On 18 September 2014, Scotland went to the polls to decide its future in the United Kingdom. While the outcome was decisive – 55 per cent of voters couldn’t bring themselves to back independence – the turnout for the poll, at 85 per cent, was one of the highest recorded in Britain. The significance of the ‘one-off’ vote (plus anxieties on either side of the debate about the outcome coming down to the wire) saw full-throated campaign efforts deliver a swathe of voters to polling stations. A number of these were under 18-years-old, including me – with my birthday falling just six days before the poll.
It was the 2012 Edinburgh Agreement that allowed the Scottish parliament to choose who could vote in an independence referendum. Using temporary powers under the Scotland Act, the Scottish government extended the say to 16- and 17-year olds – and subsequently over 100,000 under-18s registered to vote. The argument put forward by the SNP was similar to that of Labour’s Angela Rayner on Thursday: the decision is good for democracy and gets young people excited about politics. And the same criticisms were levelled at the Scottish government as the UK one: that the move was more about party politics than progress.
History has demonstrated how expanding the vote is hardly the most effective form of gerrymandering
History has demonstrated how expanding the vote is hardly the most effective form of gerrymandering: while the SNP expected younger voters to be more open to the idea of independence, Scottish Referendum Study analysis showed that 54 per cent of 16-19-year-olds voted ‘no’. The BBC described the union-backing bloc at the time as an ‘unusual alliance’ of ‘average earners, Protestants and women’.
Labour should take heed: currently polling suggests that while younger voters would tend to lean left, there is a significant proportion of young people – generally men – attracted by the straight-talking, anti-establishment rhetoric of Reform. As More in Common pollster Luke Tryl pointed out on Friday’s Coffee House Shots, the voting reform doesn’t make it much more obvious who would win the next general election at this point. What it does signal is yet more bad news for the Conservatives, who poll in the single figures among young people.
But there is a case to be made for extending the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds, particularly at a point when trust in politicians is at an all-time low and people across the country are increasingly disillusioned by and disengaging from national politics. Research by academics from both Edinburgh and Sheffield University after the 2014 poll found that not only do 16- and 17-year-olds tend to vote more frequently than their slightly older peers who got the vote at 18, they maintain these voting habits for longer – usurping the turnout dip that was once common among the early adult age group. ‘If you give people the right to vote earlier in life, they appear more likely to make voting a habit,’ the researchers noted.
Polling company FocalData conducted research in conjunction with work done by former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown on the state of social cohesion in Britain. The findings are stark: nine in ten people said they had less than five close friends, while 16 per cent admitted they had no friends at all. Looking at Gen Z more specifically, YouGov noted in February this year that only 15 per cent of young people feel they live in a united country.
Communities – and generations – look increasingly fragmented in the UK and a kind of local-level protectionism is being bred, as economic pressures tied into the cost of living crisis and housing shortage remain a feature of public life. People are growing less interested in each other and more disillusioned by the state of the country. Of course the simple fact of giving young people a vote wouldn’t sort all this out – but the triple shot of getting people interested in political policies from an early age, increasing turnout and, crucially, maintaining that increase in engagement ensures more people are actively invested in the country’s future. That cannot be a bad thing.
Why is this important? Recent elections have seen more and more people turn off from mainstream politics – indeed, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party won its supermajority on a very thin share of the vote, with only 38 per cent of Brits backing them. They’ve only had a year in power but already their legitimacy has been challenged as a result – as much internally as externally. Awareness of the vote share (and indeed low turnout) has created an atmosphere of awkwardness. As one Labour grandee remarked to me recently: ‘There is a bashfulness about our success.’ It sums up the degree to which this realisation has undermined the confidence of the party leadership, with MPs acknowledging the government hasn’t exploited its supermajority to its fullest potential. And now that backbenchers are growing increasingly vocal – and disruptive – it seems unlikely Labour ever will.
Parties would do well to better consider how to speak to a cohort of people that will shortly make up the bulk of the country’s workforce, especially if various reforms – that are hard sells in the short term but beneficial down the line – are to be pulled off. Starmer’s biggest U-turns during his first year in office show a government allowing non-workers to dictate policy: from the winter fuel payment cut reversal to the rowback on disability benefits. Long overdue conversations about issues like the pension triple lock tend to be avoided thanks to fears about losing the silver vote. While allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to head to the ballot box isn’t going to radically dent the impact of the pensioner class, it provides an additional opportunity for parties to consider how to get young people on side – and stick with them over the course of their voting careers.
There are numerous counterpoints: for example, if 16- and 17-year-olds can’t, in England, do things like get married or drink alcohol, they shouldn’t be allowed to vote. (You could argue it seems strange to shower a person with a whole host of new liberties at any one age.) And there is a certain sneeriness from older generations about the intellectual capacity of teens now – perhaps a rattled awareness that they too were the future once. But this ignores a number of responsibilities that already rest with young people: it is at this age that you are expected to figure out what you want to do with your life – what to study at university, or which apprenticeships or jobs to apply for. And it’s often at this age that students are at their most curious.
I remember the buzz around school when the independence election approached – friends who had never so much as talked about the news before were discussing things like the future of Trident (we were only a few miles down the road from Faslane), our reliance on oil and gas and even questions of cultural identity. It didn’t split people down partisan lines; it persuaded us not only to voice our opinions but appreciate that they carried weight. And, vitally, it encouraged more people to get involved. The government’s latest move doesn’t quite deserve the criticism that has been thrown its way.
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