What's the point in lowering the voting age if we don't increase political education?

On 17 July 2025, Labour announced a landmark decision: 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in the next General Election. The BBC reports that this amounts to over 1.5 million extra people, and solidifies a promise Labour made in its manifesto back in 2024.

In theory, this seems like a great idea — more democracy is always a good thing, right? But in practice, things are a little more complicated.

A poll by Merlin Strategy (via ITV) found that just half (49%) of 16-17-year-olds agreed that the voting age should be lowered, while only 18% said they’d vote tomorrow if there were an election. So, while lowering the voting age is all well and good, it means little if approximately 750,000 of them aren’t interested.

Things get worse once you realise that if there were an election tomorrow, just 270,000 out of 1.5 million young people would be willing to vote. When we put hard figures next to these percentages, things suddenly don’t look so optimistic. It reveals the underlying problem when it comes to politics and young people: a lack of engagement.

In data released right before the 2024 election, Opinium found that 70% of people under 16 didn’t know the name of their MP. Likewise, 59% were unable to name the party to which their local MP belonged, and 79% were........

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