How about some proper voting reform?
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 2 months ago
The public rejected that at referendum.
DavidGA@lemmy.world 2 months ago
A generation ago.
echodot@feddit.uk 2 months ago
How about an actual referendum on whether or not we need a better system rather than do you want this plaster putting on it?
Single transferable vote is not a solution to the first past the post problem. It’s literally the same system with a minor fix which won’t really result in any change since we effectively live in a two-party system anyway.
shath@hexbear.net 2 months ago
the next generation has been deemed reactionary enough to vote
sirico@feddit.uk 2 months ago
If you can die for your country, you should be able to vote
AnarchistArtificer@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’ve always found it silly that one could legally have sex with their MP, but not vote for them
wewbull@feddit.uk 2 months ago
Weirdly, you can only die for your country with parental consent if you’re under 18.
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 2 months ago
No, you can’t. Under-18s are banned from theatres of combat, as the UK has ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. A few 17yo were accidentally deployed to Iraq, but sent home within 3 weeks.
thehatfox@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This feels like a big shift for it actually to happen, but I think it’s the right decision overall.
The idea that 16 legally a person can (with some caveats) live independently in their own home and raise a family, and pay all the relevant tax along the way, but not have their say in elections has always seemed incongruous to me. It’s the young who feel the political outcomes the longest after all.
How many young people will actually turn out is another question politically though.
deadcatbounce@reddthat.com 2 months ago
Haha. They’re changing the voting age. Not your ability to have a tattoo, cigarettes or get married without your parents consent or hundreds of other things.
It’s about keeping power. Not about helping you or me as citizens.
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 2 months ago
So that’s Farage a lock for PM then.
0x0@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
So those who voted on the right were mostly 16-18?
Got it.deadcatbounce@reddthat.com 2 months ago
Young people typically vote liberal side.
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 2 months ago
The liberals haven’t been relevant since the coalition.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 months ago
I don’t think there should be a voting age at all. Also think that prisoners should be entitled to vote.
Basically, I think everyone who is a British, Irish or Commonwealth citizen living in the UK should be able to vote.
I wouldn’t be too opposed to other nationalities with Indefinite Leave to Remain voting either. Especially for council elections.
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 2 months ago
So toddlers?
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 months ago
If a toddler is capable of being registered to vote going into a polling station, marking a ballot according to their own free will and putting it into the box, then they should be able to vote.
deadcatbounce@reddthat.com 2 months ago
Not lowering the age to have cigarettes, or tattoos or get married without parents consent or driving or an enormous long list of other things. Those things the politicians don’t trust to kids.
It’s purely about making sure children indoctrinated by the woke globalist teachers in schools since 1997 guarantee a leftist government remains in power.
Scotland has lowered the voting age to 16 similarly but they haven’t lowered the age for anything else.
It’s about power nothing else, not about the people.
Flyberius@hexbear.net 2 months ago
Long time coming
fire86743@lemmygrad.ml 2 months ago
This is a good thing, I think other countries should follow if they haven’t already.
Like, they aren’t lowering the age of consent, just the voting age. I think 16 year olds are more capable of voting responsibly than people think.
Denjin@lemmings.world 2 months ago
Age of consent is already 16 in the UK.
bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 2 months ago
So you’re saying that my man Niko has a chance?
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 months ago
*Sounds of Nigel Farage scrambling to make a Tik Tok account*
flamingos@feddit.uk 2 months ago
He’s actually already the most popular politician on TikTok.
shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Yeah, considering how good right wing influencers are at, well, influencing young people, this may not be good news.
RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Yeah this is a real jackpot for certain type of right wingers