Taxation Versus Representation: Votes at Sixteen?

On the third of March, Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith spoke in front of Year 11 Students at Tiffin School in an effort to spark interest in politics and give some information about himself and his party. Mr Goldsmith is running for the constituency of Richmond Park against Liberal Democrat Susan Kramer MP. He spoke chiefly about his own views on many issues and expressed that it was important not to blindly side with one’s party on all occasions and that he would be willing to vote against his party should he disagree strongly with them.

His passion and interest in his job were plain to see, but many students were left wondering what they were supposed to do with the information they had been given, considering that an election was about to take place in which they would have no say. Furthermore, the first election in which they would have a say, would not take place for approximately another five years.

Many young people find this situation unjust. For a start, although the government deems us old enough to vote at eighteen, with an election only every four or five years, that means at least half the voting population will not have the opportunity to vote until they are 20 or more. Many students also believed that the voting age should be lowered to sixteen, in that sixteen year olds have been judged to be adult by the criminal justice system for six years. They’ve been at the receiving end of the education system for ten to eleven. At sixteen you can join the army and get married, and at seventeen you can learn to drive. In all of these you are subject to a great many decisions by a government for which you have not voted. Perhaps most objectionably, sixteen year-olds are also judged old enough to leave school and thus get a job, the income of which they pay tax on – and yet have no say on what those taxes should be spent.

This is in direct contravention of a maxim which was a cause of major political friction, “no taxation without representation.” When one considers the accusations against Lord Ashdown (and others of each party) of non-domicile tax registration, we are left with a large portion of society paying taxes but not having a say in their use, and another section that has a large say in the use of taxes and yet allegedly pays none themselves.