RISKY TORY PLANS TO LOWER THE VOTING AGE
TORY MPs calling for the voting age to be lowered to 16 before the next election need to proceed with caution. What sounds like a bold wheeze to outflank Jeremy Corbyn’s courting of the youth vote could backfire.
Ex secretary Nicky Morgan, one of the pro-Brussels Tories who fears Brexit has driven younger voters away from the party, this week signalled her support for a Private Members’ Bill proposing the change.
Sir Peter Bottomley, another former Tory minister, has added his support, saying: “It’s a question of when rather than whether it’s going to happen.”
The dilemma for Theresa May is that her lack of a Tory majority in the Commons does not guarantee that she has the numbers to defeat the Bill, being proposed by the Labour MP Peter Kyle. If the Prime Minister is determined to stick to her plan of opposing the measure Government whips will have to make sure the legislation runs out of Commons time.
Loyal backbenchers would have to be deployed to waste time to kill the proposal. Labour would be bound to exploit such behaviour by smearing the Tories as the enemies of younger voters.
Despite Left-wing claims to the contrary, the Tories have a proud record of widening the franchise. As was pointed out during the celebration of the anniversary of women’s suffrage, it was Stanley Baldwin’s Tory government in 1928 that equalised the voting qualification for both sexes.
In an earlier era Tory prime minister Benjamin Disraeli gambled by introducing a far more radical voting Reform Act than that proposed by his Liberal rival William Gladstone. He boasted that he would “dish the Whigs” by lowering the property qualifications for the vote to enfranchise many working-class households. His ploy failed and his party was thrashed at a general election the following year.
Today’s Tory proponents of widening the franchise make a risky argument similar to Mr Disraeli’s, claiming possible party advantage rather than the merit of the cause. They should think carefully before launching a bid to “dish the Corbynistas” by enfranchising the Labour leader’s teenage fan club.