Letter: Unionists should be open to the merits of voting at 16 rather an writing it off as a loss

Now, the government has made its intentions clear that the law is changing, so the adaptation of unionism can’t come soon enough, assuming it isn’t too late.

Funny enough, I was 16 when I first decided I supported votes at 16. Yet, 10 years on, I haven’t lost that desire.

I don’t look back at myself and remember a person with no agency; desperately asking my parents how to take my next step.

I don’t remember going to sleep on the 364th day of my 17th year, only to awake to thoughts that were only then worth listening to.

However, this is the idea I’ve seen online since headlines broke.

What I know is that at 16 and 17, you have a lot of life-altering decisions coming at you that you have no national input to.

You can enter full-time employment, but you can’t have a say over those who set your tax.

You can give full consent to medical operations, but you can’t back up an opinion on the health service.

You hear statistics about brain drain, and you’re told how important university is, but aren’t deemed mature enough to speak to the money you’ll pay and the facilities that await you.

This change is coming. As unionists, be open to the merits that it has, and don’t write it off as the loss that some people see.

We have a pragmatic argument for the Union that maybe we aren’t making well enough if we assume that we'll only receive minority support from 16- and 17-year-olds as some inherent thing.

Perhaps all it will take is to listen to those people, who are at such a formative time in their life, with the same respect we would afford any adult.

In my October letter, I said we don’t want to be caught again on the wrong side of history, but that’s what this headline will soon be, and we’re already lagging behind.

Ben Sharkey, Belfast BT6