Labour government announces wrecking amendment to Britain’s Voter ID law by removing photo identification requirement, and slashes voting age from 18 to 16.
Under international and UK law, a child is any person below the age of 18, but by the time of the next UK General Election those age 16 and 17-years-old will be legally allowed to vote for their next Member of Parliament and won’t need photo-ID to do it, the Labour government has announced.
Angela Rayner, Sir Keir Starmer’s deputy prime minister, heralded the change by saying “For too long public trust in our democracy has been damaged and faith in our institutions has been allowed to decline”, apparently implying the trust issue in British politics has been caused by restricting elections to adults only, rather than decades of scandals and zero-mandate forced demographic change.
Announcing the answer to this breakdown in faith, Rayner continued: “We are taking action to break down barriers to participation that will ensure more people have the opportunity to engage in UK democracy”.
In the past, the franchise was pegged at 18 alongside other major issues judged to require a higher level of mental maturity. Criminals are not generally tried in adult courts until the age of 18, and a soldier cannot be operationally deployed until the age of 18, for instance.
The new discrepancy in government-imposed age limits was picked up by Conservative spokesman Paul Holmes, who said: “Why does this Government think a 16-year-old can vote but not be allowed to buy a lottery ticket, an alcoholic drink, marry or go to war or even stand in the elections they’re voting in? Isn’t the Government’s position on the age of majority just hopelessly confused?”.
Another Conservative called the move “shameless gerrymandering” and stated: “If we don’t think 16 is the age of adult maturity, why is the Government doing this?”.
Unlike some of the radical changes wrought in recent months by the Starmer government, the votes-for-children change was at least promised in their manifesto, and Labour can claim there is a democratic mandate for the change. As reported at the time the idea was first floated:
…the move would add around 1.5 million people under the age of 18 to the voter rolls, marking the largest expansion of the electorate since the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 by the Labour government of Harold Wilson in 1969.
The plan had appeared to be on the verge of abandonment in recent months, however, as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party soaring among younger voters seemed to kill Labour’s incentive to drag teenagers into the electorate.
As it is, Mr Farage spoke out against the change on Wednesday, stating that although his party stood to benefit from it, he still believed it was wrong. The Express cited his remarks thus: “It’s an attempt to rig the political system but we intend to give them a nasty surprise.”
Mr Farage said he didn’t back the change “even though we’d get lots of votes”, adding: “I don’t think you should be able to vote in an election unless you’re also eligible to be a candidate, and I don’t think 16 year olds should stand for Parliament.”
Other reforms of electoral law announced today are measures to protect “our elections from abuse”, said Rayner, including loosening voter I.D. rules so a form of photo-identification is no longer required.
A bank card with the voters’ name on would be enough in future, wrecking the election security measures implemented by the last government. The government said in a statement: “As part of the plans, the government is going further to make sure eligible voters are not deterred from voting, by expanding voter ID to permit the use of UK-issued bank cards as an accepted form of ID at the polling station… Research on the ownership of bank cards shows that over 96% of the UK population has a bank account, with the majority expected to also have a bank card.”
Another change is to be on campaign financing, with Labour confirming the introduction of an anti-Elon Musk rule, first seriously discussed last year after Musk suggested he would donate $100 million to Nigel Farage to help refocus British politics, outraging politicians from other parties who had hitherto been relaxed about the state of Britain’s election money rules. Under the new rules, so-called “shell companies” would be prevented from donating to political parties and it would have to be proven that cash donated by businesses had been earned in the UK, not transferred from abroad.
Minister for Democracy, Rushanara Ali, said: “By reinforcing safeguards against foreign interference, we will strengthen our democratic institutions and protect them for future generations.”
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