The case for votes at 16

For over a hundred years, the Labour movement has been at the forefront of social reform. The very conception of the Labour Party came out of a huge sense of social injustice, the belief among the reactionary establishment that working classes – the very people who kept the country moving, the backbone of the industrial revolution, the men and women who day in, day out, made Great Britain great – were incapable of having a say in which the country was run. So, Keir Hardie and his fellow founding members led the way, campaigning for the universal right to vote, regardless of class, status, wealth or background. They won.

Time and again, no matter the cost or opposition, the Labour Party has campaigned against all social injustices.

When women were deemed “feeble minded” among the Conservative masses, Labour led the way and won the case for women’s rights. When the policies of apartheid were supported or simply ignored by government after Conservative government, Hugh Gaitskell’s Labour Party were first to march against it. When Enoch Powell delivered his infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech, the great statesmen of the left, Tony Benn, Harold Wilson and Michael Foot were straight off the mark to condemn the policies of “Racialism”. When Labour returned to government in 1964, Homosexuality was finally legalized, women were given their own reproductive rights and the medieval policy of capital punishment was finally abolished. While Margaret Thatcher condemned homosexuality Labour led the way, introducing Civil Partnerships under the premiership of Tony Blair.

We’ve done a lot and come a long way. Now, I believe – though just a petty matter in comparison to the fights against inequality, racism, sexism, homophobia and bigotry – Labour has found a new cause to fight and campaign for. The right for young people to have a say in the way their country is run.

I will not be eligible to vote in 2015. As a result, the new initiative to lower voting ages to sixteen – which has now been rightly endorsed by the Labour Party – is an issue I hold very close to my heart. I believe that one of the fundamental reasons that disenfranchisement and general animosity towards politics has continued to rise among young people, is because of their feeling that they simply do not matter. Politicians on all sides of the political spectrum continue to preach the values of education and young people, yet very few actively seek the opinions of young people. Their say, their thoughts and ideas seem completely irrelevant to them. Ed Miliband is trying to connect with the young people, the future generations, the next leaders, teachers, doctors, workers and voters. I support him for that.

But I believe we must do more. There remains an underlying unfairness. At the legal age of sixteen you can get married, you can start a family, you can join the army, you can fight and die for your country. If you can die for your country, you surely must have the right to vote for your commander in chief, the person who could well send you to war.

Many on the right have already condemned the idea. They have said we (young people) would be unfit, we would waste the votes and many have already declared it as left-wing opportunism. Time and again David Cameron and his “liberal” Conservatives have expressed a desire to connect with the youth. If he really wanted to, he would support lowering the voting age, connecting many young people with politics as a whole.

Many have also – be it in merely the form of rhetoric, buzz words and sound bites – called for a re-establishment of the British community. A return to the times when neighbours were best friends, when children played in the street without fear, when people would help each other and take pride in their neighbourhood. Many people have blamed this decline on council flats, the demonization of the working class, the privatization of British industry and, ridiculously (a view held by the BNP, UKIP and some right wing Tories) the increasingly multicultural make-up of British society.

These factors (ignoring the comments on multiculturalism) all have at least some part to play but I believe it has more to do with young people. The youth of Britain no longer feel important, valued or listened to. As a result they have no interest in the community. That could change if we lowered the voting age. If they felt they were trusted with responsibility of voting, maybe then we could finally unite the British society regardless of race, gender, culture, background, religion, sexual orientation or age.

The idea that sixteen year olds would be unfit to vote, or simply waste it is also completely flawed. By the standards of these critics it would be fair to say that the majority of eighteen, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty year olds would be unfit to vote! On a final note, no matter how people vote, it matters that they do vote.