Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

16 and 17-year-olds, plus 33,000 foreign nationals, will be able to vote in the 2021 Welsh Assembly election.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-50561883

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

A new Govt. will take a 16 year old, up to the age of 21. Arguably the most important time of their lives? Why shouldn't they have a say? Give them a bit of credit, they are your future.

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

Of course they should be able to vote at 16 as its pretty condescending to say they don't know enough to be able to come to a informed decision before they vote.

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

Seph answered your question in his last post. Young people still in full time education have little experience of the world and have an idealistic sense of the world. They also tend to believe what their left-wing teachers tell them.

You are expecting them to vote when they have only very recently woken up to politics and what is happening around the world.

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

Labour was the driving force behind this, backed by the Welsh nationalists. Desperate for votes I suspect.

Not so long ago they argued that a jihadi bride should be allowed to return to the UK as she probably did not understand what she was doing at age 16 when she left. But she understands enough to vote?

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

She'll understand enough to vote Labour the terrorists best friend.

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

Exactly, look at Stanley Johnson, so old and wise he got on TV and told the British public just what idiots they are!

Quote:

Maybe a youth Parliament with one elected representative to the Welsh assembly? But votes at 16 is a ridiculous proposition - I fear that it will take hold in the UK. Next it’ll be they can be MPs, too young to buy alcohol, too young to drive but allowed to legislate there on. Quite ridiculous.

Old enough to pay tax.

At least you’ve been honest enough that when you were young you were more left wing/less right wing, so merely see it as a function to gerrymander election results by restricting the franchise.

The real fear of course is that 16-17 year olds vote for their economic interests much like pensioners do.

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

I remember being potentially liable for tax when I was just 14 years old(Summer holiday job).

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

Potentially.

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

Personally I'd raise the voting age to 21. Along with Drinking, smoking, gambling.

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

Wouldn't have reached the tax allowance. I was still "assessed".

Child showbiz stars must pay tax. Don't know how it works nowadays, but back then it was added to a parents tax. My father had to declare it.

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

Here's the Conservative case for extending the vote to 16 and 17 year olds - https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/...-at-16-and-17/

In a worst case, with the voting age being 18, you could be essentially disenfranchised until you are nearly 23 under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. In this time, you could have been working for 6 years or studied for A Levels, got a Degree and be 2/3 of the way through a Ph.D. at the other end of things.

I would suggest that the years from 16 to 23 years old are some of the years that will have the largest impact on your life. There are other life events of course but those years are certainly up there and the breadth of opportunity is never wider than at this point. Not being able to have an influence in how the country is run seems unfair to me.

Re: Welsh 16 year olds get the vote
 

Indeed, a sixteen year old can choose to defend their country, yet is denied a voice in how that country should be run.