The government called the move the “biggest change to U.K. democracy in a generation,” highlighting that young people “already contribute to society by working, paying taxes and serving in the military.”
While the decision is expected to broadly benefit center-left parties, the precise impacts of the change are less clear.
Polling of 16-to-18-year-olds conducted by Merlin Strategy and featured in the Financial Times indicated that about 33 percent of the cohort would vote Labour, followed by 20 percent voting Reform and 18 percent opting for the Green Party.
Political scientist John Curtice told POLITICO in an interview that the political impact of the change would be “marginal,” estimating that the new bloc of voters —already less likely to vote — would add between three and three-and-a-half percent to the total electorate.
Curtice said, however, that “age is the biggest demographic division in our electoral politics” and that younger voters would be “likelier to vote for Labour or the Greens” than Reform. “The one party to celebrate are the Greens,” he said. For Labour to “fully benefit” from the change, they would have to “fend off a challenge from the Greens,” Curtice said.
The opposition Conservatives criticized the “rushed” announcement, with Shadow Communities Minister Paul Holmes claiming Labour’s unpopularity was “scaring them into making major constitutional changes without consultation.”