{"id":109351,"date":"2025-05-17T15:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T15:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/109351\/"},"modified":"2025-05-17T15:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T15:34:08","slug":"labour-predicted-to-axe-votes-at-16-to-stop-reform-winning-youth-vote-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/109351\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour predicted to axe votes at 16 to stop Reform winning youth vote | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Labour will renege on it\u2019s commitment to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote because so many of them would vote for Nigel Farage<\/a>\u2019s Reform UK, the party\u2019s newest MP has predicted. Sarah Pochin \u2013 who sent shockwaves through the political establishment this month when she won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election \u2013 said Mr Farage has \u201cextraordinary\u201d support among teenagers.<\/p>\n

Labour pledged in last year\u2019s manifesto to lower the voting age to 16 but Ms Pochin expects the rise of Reform will lead to the plan being scrapped.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe youth, they flock around him,\u201d she sais. \u201cOut of nowhere on housing estates, you\u2019d get the 16, 17, 18-year-olds [asking], \u2018Nigel can we have a selfie?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThey love him and I found that fascinating because never before in the 10 years I\u2019ve been very active in politics have I come across the youth so engaged, so enthused by a party leader. That is extraordinary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell you one thing, I think Labour will back right down on giving 16-year-olds a vote because their vote will go to Nigel Farage<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Government spokesperson insisted the lowering of the voting age was coming, saying: \u201cAs set out in our manifesto, this Government is committed to widening and encouraging participation in our democracy, includes giving 16-17 year olds the right to vote. We\u2019re working with the electoral sector, devolved and local government, and other stakeholders to ensure we implement these changes successfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Government insists it is intent on lowering the voting age in \u201cgood time\u201d ahead of the next general election.<\/p>\n

Sir Keir last month told MPs the Government \u201cwill definitely get it done\u201d.<\/p>\n

Polling by Survation for True North Advisors found that Labour remains the most popular among young voters in the 18-24 age bracket. Thirty-five percent of this group said they would vote for Sir Keir Starmer<\/a>\u2019s party (when people who did not know how they would vote or would not say were excluded). This compared with 21% backing Reform, 17% saying they would vote Conservative and 15% who support the Greens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour will renege on it\u2019s commitment to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote because so many of them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[528,12,384,386,16,15,49812],"class_list":{"0":"post-109351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-labour-party","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-nigel-farage","12":"tag-reform-uk","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-voting-age"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114523908787508313","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}