16-year-olds would never vote to re-elect any Government that had already served two full terms. Party or ideology would not enter into it. They would vote for the other lot, regardless. As for the list of things that they can already do, they should not be doing most or all of them. And 16-year-old taxpayers? When the school leaving age has gone up to 18? Either Sixth Form Saturday jobs are paying a lot better than they used to, or certain politicians need to get out more.
Representation is in any case not based on taxation, any more than vice versa. Still less is it based merely on the payment of income tax, as if no other form of taxation existed. We already have the "piloting" of Jim Crow voter identification. We already have The Guardian, naturally, calling for Jim Crow literacy tests for voting. What next? The Jim Crow Poll Tax?
Instead of these things, and instead of lowering the voting age to 16, we should abolish the nationality qualification for voting, which for all elections meaninglessly depends on whether one's country happens to be in the Commonwealth at any given time, and which for local elections threatens to disenfranchise resident EU nationals after Brexit.
Rather than any of that, we should allow anyone legally resident here to vote, but only British Citizens in Great Britain, or British or Irish Citizens in Northern Ireland, to be parliamentary candidates. My crowdfunding page has been taken down without my knowledge or consent. But you can still email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com instead, and that address accepts PayPal.
Instead of these things, and instead of lowering the voting age to 16, we should abolish the nationality qualification for voting, which for all elections meaninglessly depends on whether one's country happens to be in the Commonwealth at any given time, and which for local elections threatens to disenfranchise resident EU nationals after Brexit.
Rather than any of that, we should allow anyone legally resident here to vote, but only British Citizens in Great Britain, or British or Irish Citizens in Northern Ireland, to be parliamentary candidates. My crowdfunding page has been taken down without my knowledge or consent. But you can still email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com instead, and that address accepts PayPal.
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