UK Politics
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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Do people actually see this as a good thing?
For me it's just messing with the edges of a broken system.
I think it's a good thing yeah. 16 year olds can join the military and pay taxes if they work, so they should have a choice in what government to elect.
I see it as 16 year olds are the most easiest to manipulate on social media, and that this does not bode well for progressive politics.
At the same time, what's the actual peak age of "can't be manipulated on social media", and as blacknight says below - if they can work and die for our country at that age, they might as well be allowed to vote
Boomers: am i a joke to you?
yes, but also fuck no and please don't vote with your feelings
From 16 a British person can bear much of the responsibility of an adult (with some caveats) but receives none of the political rights in return. That's always seemed incongruous to me, that someone can say, start a family, but have no say over their future.
It certainly seems much bigger change than messing with the edges, I don't think any extension of the franchise could be seen as minor.
It think it's an important step in the right direction, but yes we do need to go a lot further in other ways also.
Don't let perfection get in the way of progress.
We know the system is broken, but the people with the power to fix it have no interest in fixing it. At least they're improving it in some way, makes a change from the usual "and then it got worse".
It's an odd issue for me. I'm not against it, but the number of politically aware 16yos I've met would be close to zero. That said, I don't think it really gets better by 18, so I have no good argument either way.
It just doesn't strike me as anything but an attempt to gerrymander along demographic lines and so I view it with cynicism.
How many 16 year olds have you met? The volume of politically aware adults I've met over the decades is genuinely disgusting...
I was the politically aware 16 year old thinking the war on terror and invasion of Iraq was the natural progression of western corporate imperialism.
I would say I’m wiser now at twice the age, but I and most of my class at school had fairly reasonable political views from my recollection; maybe a bit naive and simplistic in a few cases, and a little bit of groupthink going on, and at least one die hard communist (though I imagine he still is, so I doubt that affects much either way).
16yo is old enough to do pretty much all the other big decisions of an adult, so why not voting, they’re not really treated like children anymore by our society.
Messing at the edges of the broken system is a good thing. Not as good as fixing things properly. Still a good thing.
If it lowers the average age in the parliament, that would probably be a good thing, even if the UK is not the worst from what I can see.
In the UK the average age is around 50 according to: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/house-of-commons-trends-the-age-of-mps/
Compared to the US where the senate is a bunch of pensioners average of 64, and the house is 57: https://fiscalnote.com/blog/how-old-118th-congress