Young people say they'd elect a 'strong leader'. I say give more of them the vote | Polly Toynbee

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For God’s sake don’t give them the vote! Many people said that after a shocking poll published this week appeared to show young people rejecting democracy. But that’s utterly wrong. On the contrary, this should prompt Labour to accelerate its manifesto pledge to give 16- and 17-year-olds the vote. They need more democracy, not less, and soon.

The Channel 4 poll found that 52% of 13- to 27-year-olds think “the UK would be a better place if a strong leader” were in change “who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”, and 33% thought the country would be better run “if the army was in charge”, among other dark impulses.

I have doubts about the value of springing kneejerk, contextless questions on people. (Does anyone want a “weak” leader? Was there a follow-up question: “Do you want the right to get rid of a leader you hate?”) Psephologist Peter Kellner reckons “it’s more a top-of-the-head response indicating a general sense of pessimism, disillusionment and disengagement than a thought-out view of how society should be organised”. It’s a spasm, much like Peter Finch in the film Network leaning out of the TV studio window and shouting: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this any more!”

But some working knowledge of politics matters. Citizenship education flowered briefly when David Blunkett as education secretary made it compulsory in England, with specialist teachers. But it was killed off by Michael Gove dropping it from his Ebacc, along with bursaries for teachers training in it. Officially, it’s still compulsory for state-maintained schools – academies are not curriculum-bound – but it’s often absent, left to form tutors, untimetabled. Ofsted barely checks, and what’s not inspected gets ignored. Five times fewer pupils take the GCSE than 15 years ago, according to Liz Moorse, chief executive of the Association for Citizenship Teaching.

This latest poll should spur the national curriculum review to restore it, when it reports in March. Forget memories of grim “civics” lessons, citizenship is nothing like that. At Priory school in Southsea, Hampshire, headteacher Stewart Vaughan and his specialist citizenship teacher Helen Blatchford promote it enthusiastically, not just to study but as democratic practice running right through the school, with a school council, consultations on the curriculum and priorities for spending capital. Students there “know they are heard”, says the head, even if they don’t get the final say. Blatchford has submitted her evidence to the curriculum review about the good effect of citizenship education on the whole school.

Critical thinking is its core, which means learning about problem-solving, weighing evidence, making arguments and learning how to agree and disagree. Students run mock elections and take practical collective action with local councillors and voluntary groups. Teaching media literacy, debunking myths and identifying reliable online sources is not easy, says Vaughan. “They are overwhelmed 24 hours a day by a volume of online material: we can’t keep up. We only hope to equip them to filter unreliable sources, but schools can’t do this alone. It needs families, and government regulation of these sites.”

Difficult subjects are not ducked. Gaza arouses strong passions, so they discuss Middle Eastern history, conflict and identity, Vaughan says, “with impartiality, listening to students’ stories. They are opinionated, but respectful of arguments.” Where better to debate Andrew Tate’s misogyny? Forty of the school’s year 10s choose citizenship for GCSE. Plentiful studies show good effects rippling through schools that teach it seriously.

Voting at 16 and 17 would affect schools and teenagers profoundly. Politicians eagerly pressing the flesh in care homes would turn to schools and colleges with equal solicitude for the young. In Scotland and other countries where 16-year-olds vote, Dr Christine Huebner of Sheffield University finds, they vote more than the 18-24s – perhaps because they live at home and are encouraged by their schools. But once 18-year-olds leave for colleges and universities elsewhere, registration plummets – their lives are disrupted and they move frequently, “with crucial NI numbers often left at home”. Huebner wonders if that’s exactly what David Cameron intended when he banned colleges and universities from registering all students: young votes “fell off a cliff” with his individual voter registration from the 2015 election, she says. Voter ID rules passed by the Tories in 2022, another anti-youth gerrymander, allowed pensioners’ travel passes for identity but not young people’s travel cards.

The ability of schools, universities and colleges to register students needs to be restored, alongside automatic voter registration, to stem falling turnout. Here’s why voting at 16 is crucial: if someone votes once, it’s likely to become a lifelong habit. Many of the never-voted secretly fear getting it wrong at the polling station because their literacy or English is poor, covering it with a bluff: “They’re all the same!” But if every pupil were taken to the school’s local polling station by a teacher and everything explained (including the option to spoil their ballot), that habit would start right there. I would make the quid pro quo for votes at 16 a compulsion to vote that first time, but good citizenship education might make that unnecessary. Electronic voting is essential – and again, barred by the Tories to deter the young.

There are too few 16- and 17-year-olds in any constituency to significantly shift the dial, even if they all voted for the same candidate (and they are as diverse as other age groups, says Huebner). But would George Osborne’s austerity have targeted their educational maintenance allowances and their housing benefits, or closed youth centres, if MPs were soliciting their votes?

Generation Z has grown up since the 2008 crash and knows only stagnation, dwindling life chances and vanishing home ownership, so no wonder 47% of them told the Channel 4 poll that “the entire way our society is organised must be radically changed through revolution”. Citizenship education makes them more tolerant and more supportive of democracy and increases their intentions to vote, but it won’t assuage that indignation. It should channel justified anger into political action to force Westminster’s attention.

The government says votes at 16 will definitely be law “in good time ahead of the next general election”: speed it up. If anyone thinks young people are too stupid, just spend a day out canvassing.

  • Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

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