COURIER OPINION: Young people should be seen AND heard in politics – the powerful case for 16-year-old MSPs
The CourierApr 11, 2022
On Wednesday, the devolved Scottish Government published proposals for the minimum age of candidates for Holyrood elections to be cut from 18 to 16, which would reportedly be the youngest minimum age for a national political candidate worldwide.
Scotland lowered the voting age ahead of the 2014 independence referendum. This then carried over to the 2016 Holyrood election, but the age for candidacy remained 18.
Despite concerns, the success of the Scottish Youth Parliament is proof that a significant number of young people are already engaged in politics. There's no reason to see a 16 or 17-year-old elected as anything but a positive force, with the voices of the future being the ones that truly matter.
With Scottish independence lagging, Nicola Sturgeon's desperate attempt to retain the initiative is to turn 16-year-olds into members of the Scottish Parliament. Rather than attempting to implement meaningful policy, Sturgeon's Scottish National Party is solely driven by gaining independence and will go so far as to unleash the pressure of the debate's toxicity onto adolescents.
There's a 9% chance that Scotland will hold an official, sanctioned referendum on independence before May 2024, according to the Metaculus prediction community.