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Maintain the voting age at 18
Last updated 3 years ago
Conservative Party Manifesto 2019, p.48We will maintain the voting age at 18 – the age at which one gains full citizenship rights.
Our verdict
- This is a pledge to keep the voting age at 18, a commitment increasingly questioned by a broad coalition of politicians, as well as various organisations and individuals, not least young people themselves.
- Since the 2019 election, in answer to a question on voting rights, in February 2020, a Cabinet Office minister wrote, “The Government has no plans to change the voting age, having been elected on a manifesto commitment to retain the voting age at 18.”
- This is a promise to “maintain” the status quo, so unless there is an explicit reversal, this policy is ‘done’.
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