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A senior shadow cabinet member said today 16-year-olds could be given the vote in time for a possible second EU referendum.

Tony Blair and John Major have both called for another public vote on Brexit, and shadow chancellor John McDonnell says he does not rule it out.

Today Cat Smith, the shadow minister for voter engagement and youth affairs, said: “It isn’t the status quo you have to be 18. The way referendum is governed in this country is that there is always a Bill that goes through the House of Commons which defines the franchise.

“So if there was to be a referendum on any issue there would be opportunity for this Parliament to include votes for 16- to 18-year-olds.”

A growing number of Conservative MPs have said votes at 16 could happen before the next general election and Labour presents its second private member’s Bill on lowering the voting age this spring. Their last attempt was filibustered by the Tories.

Ms Smith said: “There’s no reason why it couldn’t happen before the next election, certainly if there was the political will.”

She claimed that Conservatives risked being on the wrong side of history if they did not back votes at 16, which has support from the SNP, the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru.

“The risk of not doing it is they will be seen to have not taken younger voters’ voices seriously,” she said. “There was resistance to lowering the voting age from 21 to 18, resistance to giving women the vote, there was resistance to giving working-class men the vote.”

Cabinet Office minister David Lidington has said there are no plans to lower the voting age. But senior Tories including Scottish leader Ruth Davidson are understood to back reform.