With Labour pledging to lower the voting age, Eleanor Peake speaks to teenagers who say they deserve a say in the issues that will shape their future
Niamh Portess remembers exactly what she was doing on the morning of 23 June 2016. She was at home with her family, gathered around the TV, watching as the news anchor announced that the UK was leaving the EU. Immediately, her phone blew up as her friends flooded her with shocked commentary. She was 11.
Portess feels enraged that she cannot vote in an election where parties have pledged dramatic policies involving her generation, including theplan for all 18-year-olds in the UK to undertake national service, and Labour’s to lower the voting age to 16.“There’s a lot of politics around young people. A lot of these policies have to do with our generation, and we don’t get a say,” she says.
Like Portess, one of her earliest memories of political consequence was the Brexit referendum. “I was nine years old and even I could sense it was stupid. I didn’t even need my parents’ opinion.” Worries around the cost-of-living crisis haven’t escaped Booth, and she is practical when it comes to thinking about her future. “My plan is to take a gap year and work so that I don’t have to spend most of my life paying back my university fees,” she says.
Max has a severe peanut allergy and is campaigning to change the law on restaurants and allergies. “While there have been some amazing recent developments with the implementation of Natasha’s Law, it doesn’t go far enough. I am participating in the Owen’s Law campaign to change legislation, and make it compulsory for restaurants to list any use of the 14 main allergens.”
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