Votes at 16 — not a Foregone Conclusion
Robbie Nicoll examines why the campaign for the voting age to be reduced to 16 has not been successful so far.
The youth political movement is one which does not ‘own’ many issues. In the way that Labour ‘own’ the NHS or that the Scottish National Party ‘own’ independence, the youth movement cannot lay claim to many concerns because there are few that are specifically applicable to them. The campaign for the voting age to be reduced to 16 is arguably the only one - but if not then it is certainly the most relevant. Scotland has led the way on enfranchising young people in recent years, with 16 and 17 year olds being able to vote in the 2014 independence referendum, 2016 Scottish Parliament and 2017 Scottish council elections. The rest of the UK has not seen the same progress, despite intense lobbying efforts to get the voting age reduced for the European Union referendum and the 2017 General Election. I believe that the votes at 16 campaign is showing signs of running out of steam and that to succeed in reducing the voting age, the campaign must be more pragmatic and showcase the positive effect that enfranchising young people would have.
Particularly after the failure to get the franchise extended for the EU referendum, the various organisations campaigning for votes at 16 have seen their efforts slip. Following the announcement that Theresa May would be holding an early General Election but would need a supermajority to go through the Fixed Term Parliamentary Act, Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer tweeted that opposition parties could demand the vote be given to 16 and 17 year olds in return for their support of the early General Election. This could have been an excellent opportunity for the votes at 16 campaign to lobby Labour, the SNP, Liberal Democrats and even sympathetic Conservatives to support this. Instead, the campaigning organisations sat on their hands. Afterwards, the official Votes at 16 campaign account tweeted “Yet another General Election in which 1.5 million 16 and 17 year olds will be denied a vote” despite having made little effort to actively campaign for it. The Scottish Youth Parliament followed suit, stating that young people were clearly politically engaged and thus worthy of receiving the vote. To support this, they cited their own election of members in 2017, even though this only attracted a 10% turnout amongst the eligible electorate of Scottish 12–25 year olds. This is not a convincing show of democratic engagement compared to the far stronger argument that can be made from the studies showing a 75% turnout amongst 16 and 17 year olds in the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum. Like these organisations, I think votes at 16 should happen; however, I believe that it needs a fresh approach.
Votes at 16 is not an important issue for those in the political sphere. Much like women’s suffrage when male politicians were distracted by the looming international issues precipitating World War One, the Conservatives are too pre-occupied with the UK’s decision to leave the European Union and getting their major votes through Parliament to be focusing on extending the franchise to a demographic which doesn’t vote for them. This means that the campaign must get creative to attract support. The age-old arguments of “I can have a child with my MP but I can’t vote for them” or “no taxation without representation” don’t change minds and they certainly don’t attract the attention of Theresa May.
When looking at history, we can again draw parallels with the campaign for women’s suffrage in the 1900s. The suffragist movement had been campaigning peacefully for 20 years, the more militant suffragettes for 10 and even then, it took the significant contribution of women to the war effort to get the vote. Hopefully over 20 years of campaigning can be avoided this time! But the lesson to take is that societal contribution attracts positive attention. The votes at 16 campaign can play an enormous role in showing how 16 and 17 year olds contribute to society and how their involvement in the electoral process will enhance democracy. Youth organisations can empower themselves to be more involved in publicising young peoples’ stories and mandate themselves to have greater levels of youth engagement in practice to show the benefits of having 16 and 17 year olds involved in the political process. This would be a hugely positive campaign compared to the negativity of current tactics such as the SYP’s spinning of numbers that do not give credence to the issue and the Votes at 16 campaign’s Twitter account getting into social media fights.
As an example, Voting Counts UK is an impartial website that helps to educate young people about voting and the electoral process. It was set up in 2014 after a conversation amongst young people about not understanding the issues and where parties stood on them. Its unique point is that is created and run entirely by young adults. These young people recognised that they were not informed enough on political issues and decided to create a website filled with information for other young people to access. It is hard to imagine any other voting demographic recognising that they are not informed enough and taking steps to proactively change that. There are many similar examples of young people contributing to the political process and by publicising them, it becomes very difficult to argue against why 16 and 17 year olds should get the vote.
The self-entitled tone of the votes at 16 movement means that the issue is running out of steam. However, as set out, what is needed is fresh positivity and a recognition that the franchise will not just be extended someday in the future. I would argue we need to find out the reasons why people don’t support votes at 16 and publicising examples of 16 and 17 year olds contradicting these reasons (for example, ‘Young people aren’t informed enough’ can be countered with the Voting Counts website), whilst continuing the lobbying effort to keep it on the political radar. It may be that I am wrong and that someone else comes up with a better idea, but it is evident through the continued rejection of it by MPs and Government that the current strategy isn’t working. I support votes at 16 because I believe that 16 and 17 year olds are able to cast an informed and researched vote — let’s get our reasons and our evidence out there.
