Angela Rayner has broken cover to urge Sir Keir Starmer to push ahead with a blanket ban on social media for children under the age of 16, intensifying pressure on a prime minister already wrestling with one of the most politically charged decisions of his premiership.
The former deputy prime minister told Sir Keir to “just make a decision and do it”, arguing that the case for prohibiting under-16s from accessing platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and X had become “so clear” that further delay was indefensible. Her intervention, made on Alastair Campbell’s The Rest Is Politics podcast, lands as Whitehall closes a government consultation on Tuesday that has been weighing an Australian-style ban on under-age social media use.
For Britain’s small and medium-sized businesses — particularly the legions of owner-managers who have come to depend on social platforms as their shop window, sales channel and marketing department rolled into one — the stakes could scarcely be higher. Any move to restrict access for under-16s would force a wholesale rethink of age-assurance technology, advertising targeting and content moderation, with costs that will land disproportionately on smaller operators.
A cabinet split, an open consultation and a prime minister in two minds
Although Westminster speculation is mounting that Sir Keir will eventually back a full ban as a piece of “low-hanging political fruit”, Labour is visibly divided over the proposal. Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, are both said to have cooled on a blanket prohibition, favouring tougher functional regulation over a hard age cut-off.
The doubts are being fed by early evidence from the southern hemisphere. Five separate studies have suggested that at least 60 per cent of Australian children aged under 16 are either ignoring the ban outright or have already found ways around it. Data published by the Australian regulator confirms that between 60 and 64 per cent of children still using the major platforms reported no action being taken against their accounts, a figure detailed in the official eSafety Commissioner’s social media age restrictions update.
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