From: julianlzb87@gmail.com   
      
   I launched the Votes at 12 campaign to lampoon the madness of   
   enfranchising young teenagers   
      
      
   “Did you know that at age 12 you can have your ears pierced, you’re   
   legally allowed to buy a spoon, but you’re not allowed to vote for your   
   future?” These were the words with which I launched the Votes at 12   
   campaign, eight years ago. It was born out of frustration and   
   procrastination. As a student at the end of January 2018, I sat aghast   
   watching Emily Thornberry stand in for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at   
   Prime Ministers’ Questions.   
      
   Readers may remember the crises the country was struggling through at   
   that time: the wake of the disastrous 2017 election, a hung Parliament,   
   Brexit gridlock. And yet, Dame Emily decided, again and again, to throw   
   the issue of lowering the voting age to 16 across the dispatch box at de   
   facto deputy PM David Lidington. Seriously.   
      
   Instead of finishing some essay or other, I quickly registered a   
   website, had a couple of t-shirts printed, grabbed my camera and decided   
   to turn the satire up to 11. Now, nearly a decade later, I’m tempted to   
   re-start my campaign. This week MPs will vote on what was once fantasy   
   Corbyn-era policy becoming a reality. But as was the case back in 2018,   
   the arguments in favour of lowering the franchise to include children   
   are astonishingly thin; so thin that almost all of them can be applied   
   to 12-year-olds too.   
      
   Kids aged 12 aren’t allowed to buy alcohol, fireworks, or lottery   
   tickets. They are not allowed to drive, fight for their country, marry   
   without permission, sign a contract, leave education or some form of   
   training, watch pornography, or serve on a jury. Remarkably, society has   
   decided that all of these age-based prohibitions should apply to   
   16-year-olds as well. So if 16, why not 12?   
      
   It’s not as if society in any other sphere treats 16-year-olds as   
   adults. In fact, law after law has been passed to raise the bar for   
   participating in society from 16 to 18. The Education and Skills Act   
   (2008) legislated to end the absolute right of children to leave school   
   at the age of 16. Instead, since 2013, young people had to remain in   
   education or training until the end of the academic year in which they   
   turned 17. In 2015 this was tightened up to 18.   
      
   Under Rishi Sunak, the legal age for marriage rose to 18 (in England and   
   Wales it had previously been legal from 16, but only with parental   
   consent) after a brave campaign from victims of forced child-marriage.   
   The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as updated this century,   
   has outlawed the use of child soldiers, forbidding participation in   
   hostilities by anyone under the age of 18.   
      
   And most recently, of course, the free and open internet has been   
   blocked to anyone under the age of 18 (and for that matter any adult who   
   doesn’t want to hand over age identifying credit card details or webcam   
   face scans), meaning that huge portions of the internet are now blocked   
   from view for the very people the Government now wants to give the vote.   
      
   Most astonishingly, this censorship has extended to war reporting from   
   Ukraine and Gaza, court transcripts from rape gang trials, and even a   
   parliamentary speech by Tory MP Katie Lam. All of this is too graphic   
   for the delicate ears and eyes of 16 and 17-year-olds, according to   
   Parliament.   
      
   In fact it seems that the only real responsibility that lowering the   
   franchise to 16 would match is the age of sexual consent, which is the   
   outlier, not the norm (and to be honest a quite creepy right to peg our   
   voting age to). There once was a time when campaigners for giving   
   16-year-olds the vote used the slightly lurid slogan, “You can have sex   
   with your MP but not vote for him”. Strangely, they quietly dropped that   
   one in the post #MeToo world.   
      
   Today, just like eight years ago, the country is in a rut. While we’re   
   no longer living under the instability of a hung parliament, it sure   
   feels like we are. Today’s growth statistics were so abysmal that, in   
   per capita terms, they would constitute a technical recession at the end   
   of last year.   
      
   The Starmer ministry is collapsing around him, and Britain can’t even   
   rule the waves of the English Channel. And yet what are our MPs devoting   
   their time and energy today? They want to give kids the vote. They are   
   fiddling with children’s enfranchisement while Rome burns.   
      
   Tom Harwood   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)