‘Giving the Vote to 16 Year Olds Is a Big Step Forward – Now Give It to Migrants Too’

When the Scottish Parliament introduced votes at 16 for the 2014 independence referendum, there were those who argued that 16 and 17-year-olds weren’t mature enough to think seriously about the world. Some Conservatives complained that this was a partisan move, designed to drive-up support for the ‘Yes’ side. 

But during the referendum debate, everyone in Scottish politics witnessed the profound way that older teenagers engaged, taking the subject seriously and coming to their own conclusions.

High schools and colleges hosted debates, and the politicians who attended, on both sides, often reported back that they had been involved in some of the most rigorous grillings they’d had.

A year later, when the Scottish Government proposed that the voting age for Holyrood and local elections here should be permanently reduced to 16, the vote passed unanimously – even the previously sceptical Conservatives accepting that the experience had proved them wrong. 

Wales followed a few years later, and, in the 2021 Senedd elections, 16 and 17-year-olds were able to vote for the first time. The fact that it’s taken England and Northern Ireland – and so Westminster elections across the UK – so long to catch up is a shame. The fact that the Government has finally done so is excellent news.

The principled case for lowering the voting age is obvious – 16 and 17-year-olds have a stake in society, and should get to shape it. Since, on average, they will live longer than the rest of us, they arguably have more of a stake. It’s often said that they can pay taxes and join the army, and, of course, that’s true, but even those who don’t do either are part of the community. 

Those who worry that they don’t have enough experience of the world miss the point, too. Democracy doesn’t demand that we are experts in anything but our own experience – it functions by pooling our collective perspectives.

Every 16-year-old is more of an expert in what it’s like to be 16 in Britain today than I am. And that’s the only qualification they need. Forcing politicians to ask for votes from those currently in the school and college system, or the care system, is a good thing. Arguably, it’s helped increase the prominence of education and care in Scottish political debate.

Academics who have studied voting habits in Scotland since the change didn’t just find that older teenagers are perfectly well equipped to engage in the political process, they’ve also discovered that those given the right to vote at 16 continue to be more likely to vote than the cohort before them were at the equivalent life stages.

Voting is a habit you either get into or don’t. If you form that habit when you’re likely still living at home and, often, going to school or college, you will take it with you into the world. If you acquire the right to vote at exactly the moment when you (in many cases) leave home and life becomes precarious, you are less likely to get into the habit, and less likely to ever get around to forming it.

Of course, there’s a question about why not to go further – York University professor Martin O’Neill has argued (convincingly, I think) that it should be cut to 12. Cambridge don David Runciman stumps for six. But that’s an argument for another day. 

Because age is only one way that we exclude people from voting in Westminster elections. Alongside older teenagers, there are two other large groups of adults in the UK who we currently disenfranchise. 

The largest of these is some immigrants. Because, while non-citizens from a Commonwealth country or Ireland who live here have the right to vote in Westminster elections, people from non-Commonwealth countries don’t.

There are roughly five million such people – who despite living in the UK for years, despite paying their taxes here, and despite often considering themselves British, don’t have the right to vote here. For many of these people, the barrier to citizenship isn’t that they wouldn’t otherwise qualify, but that applying costs more than £1000.

Like 16 and 17-year-olds, these people won the right to vote in Scottish parliament and local elections, but are excluded from Westminster elections across the UK. And this has a direct political impact: migrants are the primary scapegoat in British politics. They are also the biggest adult demographic in the UK that is unable to vote in elections. While the fact that migrants can vote isn’t the only reason that they are less scapegoated in Scottish politics, it is absolutely one factor.

The other major group who are banned from voting is the UK’s roughly 100,000 prisoners – about a constituency’s worth of people. Britain has one of the highest incarceration rates in Europe – roughly twice that of, say, Germany. They generally come from some of the most marginalised communities – British incarceration rates are more racially disproportionate than those in the US. And yet, Britain is one of very few European countries which automatically bans almost all prisoners from voting – despite repeated demands from international judges.

This means that, for example, the growing number of people jailed for breaking increasingly draconian protest laws won’t be allowed to vote if they’re inside at the next election. People convicted of drug offences won’t be able to vote for those who seek decriminalisation – and so on.

If democracy is the principle that we should all get a say in decisions which affect us, then it seems obvious that people who are among the most severely impacted by our criminal laws – and the broader failings of our society – should get a say. 

The Government’s proposals include some other positive measures. Automatic voter registration is hugely significant – at the moment, Britain, Ireland and Cyprus are the only countries in Europe where you have to register to vote, creating a significant barrier to participation, which particularly impacts those with the most precarious lives.

Plans to finally lift the cap on fees the Electoral Commission can fine those who break the laws of our democracy from £20,000 to £500,000 are hugely welcome (I had a petition demanding this change in 2019, which more than 150,000 people signed – if you were one of them, we finally did it!)

Likewise, the Government’s plans to tighten rules around foreign donations are a good start (though they really do need to introduce a maximum donation law). But I digress…

The overall result of the current UK franchise system is – according to numbers I crunched for my book ‘Abolish Westminster’ (due out next summer) – that less than half of adults in the UK voted in the 2024 election, compared to 60% of adults in the last Holyrood election, and 66% of adults in Germany in the last Bundestag election.

Votes at 16 and automatic registration will go some way to addressing that. But the brave and principled move would have been to end the situation where millions of long-term migrants have taxation without representation, and to end the automatic disenfranchisement of prisoners.

Sadly, this Government is not known for either its bravery or its principles. 

Read more from Adam Ramsay on his Substack here.