- Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of ‘fiddling with the constitution’ over plan
- Cuba is one of the few countries in the world that allows 16-year-olds to vote
- Sir Iain Duncan Smith said changes could lead to Labour being in power longer
A Starmer government would make Britain ‘like Cuba‘ by giving votes to 16-year-olds, senior Tories have warned.
Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of ‘fiddling with the constitution’ by pledging to extend the voting age.
Conservative candidate Bob Seely, a member of the foreign affairs committee, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Arrogant Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t even got his feet under the desk in Downing Street and Labour are already planning to fix our election system to be like Cuba.
‘Labour wants to use 16-year-olds, barely out of school, to build in a supermajority for a generation.’
Another Tory candidate said: ‘Cuba is their role model.’
Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of ‘fiddling with the constitution’ by pledging to extend the voting age to 16-year-olds
Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said Starmer was ‘fiddling with the constitution to please the Castro-loving Left’
The Communist-run country is one of the few in the world that allows 16-year-olds to vote.
Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the issue must be put to a referendum.
Sir Iain said: ‘The more you look at Starmer, the more you understand – what you see is not what you get.
‘He is a revolutionary who is determined to change the electoral system so Labour has a long period in power.
‘He has no right to change the voting age because he will be fiddling with the constitution to please the Castro-loving Left. You shouldn’t do it without a referendum.’
The Labour leader would reportedly move quickly to lower the voting age in his first year in government.
Sir Keir has said: ‘Yes, I want to see 16 to 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.’
The move would be the largest electoral change since 1969, when the voting age was cut from 21 to 18, and would enfranchise more than 1.5 million teenagers.
Analysis of recent polls suggests the youngsters would be overwhelmingly Left-wing.
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden warned this would mean Sir Keir ‘automatically gifting himself more than a million more Left-leaning voters’.
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden warned such a change would mean Sir Keir ‘automatically gifting himself more than a million more Left-leaning voters’
‘If Keir Starmer were to win, the UK would join a small group of countries like Cuba and Ecuador in enfranchising teenagers as he manoeuvres to lock in large Labour majorities,’ Mr Dowden said.
The Labour party has been closely studying how Scotland and Wales cut the voting age for some elections.
In Scotland, 16-year-olds can vote in local and Scottish Parliament elections, while in Wales they can vote in local and Welsh Parliament elections.
Sixteen and 17-year-olds can also vote in the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Brazil and Austria, as well as for some elections in Germany, Malta and Norway.