Old people eh?
There's a massive generational divide in our societies and our politics. For example, if the vote had been limited to the under 30s in the UK's last general election in 2019 Corbyn's Labour Party would have won the biggest landslide in the party's history. If the vote had been limited to the over 60s every seat in the land would have been Tory. Those, like us, with a lot more summers behind us than in front of us are deciding upon, controlling, and creating the social, economic, and political conditions that those with more summers ahead that afore will have to face and deal with. What is in our interests isn't necessarily in the interests of the young people who will inherit the future they'll be lumbered with.
Our societies are so polarised, our political debates so divisive. It's almost as if there are two sets of politics trying to work for two different societies. Demographics hints that there's some truth in this. We are living in rapidly ageing societies where the older voters are starting to outnumber the younger voters. It didn't used to be that way. In the "good old days" of the 1970s, that period over 50s now look back on with fond affection, the retired population of over 65s were about 5% of the UK electorate - now they're about 20%. The median age in the UK is c.40, and moving up bit-by-bit, but because you can't vote in a general election for the first 18 years of your life that makes the median voting age c.58.
In my view societies should look at ways to weight the vote in favour of those who have a future before them, rather than how it is at the moment - weighted towards those who will soon disappear. But you can't disenfranchise the old and the elderly voters can you? You can't balance the 18 year shift upwards in the mean voting age by stopping people from voting in their last 18 years of life. So the only way to rebalance the electorate is to extend the franchise downwards.
The age of majority in UK law is 16. In Scotland 16 year-olds can vote in all Scottish government and local elections - but you can't vote in a national general election until 18. I think there's a case for extending the vote down even further, not to 14, or 12, but to all school-age children - let's say 6 and over.
Article 12 of
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (PDF) says that children have rights to give their opinions freely on issues that affect them, to be consulted on any issue which affects them directly or indirectly, and that governments have an obligation to listen and take children's views seriously. Article 13 says children have a right to express and share their thoughts and ideas and that they should not be limited by governments in that expresssion. And Article 14 says that children own their own thoughts and beliefs; their own selves. Children's rights are in fact simply the concept of human rights extended to everyone - extended downwards if you like.
People are of course going to point out that children are immature in their thinking and expectations, that they aren't really competent to take part in making important decisions like who might run the country. But then again, are adults automatically competent to do this either? If we're not going to test the competence of adults when it comes to complex social, political and/or economic questions then competence isn't really an issue is it?
Faced with that argument people might suggest that there should be some kind of competence exam that qualifies an individual's right to enfranchisement (and the people saying this always assume that they'd pass that exam). But for all intents and purposes this is just a distracting cul-de-sac because who are we going to trust enough to decide if we are fit to vote? And how are we going to do that if not by voting, and then how are we going positively influence a system that has control over our enfranchisement if we've been disenfranchised? Again, if we're not going to apply fitness conditions to adult voters then saying that children aren't fit to vote is just a type of adult hypocrisy isn't it?
I guess someone might argue that adults are more likely to understand how important voting is and what hangs in the balance - that adults are, generally speaking, more informed than children. But that does rather depend somewhat, doesn't it? I've been working with 12-14 year-olds this year who are far more informed on environmental, climate and sustainability issues than people my mum's age in their 70s. How many adults are informed about the mechanisms of fiscal policy, or waste management, or procurement and contract law, or whatever? Having an opinion isn't necessarily being informed. Watching the news isn't necessarily being informed either - especially if you watch a lot of Murdoch's media output! And children are little sponges for information, and from about the age of 6 onwards there's probably nothing in the world that can't be explained to a child in a way they can understand. Parents talk to children about complex and emotive issues all the time, so if children are ignorant about how important voting is and what's at stake then surely that just means there's an obligation to explain it to them in a way they can understand (perhaps we should even try that with all voters?)?
Then again some might say that children will just vote the way their parents tell them to. Perhaps they will, perhaps they won't. But how many adults vote the way their religious leader tells them too, or the news anchor and newspaper editorial or front page tells them to, or how that fashion icon on Tik-Tok tells them to, or how that commercial enterprises tells them to, or how their co-workers vote? One of the arguments for not extending the vote to married women was that it was basically pointless, because married women would just vote the way their husbands told them to. One of the arguments for not extending the vote to all women was that single women didn't have a husband to tell them how to vote so it was impossible for them to vote in a responsible or informed manner. Remind me husbands, how did that turn out?
Universal suffrage is supposed to be universal. One person; one vote. Children are people. If they're old enough to go to school then they're old enough to vote.
Anyone heard from Hermit.?
