Letting extra teenagers vote would repair elections for Labour, Tories warn

Keir Starmer’s plan to give 16-year-olds the right to vote would ‘rig’ the electoral system against the Conservatives for years to come, Tories have claimed.

The Labour leader is reportedly planning to lower the voting age in his first year in government if he wins the General Election in July.

It would give the right to vote to more than 1.5million people under the age of 18, and become the largest change to the electoral system since the voting age was cut from 21 to 18 in 1969.

Sir Keir said: ‘Yes, I want to see 16 and 17-year-olds voting. If you can work, if you can pay tax, if you can serve in your Armed Forces, then you ought to be able to vote.’

Speaking on a visit to Stafford, Sir Keir added that young people ‘should have a say on how their money is being used’.

Opponents argue young people are too immature to make informed political judgments, with the policy branded ‘cynical’ because it is expected to benefit Labour.

‘Yes, I want to see 16 and 17-year-olds voting. If you can work, if you can pay tax, if you can serve in your Armed Forces, then you ought to be able to vote,’ Starmer said

Sunak meanwhile would like to see young people return to national service

Conservative Party chairman Greg Hands said: ‘This is nothing but a desperate attempt to rig the electorate’

Tory MP Tom Hunt said it was ‘an attempt by Labour to rig the vote in their favour’, adding: ‘The motivation behind this is perceived political self-interest, nothing else.’

Fellow Tory MP Bob Seely said: ‘Labour haven’t even won and already they are trying to rig the voting system. 

‘Perhaps Labour think younger voters will be easier to pull the wool over than older folks with a bit of life experience.’

And Sir Iain Duncan Smith accused Sir Keir of ‘virtue signalling’, adding: ‘This is a gimmick done by those who think their party is more likely to get the vote.’

Labour has been closely studying how Scotland and Wales cut the voting age. In Scotland, those aged 16 can vote in local and Scottish Parliament elections, while in Wales they can vote in local and Welsh Parliament elections.

Fellow Tory MP Bob Seely said: ‘Labour haven’t even won and already they are trying to rig the voting system.

The process took less than six months in Scotland, while in Wales the legislation passed in less than a year after being introduced.

A Labour source told The Times the move ‘has the double benefit of not costing very much to do but of helping secure a second Labour term’. Analysis by the newspaper showed if 16 and 17-year-olds voted in the same way as those aged 18-24, an extra eight seats would switch from the Tories to Labour.

Ashfield MP Lee Anderson, while he was Tory party deputy chairman, said extending the vote to 16-year-olds would mean the Con- servatives would be ‘done for’.

And Patrick English, at YouGov, said: ‘We would generally expect that lowering the voting age would be electorally advantageous to Labour, as younger people are significantly more likely to back them over the Conservatives.’ 

Starmer meets a local resident during a Labour general election campaign event in Stafford

Keir Starmer speaks with staff, during a visit to C&W Berry builders merchants, in Leyland, Lancashire

Some parts of the UK would see a greater number of new voters able to go to the polls than others, Commons analysis has shown. 

In the Hodge Hill constituency in Birmingham, the voting-age population would increase by 5 per cent. But in the Cities of London and Westminster, it would increase by 1.3 per cent.

Younger age groups usually see a lower turnout. In the 2010 election, 18 to 21-year-olds had a turnout rate of 40 per cent – around half that of those aged over 65.

Teenagers aged 16 and 17 can already vote in the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Brazil and Austria, as well as for some elections in Germany, Malta and Norway.

Sir Keir has previously faced a backlash within his party over the plans. Labour MP Graham Stringer said it would ‘smack of party political self-interest on the basis that young people are more likely to vote Labour than Conservative’.