Labour harvests ‘Votes at 16’ online data

LABOUR has used its campaign to lower the voting age to 16 to harvest the contact details of tens of thousands of young people, it can be revealed.

More than 44,900 people have signed an online petition on the party’s website demanding 16 and 17-year-olds are given the vote. Since it was launched two years ago, many of them will now be 18 and eligible to vote when an election takes place.

But signatories were asked for their email addresses and postcodes so Labour will able to contact them with election messages in the run-up to polling day. They can opt out of receiving the updates.

Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to extend the voting age may be crucial in handing him the keys to No 10. The Office for National Statistics reveals there are 88 constituencies where the number of 16 and 17-year-olds outnumber the majority of the sitting MP.

Thirty-four of the seats are held by Conservative MPs who would be vulnerable to losing if the franchise was extended, including environment Secretary Theresa Villiers, who won her Chipping Barnet seat by just 353 votes in the 2017 election.

The change would also make it harder for the Tories to take a swathe of Labour-held target seats. Mr Corbyn’s Momentum group is also hoping to help him snatch target seats in university towns by getting students to vote there rather than at their home addresses. It has launched a website where they can type in the postcodes and it will tell them which seat is more marginal and likely to make a difference to Labour.