It is noticeable that rather than come up with policies to benefit the country, that Ed Miliband’s Labour Party are only coming up with policies to benefit the Labour Party. One such policy is to reduce the voting age from 18 to 16. We should be under no illusion that Labour’s motivation is nothing whatsoever to do with their claimed ‘empowerment’ of under-18s and everything to do with Labour Party electoral self-interest. This is because polling has shown that Labour would receive the most votes from under-18s.
This week at Crawley Borough Council, Labour’s Crawley Parliamentary candidate has in his Councillor capacity, cynically tabled a notice of motion for the Council to support lowering the voting age to 16. This is something that many Labour-controlled Councils across the country have used valuable Council time for, rather than actually addressing local issues.
I take the view that rights and responsibilities should come in equal measure. Therefore I believe that the voting age should be consistent with the age of majority and I see no compelling evidence to change that from 18. Labour’s vacuous argument as per their Council motion, is that at 16 you can get married and serve in the Armed Forces so should also have the vote. They fail to mention that you need parental permission for both and that under-18s in the Armed Forces do not serve on the front line.
If Labour share my view about rights and responsibilities being equal, with the voting age being the same as the age of majority, then parents take note as Labour are advocating the following for Crawley’s 16 year-olds:
- Being tried as an adult if charged with a criminal offence as well as able to undertake jury service and be a magistrate.
- Being able to buy alcohol, cigarettes and fireworks.
- Being able to undertake all forms of gambling, including addictive fixed-odds betting terminals.
- Being able to be tattooed.
- Being legal to feature in pornographic films and it no longer being illegal for someone in a position of trust such as a schoolteacher, to have a sexual relationship with them.