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To: Flick Drummond MP
Let people vote in the EU referendum from the age of 16
Next Tuesday is the second reading for the EU Referendum Bill.
I hope you can intervene from this debate onwards to ensure the Government will consult with the Electoral Commission on lowering the voting age to 16 for the EU referendum and legislate in accordance with that advice.
I hope you can intervene from this debate onwards to ensure the Government will consult with the Electoral Commission on lowering the voting age to 16 for the EU referendum and legislate in accordance with that advice.
Why is this important?
I'm glad to hear that you want more young people involved in the democratic process.
Young people can and do stand up to speak against global poverty, to ensure politicians tackle disease in africa and in emphasising the importance mental health.
We don't just have to listen, we can join their calls and make them count.
We need to talk about whose voice may count
There is a debate to be had and earlier this year, the Prime Minister himself told the Commons that he was happy to have a vote on whether 16-year olds can vote.
Sometimes it feels like MP's don't want young people to have their say as they had in Scotland during the referendum last year.
I want to make sure that someone who turned 16 and voted on whether Scotland should remain part of the UK will also be able to vote on whether the UK should remain in the European Union.
This referendum can be a once in a generation vote for all of us. All of us who wish to leave the European Union and all of us who wish to remain.
Regardless of where you may stand on Europe, those who stand to gain or lose by the decision the country makes in 2017 are not just parents in Portsmouth South but their children.
Their voice in this referendum should count as equally as yours and your own children.
A question on Europe matters to us, all of us
These aren't voices just about working or studying in Ireland, France or other EU member states.
It's not just about losing opportunities created here as a result of European funding for projects.
It's about if kids learning to code in schools today can work in online companies that have the potential to grow across Europe.
It's also about if, from 2020, they can grow up in the UK buying goods from the United States, Asia or the rest of Europe without paying customs or tariffs.
It's about those children who may not have turned 18 by 2017 answering to their own children in 2057 about what voice they had to ensure the UK led it's European neighbours to tackle energy security, climate change and free trade.
All of us should be included in this referendum
To me, it isn't fair to exclude 1,700 voices in your constituency over 16 but not old enough to vote in an EU referendum by 2017.
Young people who can give their own future to fight for their country but not vote to have their say on the country's future. Would you want 1,700 people in 40 years to feel they couldn't have a say?
Many people want a say about whether to remain in the European Union just because they didn't have one when the UK voted 40 years ago. How would you feel not to have voted in 1975?
Its your turn to speak up
That's why it matters now to stand up in the Commons against people who say teenagers aren't interested in politics nor the European Union so they don't need to vote in 2017.
To stand up in the same Commons Chambers where the UK Youth Parliament met last November.
Maybe it's their problem if those critics can't get young people involved in the democratic process.
Maybe it's a problem if some schools are not as effective as others in instilling a sense of citizenship but that's something we can solve by improving schools.
Yet it's definitely our problem if the critics on changing the voting age undermine the principle of not taking big decisions away from the people most affected by them.
Young people can and do stand up to speak against global poverty, to ensure politicians tackle disease in africa and in emphasising the importance mental health.
We don't just have to listen, we can join their calls and make them count.
We need to talk about whose voice may count
There is a debate to be had and earlier this year, the Prime Minister himself told the Commons that he was happy to have a vote on whether 16-year olds can vote.
Sometimes it feels like MP's don't want young people to have their say as they had in Scotland during the referendum last year.
I want to make sure that someone who turned 16 and voted on whether Scotland should remain part of the UK will also be able to vote on whether the UK should remain in the European Union.
This referendum can be a once in a generation vote for all of us. All of us who wish to leave the European Union and all of us who wish to remain.
Regardless of where you may stand on Europe, those who stand to gain or lose by the decision the country makes in 2017 are not just parents in Portsmouth South but their children.
Their voice in this referendum should count as equally as yours and your own children.
A question on Europe matters to us, all of us
These aren't voices just about working or studying in Ireland, France or other EU member states.
It's not just about losing opportunities created here as a result of European funding for projects.
It's about if kids learning to code in schools today can work in online companies that have the potential to grow across Europe.
It's also about if, from 2020, they can grow up in the UK buying goods from the United States, Asia or the rest of Europe without paying customs or tariffs.
It's about those children who may not have turned 18 by 2017 answering to their own children in 2057 about what voice they had to ensure the UK led it's European neighbours to tackle energy security, climate change and free trade.
All of us should be included in this referendum
To me, it isn't fair to exclude 1,700 voices in your constituency over 16 but not old enough to vote in an EU referendum by 2017.
Young people who can give their own future to fight for their country but not vote to have their say on the country's future. Would you want 1,700 people in 40 years to feel they couldn't have a say?
Many people want a say about whether to remain in the European Union just because they didn't have one when the UK voted 40 years ago. How would you feel not to have voted in 1975?
Its your turn to speak up
That's why it matters now to stand up in the Commons against people who say teenagers aren't interested in politics nor the European Union so they don't need to vote in 2017.
To stand up in the same Commons Chambers where the UK Youth Parliament met last November.
Maybe it's their problem if those critics can't get young people involved in the democratic process.
Maybe it's a problem if some schools are not as effective as others in instilling a sense of citizenship but that's something we can solve by improving schools.
Yet it's definitely our problem if the critics on changing the voting age undermine the principle of not taking big decisions away from the people most affected by them.
