For some time, the progressive Left has treated democracy and “progressive” democracy interchangeably. In this view, democracy is not just a method of governance but a justification for an ever-expanding catalog of rights and entitlements, administered by a growing state.

It’s in this spirit that Labour yesterday announced plans to give 16- and 17-year-olds the vote. While Labour has not yet endorsed full voting rights for foreign nationals, some allied think tanks have called for the franchise to be extended to as many as five million foreign nationals. Proposals to go even further have been circulating on the Left for some time. Earlier this year, Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse backed a report calling for the vote to be given to an additional 4.4 million people on the grounds that limiting the franchise to British citizens was “colonial”.

For some, expanding the franchise is a moral imperative. But if they were to borrow a line from across the Commons, they might quote Margaret Thatcher’s claim that “what is morally right eventually turns out to be politically expedient.” For many on the progressive Left, extending the vote is not just a matter of principle — it’s a way to hedge against the unreliability of the traditional Red Wall voter and to build new electoral blocs capable of holding back the rising tide of the Right.

Yet history offers a warning. Major structural changes in democracy rarely benefit those who initiate them. The last time a Labour government lowered the voting age — from 21 to 18 in 1969 — it was promptly swept from power at the next general election.

So far, two narratives have emerged. The first is that this is a cynical but foolproof attempt at franchise-rigging. But, like much of Labour’s policymaking in its first year, it may not be as clever as it looks. Research from Merlin Strategy shows that only 18% of 16- and 17-year-olds say they’d definitely vote — a far cry from the long-promised “youthquake” of the Corbyn years. The second claim is that the move will backfire, handing Reform UK a windfall from Britain’s increasingly Right-leaning youth. But again, the numbers don’t bear that out: just 20% of young voters say they’d back Reform, compared to 33% for Labour.

In reality, the main winners may be the insurgent neocommunal parties now threatening Labour’s old heartlands. In seats like Birmingham Perry Barr, Blackburn, and Leicester South — already held by “Gaza Independents” — 16- and 17-year-olds outnumber the incumbent’s majority. Other MPs, including Jess Phillips in Birmingham Yardley and Wes Streeting in Ilford North, may soon find their seats at risk as well.

The most likely outcome is that which has characterized most of Labour’s decisions so far: maximum cost for minimal gain. In pushing a policy that looks, smells, and walks like franchise-rigging, they will drain political capital, lose yet more of the electorate’s trust, and feed the growing perception that the party’s agenda is driven more by cynical arithmetic than national interest.

Worse still, the move may yield no political return. By backing the Conservatives’ smoking ban, the party risks entrenching its two-tier image. And by handing the vote to a demographic with low turnout and unpredictable loyalties — one notably not tested against a Corbyn Party option in the Merlin Strategy poll — Labour may end up empowering the very forces it seeks to contain. In several urban seats, this could mean handing victories to radical, localist, neocommunal campaigns already threatening to upend the party from within. As ever, the Left’s fiercest enemy may prove to be itself.

---

Tom Jones writes at The Potemkin Village Idiot.

93vintagejones

---