Jeremy Corbyn to hit Labour with hammer blow that could kick Keir Starmer out of No10 | Politics | News
Sir Keir Starmer’s move to lower the voting age may eliminate Labour’s lead in the next election as Jeremy Corbyn’s new party is sweeping up younger voters. New polling shows more than one in five 16 and 17-year-olds would vote for the hard-left group, Your Party, which is headed up by Mr Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. The data shows that the youth vote would be split between Labour, Your Party, and Reform UK in the next election, which would be a major blow for Sir Keir.
Mr Corbyn’s new party would knock six percentage points off Labour’s share of youth voters, according to the poll by More in Common. Sir Keir’s party would fall to 24%, Nigel Farage’s party would follow closely behind on 23% and Mr Corbyn’s new party would have 21%. A Reform spokesman said that the government’s attempt to “rig the next election” may “just come back to bite them”.
The Prime Minister said at the time of announcing the move: “I think it’s really important that 16 and 17-year-olds have the vote, because they are old enough to go out to work, they are old enough to pay taxes, so pay in.
“And I think if you pay in, you should have the opportunity to say what you want your money spent on, which way the Government should go.”
The Elections Bill will be the first change to the voting age since it was lowered from 21 to 18 in 1969, and will bring in 1.5 million new voters. Sixteen-year-olds can already vote in local council elections in Scotland and Wales as well as elections to the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments.
The polling from the think tank also shows a gender split in which parties they would vote for.
Some 45% of 16-17-year-old boys would vote for either Reform UK or the Conservatives, compared with just 24% of girls.
Luke Tryl, the director of More in Common, told The Times : “It seems the fragmentation of politics is not limited to adults. This poll of more than one thousand 16 and 17-year-olds shows that Corbyn’s new party, Reform UK and Labour would be in a virtual three-way tie among this group of soon-to-be voters.”
