Oldham MP Jim McMahon’s Private members bill to give the vote to 16 and 17 year olds has been defeated in the House of Commons.
In a bad tempered debate Tory MP’s used House of Commons procedure to leave the bill little time to be debated after several had spoken for long periods discussing the previous bill to force police to wear body cameras when they restrain prisoners leaving just an hour to debate the voting bill.
Tory MPs were faced with shouts of “shame” after being accused of blocking attempts to lower the voting age.
Then as the debate was so short and the subject so important, Deputy Speaker Eleanor Laing ruled it wouldn’t be right to force a vote so soon.
Mr McMahon later told the Commons: “I think the Government benches ought to be very concerned.
“Because 16 and 17-year-olds today might be denied the right to vote but in two years’ time, they will remember who blocked them from having that democratic right only two years earlier.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that The Tories have sabotaged Labour’s Bill to extend the vote to 16 and 17 year olds.
