At 18, I can do all those things, not least run for election myself. And, for the most part, it is right that I cannot at 16. Voting should not be a steadily encroaching, age-irrelevant right, but an active adult duty. But while many 16-year-olds are too immature, surely there should also be an age cap on older people’s reliability?
No. Older people have a wealth of life experience that you don’t. They have lived under numerous governments and understand that they are usually incompetent and inefficient, so voting the bastards out is like washing your underwear and for the same reason.
Time and time again, the young have had their futures marred by an electorate that does not have their interests at heart. I remember sitting at the kitchen table on the morning of 24 June 2016, watching the Brexit referendum results on my mum’s iPad. Even at the age of nine, my friends and I recognised the unmistakable feeling of betrayal.
No, you didn’t you pipsqueak. This alone tells me you are a know-nothing loudmouth with an empty head. Those of us who voted to leave had lived with the EU for four decades so had some experience to call upon.
Get back to us in a few decades, by which time you will have matured enough to be able to put together a considered argument based on reason and fact. In the meantime, fuck off.
Turn the argument on its head ‘No representation without taxation’.
So most 16 year olds will pay no (income related) tax. Perhaps some of the poorer OAPs will pay no tax (unless the Old Age Pension is taxed under Labour!).
And just for shits and giggles make the data about Government spending more visible and transparent. Unless, of course, you don’t want the electorate to be informed…
When was the last time you saw a 16 year old with a job? The whole “You must stay in school until 18, then go to university” bollocks pretty much killed off that dynamic.
Entirely to disguise the “Youth Unemployment” epidemic as “Edumacation”.
Having a job is irrelevant Bonnie Langford started work when she was 6
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_Langford
Does anyone really think that 6 year old actors should be able to vote?
(She was probably paying more tax then than some people pay in their life.
So tired of hearing this ‘boomers were just thinking about themselves’ theory from zoomers about the Brexit referendum.
When l voted to leave l didn’t do so expecting to benefit personally – frankly, the real benefits are unlikely to be apparent in my lifetime. I could see the trajectory the EU was on and the deliberate undermining of democracy within it – projecting this into the future left me with the conclusion that remaining in the existing system was not in the long term interests of this country or it’s people, particularly the younger generations.
My assessment may be wrong but l do wish the young understood it was made with their future interests in mind.
BTW I would still vote ‘leave’
I not only voted for BRExit, but joined the Vote Leave team and actively campaigned for it, spending several months dedicated to it.
I didn’t do so in the expectation of seeing anything that would directly benefit me, but to detach the UK from a failing EU which would have dragged us down with it.
The longer the UK remains outside the EU the more obvious and expensive “Rejoin” will be, from fiscal realignment to adoption of the Euro.
Let the EU sink like the Titanic for the same reasons.
So would I. But this twerp knew it was wrong when he was nine. What a pompous little prick. If anything, he demonstrates that he is not yet mature enough to have a vote.
The lefty EU lovers often claim that most people who voted ‘leave’ in the referendum would have changed their vote if they knew Leave would win. Really? Well, I fully expected Leave to lose. However, I don’t regret voting ‘leave’ one bit. And I would vote ‘leave’ again without hesitation.
The Leave victory wasn’t just a vote against the EU. It was a massive ‘up yours’ to the establishment.
Yep, it was sticking it to the man, quite rightly but also the last time ever it was allowed. No more referendums for us.
Sandeel fishing has been banned that is a real benefit for bird conservation now.
Because Boomers don’t have children or grandchildren that they consider when voting.
As to Brexit I knew the EU would extract a price to discourage other countries from doing the same but I did not realise how petty the EU could be, even to the extent of disadvantaging their own citizens.
The problem was that those in the UK charged with carrying it out did not believe in it.
Tristan… and you read on beyond the name?
Good point.
There were people like him around when I was at secondary school – always going on about politics. They were always socialists. As if we cared. Us normal teenagers just made fun of them
Don’t forget that there were a lot of young people who didn’t vote in the Referendum and then cried when the result was announced.
There is an age cap, it’s called death.