Lowering the Voting Age: Risks & GamblingIn the risk society of 21st-century Postmodernity. By A.R.Arthur

The Labour Government will be lowering the voting age to 16 at the next general election,

effectively making the biggest electoral change since the UK voting age was lowered from 21 to

18 by the Representation of the People Act 1969, which came into effect on 1 January 1970 and

first applied in the June general election of that year. Some fifty-five years have now elapsed,

and this decision seems to reflect some warped form of social justice concerning “working 16-

year-olds,” 1 . Perhaps Labour analysts believe that the tables may just turn ever more in their

favour, increasing their 400+ seat majority exponentially by unlocking an ‘untapped voting

force’. Such machinations seem to be based on the idea that political certainty can be assured

through deceivingly un-British-Socialist policies that have seen inflation increase further than

when the previous Conservative government left in 2024.

With a moderate level of inflation of 2% in the Summer of 2024, the current inflationary level of

3.6% reflects the impact of Labour’s tax increases and market uncertainty due to changes in non-

domiciled status and the potential flight of millionaires and other wealthy individuals due to

proposed changes to inheritance and taxation more broadly. All these aspects have created

arguably one of the weakest Labour majority governments in modern history (Clement Attlee

onwards). Preoccupied with the same hypocritical scandals that the party accused the

Conservatives of. Such as expense and grooming gang scandals 23 . Read: Champagne socialism

that never pays off and conservative gluttony that fails to maintain its lustre when economic

strife sets in post haste.

This returns us to the ‘feel good’ policy symptomatic of a Labour government before the

economic malaise sets in. For there is only so long one can blame their predecessors before the

onus truly, crushingly, becomes one’s own. Lowering the voting age satisfies the hunger of

champagne socialists for social justice, that voracious, all-consuming desire to pretend to be one

with the people, so symptomatic of the duality of both parties, with notable exceptions such as

Atlee & Churchill (on a purely national level). This leads to new threats to national sovereignty

as large-scale digital manipulation and propaganda campaigns like those waged through Russian,

Chinese, and other non-state acting hackers elsewhere can now target a new population segment.

One that is arguably the most vulnerable to digital manipulation and the distortion that

accompanies cyber activity in the 21st century globally (for example, the spread of fake news in

the postmodern, post-truth era) 4 .

1. 1 Starmer, K. (2025) ‘If you pay, you should have a say: UK to lower voting age to 16’, AFP via France 24, 17 July. Available at:

   https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20250717-if-you-pay-you-should-have-a-say-uk-to-lower-voting-age-to-16 (Accessed:17 July 2025).
   

2. Stone, J. (2025) Keir Starmer under pressure after ethics row over gifts and appointments. The Guardian, 10 July. Available at:

   https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/10/keir-starmer-under-pressure-after-ethics-row-over-gifts-and-appointments

   (Accessed: 17 July 2025).
   

3. Faulconbridge, G. (2025) UK PM Starmer defends grooming inquiry U-turn amid backlash. Reuters, 15 June. Available at:

   https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-pm-starmer-defends-grooming-inquiry-u-turn-amid-backlash-2025-06-15/ (Accessed:17 July 2025).
   

4. Douai, A. (2019) Global and Arab Media in the Post-truth Era: Globalization, Authoritarianism and Fake News, International

   Observatory on Information & Democracy. Available at: https://www.iemed.org/publication/global-and-arab-media-in-the-

   post-truth-era-globalization-authoritarianism-and-fake-news/ (Accessed: 17 July 2025).

Arguably, this voting change is a distraction, another distortion to supposedly reinvigorate the

youth to join Labour emphatically. It doesn’t account for the disenchantment across the political

spectrum with traditional parties, the malaise of multiple scandals from expenses to grooming

gangs to immigration to pensioners. This is the Labour party that represents actually what

socialism and in a different vein, communism, ended up becoming in the USSR and its satellite

states. The rise of elitism, typically patriarchal, will always be part and parcel with both

capitalism and socialism and further, communism, eventually. Therefore, this law change acts to

maintain the ideological party apparatus in the eyes of the party elite.

I find it rather sardonic that for a party of the people, they have yet to elect a single woman as

prime minister or minority but yet are driven by some warped form of social justice to

enfranchise children, many of whom, on social media, discuss how they feel ill equipped to take

part in the electoral process.

This is further intriguing in the age of AI, as data farming and other activities by Palantir and

other companies allow users to identify patterns in datasets, ranging from signal intelligence

sources to reports from confidential informants. This leads to greater overall surveillance but on

the flip side, greater leaks, opportunities for data purchasing, and of course, the use of social data

negatively, such as in the ‘targeted killings’ it has achieved in collaboration with the Israeli

Military and elsewhere 5 . Such data usage, whether leaked or purchased, can be used through

social media to impact voter choice. Chatbots and other forms of propaganda also exist and can

be fed said data to achieve specified goals. This begs the question of whether the Starmer

ministry has thought about the risks to impressionable minds, the importance of development and

education in making informed political decisions, and the role of the state in ensuring impartial

education on the matter, which has seemingly gone unaddressed.

The rise of right-wing influencers such as ‘alpha male’ commentators across the Western world

in particular, has led to a new generation of so-called ‘red pilled’ men 6 . Some of whom are part

of incels or end up committing serious, typically violent and sexual crimes against women 7 . This

is just one example of how digital indoctrination and manipulation is so exploitative and seeks

vulnerable youth making this law change problematic. Before opening up voting to 16–18-year-

olds, the government should have developed a better strategy to counter misinformation and the

spread of sexist and other hatred-driven agendas digitally and across society. Greater focus on

education, even if solely in the interest of the state, is also necessary. Arguably, 16–18-year-olds

voting enfranchisement further enmeshes them into the state system which actually increases the

likelihood of misinformation corruption and reckless voting. Thereby threatening the very

foundation of the democratic institution that the Starmer government seeks to preserve and grow,

naturally, in their favour, through said enfranchisement.

5 Financial Times (2025) Future weapons – Battlefield AI, Tech Tonic podcast transcript. FT, 29 April. Available at:

https://www.ft.com/content/802864cb-a680-48ea-837b-32cb31ad09e4 (Accessed: 17 July 2025).

6 Lomas, N. (2025) ‘Beyond Andrew Tate: the imitators who help promote misogyny online’, The Guardian, 19 March. Available

at: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/mar/19/beyond-andrew-tate-the-imitators-who-help-promote-misogyny-online

(Accessed: 21 July 2025).

7 Scaptura, M. N. and Boyle, K. M. (2020) ‘Masculinity threat, “incel” traits, and violent fantasies among heterosexual men in the

United States’, Current Psychology, 39, pp. 162–175. Available at:

https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/N9K2MSDIFCNKNYMDZEJC/full (Accessed: 21 July 2025).

Social media platforms under globalization facilitate the spread of fake news and influence

political outcomes whether through nefarious ambitions such as hackers or state sponsored

propaganda or through the general instantaneous spread of media through globalised time/space

compression and the influence of the popular consciousness. This ultimately leaves those who

may be active tax wise, but are still children vulnerable beyond even the electoral process as

such cyber manipulation knows no bounds 8 .

This creates a fallacy where political engagement does not equal true political representation.

Instead, this engagement actually opens up the possibility for greater new forms of anti-

government development, the implanting of subliminal messages and the dual fold impact of

state and non-state actors that have a vested interest in disrupting the democratic process in the

United Kingdom. This runs counter to the long-term interest of the state and its maintenance.

This type of policy spectacle aims to distract the narrative, grow Labour interests and maybe, on

some miniscule level, enfranchise more Brits. The people have become pessimistic in an era of

sell-out politicians; therefore, the latter feels more like a hope than a researched, well thought out

policy decision. Time will tell how that develops.

So, where do we go from here? Ruthlessly pragmatic centrism that calls for a renewed effort,

such as through a targeted task force and impartial minister or dual minister external to the party

tasked with digital breaches, leaks, and misinformation spread, particularly politically. Further to

this, the Minister of State for Education should prepare a nationally mandated curriculum

inclusion to counter misinformation and media psyops as a preventative measure alongside a

greater emphasis on critical thinking, embedding within the curriculum at large. This should

improve overall engagement with corrupted media and media distortions. Sociological

curriculum inclusion would also be useful on a broader level to tackle comprehension of wider

globalising processes and their localised and, glocalised, ramifications. To counter the risk of the

postmodern age, policy such as this must be bold, but prepared and well thought out. Brash

decisions only add to the complexity and uncertainty of postmodernity without betterment. 8 Yerlikaya, T. and Aslan, S.T. (2019) ‘Social Media and Fake News in the Post‑Truth Era: The Manipulation of Politics in the Election Process’, Insight Turkey, October–November, pp. 68–89. Available at: https://www.insightturkey.com/globalization-

1/social-media-and-fake-news-in-the-post-truth-era-the-manipulation-of-politics-in-the-election-process (Accessed: 17 July

2025).