Let me guess most readers’ reaction to news that Alex Salmond has arm-twisted Westminster into allowing 16- to 18-year-olds in Scotland to vote in the 2014 Scottish referendum on independence. I bet the reaction resembled mine. Annoyance. The very thought! As to the assurance that this concession will be temporary, and pressure will not build to make the change permanent, I’d reply (with many of you): ‘Nonsense!’ So, being on my way to speak at a well-regarded state secondary school in Wells, the Blue School, and hearing the news about Scotland, I decided to test the water. I was there to speak to 16- to 18-year-olds: some 200 of them. I could explore not just their opinions, but their reasoning.
I arrived in Wells not without prejudices of my own: first (as I say) a visceral bias against lowering the voting age. Second, an assumption that the boys and girls would be substantially in favour of the move. Third, a suspicion that such young and naive citizens might struggle to express many cogent arguments at all, one way or the other.
I was wrong on all three counts. They were against the idea. And they debated this among themselves with such cogency that I concluded that these young men and women ought to have the vote, whether or not they wanted it. Let me give you a short summary of our debate.
I began by explaining the Scottish proposal, then asking for a show of hands: who was in favour of 16- to 18-year-olds getting the vote? And who was against? The voting was substantially against: about 70/30, I reckon. At the end of our discussion (during which I never expressed an opinion of my own) I conducted a second vote, on a slightly different question: who among them — assuming they did get the vote before 18 — would actually want to use it?
The vote was substantially in favour! This time about 60/40.
One can only guess how these two results might be reconciled. Some may have felt that even if they didn’t want the right to vote, they’d use it if they had it. Fair enough: I use my totally undeserved Freedom Pass. But I did sense that many had simply changed their minds. Why? I think it was the experience of hearing each other venturing intelligent and fair-minded opinions on the subject, and realising that such views were as good as anyone else’s.
Among the opinions against, one young man felt that few teenagers in his position supported themselves and most depended on their parents. Wouldn’t such adolescents be unduly influenced by their parents’ opinions? I thought to myself (but did not say) that a comparable argument was once advanced against the idea of women voting.
Another wondered whether it might be possible to distinguish between adolescents who knew something of, and already had some stake in, society, and those who did not. I thought (but did not say) that restricting the franchise to property owners was once defended on a similar basis.
Others felt that if they could marry at 16 and be sent abroad to fight at 18, they should be entitled to vote. But many more subtle arguments than these were expressed. ‘Maybe politicians would listen to us more, and ask for our views, if they knew we had a vote,’ said one girl. ‘Lots of things that affect us, or will affect us, are decided by the MPs our parents elect,’ said someone else. ‘Tuition fees, for instance. Shouldn’t we be involved in voting for or against these policies?’
‘Me and my circle of friends,’ argued another young woman, ‘do know enough, and take enough interest, to have a say. But I suppose lots of teenagers don’t.’
‘Yes,’ I thought (but did not say). ‘I often feel the same about my own sixty-something age-cohort.’
More than one of my audience expressed the view that the political ignorance of many young people was not necessarily an argument for depriving them of political power: giving them the vote would cause many to take more interest in politics. ‘After all,’ said one, ‘we’re students. We have the time and the facilities to learn about current affairs — perhaps more than people who have to go out to work for a living all day.’
I listened with increasing respect to these students. At first not many volunteered to speak, but by the end there were plenty, stimulated by each other’s points of view. By their debate they persuaded me — and maybe persuaded themselves — of their fitness to take part. Their contributions were as informed as those of an equivalent group of citizens ten or 20 years older.
And (curiously) more public-spirited. I thought of all the nursing homes I’ve canvassed as a Conservative candidate and the countless occasions on which I’d been confronted by a grumpy old face, and the question — always the same question — ‘What are you going to do for me, then?’
Even on tuition fees, not one of the young people at the Blue School framed their opinions around his or her own material advantage, and how it might be served by politics. Nobody is totally without self-interest but it was striking that few were starting from self-interest; they were discussing what would be best for all. So, to me, the very argument most often advanced against letting younger students vote — that they have no stake — was becoming an argument in favour: they were dispassionate, disinterested (in the old-fashioned sense); they took an altruistic view. On the threshold of a world into which they had yet to plunge, before becoming distracted by the struggle for personal survival, they were asking what kind of a world they’d like that to be.
I left the Blue School relaxed about the idea of lowering the voting age. It would be good to hear today’s politicians talking with and to such an audience. It might bring a little maturity into our politics.
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