United Kingdom The age to vote from 18 to 16 years will go down before the next national elections. The initiative is part of the measures to Increase democratic participationas the government announced on Thursday.
He Labor Party He promised before being elected in July 2024 to lower the age to vote in the elections to the British Parliament. Scotland and Wales They already allow young people aged 16 and 17 to vote in local and regional elections.
In addition, the nation will join the short list of countries where the age to vote is 16 years, together with countries such as Ecuador, Austria and Brazil. A handful of countries of the European Unionincluded Belgium, Germany and Maltathey allow 16 -year -olds to vote in elections to European Parliament.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer told ITV News: “I think it is very important that young people aged 16 and 17 have the right to vote, because they are old enough to go to work and pay taxes“
United Kingdom: The age to vote will be from the age of 16
The measure advanced next to broader reforms that include harden campaigning rules to prevent ghost companies with few clear owners to donate political parties. The Minister of Democracy, Rushanara AliHe said that change would strengthen the safeguards against foreign interference in British politics.
There will also be more severe sentences for people convicted of intimidating candidates. The government also said that it will introduce the Automatic voter record and these will be allowed to use bank cards as a form of identification in electoral schools.
The previous conservative government introduced a requirement for voters to show photo identification in 2022a measure that said would fight fraud. Critics argued that they could deprive millions of voters from vote, particularly to Young people, the poor and members of ethnic minorities.
The politics professor at the University of Exeter Stuart Fox, an youth vote analyst, said he is “far from being clear” if lowering the age to vote really increases youth commitment, according to AP.
“It is good to help young people be heard, but there are other measures that are more effective in making vote, Particularly those of the poorest environments that are, with much, the least prone to vote, such as strengthening the citizenship curriculum or expanding the provision of volunteer programs in schools, ”he said.
The United Kingdom inflation rose to 3.6% per year in June, above the expected
The British inflation He kept increasing since last September he played a minimum of three years of 1.7%and in May the Bank of England predicted that would reach a maximum of 3.7% in September, almost double the 2% target set by the Central Bank.
The June data of the National Statistics Office (ONS) placed The annual CPI at its highest level since January 2025. The increase in transport costs, especially fuels, was the factor that most contributed to the increase in the inflation rate between May and June, according to the ONS.
Source: Ambito
