Britain’s in crisis – and Labour’s big idea is votes for children, writes James Hanson

But fear not - today Labour has announced its big idea for turning around Britain’s fortunes: votes for children.

Around 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote at the next general election, under government plans to lower the voting age. The Democracy Minister Rushanara Ali has pretentiously described the change as “seismic” - as if this is somehow comparable with the extension of the franchise to women or the working class.

Let’s be clear: Labour is not striking a blow for electoral equality. They are engaging in student gesture politics. Votes for 16 year-olds is the kind of policy that wins a cheap round of applause on campuses, but for which there is little public demand and even less intellectual reasoning.

Firstly, the left has never been able to make up its mind about when adulthood truly begins. In 2003, the Licensing Act made it illegal to sell alcohol to under-18s at licensed premises. In 2005, the Gambling Act set the minimum age for gambling at 18. You’re not even allowed to play the National Lottery until your 18th birthday.

In 2008, the school leaving age was effectively raised to 18. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the UK is a signatory, says no person under the age of 18 should participate in hostilities. And in 2022, the age at which someone can marry was increased from 16 to 18.

So if 16 is too young to fight, marry, drink, gamble or leave school - why is it somehow old enough to vote? The most nauseating response is that teenagers are increasingly affected by government decisions - whether about education, climate change or online regulation. But as Tom Harwood brilliantly demonstrated with his satirical “Votes at 12” campaign - the same argument can be made about children of almost any age.

If you accept the need for the line to be drawn somewhere, surely it makes most sense to draw it at the point of adulthood? There is a reasonable case that adulthood begins at 16, but if Labour truly believes that, then it should first begin by undoing the aforementioned legislation of recent decades.

It is also ironic that many on the left have recently decried Reform’s appointment of teenage councillors to run local services, and yet are simultaneously advocating votes at 16. Will the government’s new Elections Bill now also allow 16 and 17 year-olds to run for office? And if so, will the left keep schtum when the councillor in charge of children’s services is themselves a child?

I have long suspected that Labour’s real reason for wanting votes at 16 is to further its own electoral interests. This is wrong on a number of levels. Firstly, no constitutional change should ever happen for party political reasons. But secondly, it is deeply naive to assume that 16 and 17 year-olds are more likely to be attracted to Keir Starmer’s technocratic government than to the radicalism of Reform or a new left-wing party led by Jeremy Corbyn.

There is a reason Nigel Farage is by some distance the most followed British politician on TikTok. As unlikely as it may seem, the tweed-clad former City boy connects with younger voters in a way the Labour leadership simply doesn’t. If Morgan McSweeney and the bright sparks in Downing Street think this will help Starmer’s prospects at the next election, they should be careful what they wish for.

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James Hanson is a Presenter for LBC and its sister station LBC News. You can listen to James on Sundays 4-7am on LBC and on Monday to Thursday from 7-10pm on the new LBC App.

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