LET UNDER 18s VOTE IN THE EU REFERENDUM RETROSPECTIVELY

I was unable to vote in the EU referendum because I am 17, not 18.

Nonetheless, I don’t understand why my peers and I, the future of this country shouldn’t be deciding on said future. I don’t believe it’s fair and I am absolutely shocked at the turnout this referendum has received. The people who have voted clearly hold a grudge against the government, something that we, as the young representatives of the country, aren’t exposed to. In fact, the 18-24 age group voted at 64% supporting remain, and so would have the rest of us, if we were allowed to share our belief. And by the way the average number of years that the 18-24 age group would have to live in this non EU UK is 69 compared to the 16 years the 65+ age group, that voted at 58% in favour of leave, would have to stick around for.

At schools we are educated in a way that let’s us determine and decide on our own political views. From the age of 13 we are able to make decisions, as we select GCSEs that define our future as members of the community, yet we cannot decide on the future of the country we will continue living in. At 16 we make an even bigger decision as our A level choices are determined, yet still, we cannot vote. And at 17 when we choose our degree and apply for university, still, you guessed it, we cannot vote. Each person votes for their own belief so who’s voting in terms of education and young peoples rights? We should be, as it is our concern. The vote was split by just a little over a million, but there are over 6 million of us who didn’t get to choose, and out of the entire population we will be the most affected by this change. We are the future university goers and we are the future workforce, how are we different to any adult, when most don’t even have A level qualifications. We are an ambitious and passionate generation and we will not stand for the changes made against our will.

My peers and I are strongly remain and as we watched the turnout, the night of the 23rd of June, we were saddened by the result and angry to see how little influence we had over the decision.

So I blame the government, I don’t blame the EU or the people, because the government is there to do its job, and that is to convince the general public to decide on what is better for them and that goal hasn’t been achieved, in fact the remain campaign seemed so confident in its victory that it was much weaker than that of leave. It must have been anticipated that the community supporting leave would do so, with much more enthusiasm and much more spirit. Change is more exciting and people supporting it are more excited than those who simply want things as they are. So I believe the remain campaign should have been much stronger, especially since we have the higher ground.

I have no idea how, in this day of technology, travel and constant import and export as well as a generally volatile economy in this part of the world, Britain will survive without the EU or how in fact the EU will survive without Britain. The elderly who are supporting the way Britain was previous to 1974 aren’t reflecting on how the world has changed since then. The pound has fallen lower than it’s been ever since 1985, so even the financial crash of 2008 didn’t affect our currency this significantly.

The United Kingdom has just regained confidence in Scotland’s loyalty to Britain after the Scottish Independence referendum in 2014. And now Scotland is once again questioning their position within the UK that has been in place since 1707. So the government is not doing such a great job keeping the nation together, which at this tough moment, I believe must be the priority.

I am writing on behalf of my generation and we need for our young voices to be heard, now!