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Should expats have the right to vote?

(85 Posts)
granjura Fri 01-Jul-16 12:29:37

Expats can vote in the UK for up to 15 years after their move abroad. Is that fair? Should people who have made a clear choice to live abroad, say after 5 years- have the right to vote when they will NOT have to live with the consequences of their choice?

What do you think?

All my life in the UK, I was allowed to vote in Switzerland on the 1000s of referendums (I know sp!) and elections- but I never did. A) because when you don't live in a country you can't really grasp all the implications and B/ because as said above, I would not have had to live with the consequences- as I had NO intention whatsoever of ever going back.

I voted this time as we have children and grand-children back in the UK, and intend to go back at some point in the future.

Joelsnan Mon 04-Jul-16 22:21:55

By the way as far as I know any expat of any EU country who is a resident, can vote in that country's local municipal and European elections as part of the Maastrict treaty.

Welshwife Mon 04-Jul-16 23:25:28

Yes that is right as long as you register with your Mairie or equivalent. By the same token people living in the EU are not allowed to vote in elections such as the Welsh Assembly and I would imagine the UK MEPs.
You cannot vote in National elections of your country of residence either.

durhamjen Mon 04-Jul-16 23:33:11

You do not just get granted citizenship any more. You have to sit a test and answer silly questions that not all UK citizens would know the answers to. You also have to pay about £1000.
Saying getting granted citizenship sounds so easy.
As said earlier, some countries do not allow dual citizenship. It's wrong to expect someone to give up the citizenship of the country they were born in.

durhamjen Mon 04-Jul-16 23:40:48

Anyway, again, that's not the point.
If expats, who are really migrants, are not allowed to vote in the UK general elections and are not allowed to vote in the country they have moved to, they are disenfranchised.
EU migrants living in the UK were allowed to vote in EU elections and for councillors. If they voted in UK EU elections, they had to sign a paper to say they had not voted in their country of origin.
So they were allowed to vote at two levels, but not for their MP, even though they were on the electoral register.
Doesn't make sense to me. Either expats get the vote here or migrants get the vote here. Otherwise both groups are penalised for living in a different country to the one they were born in.
Don't we want people to take part in democracy?

granjura Tue 05-Jul-16 10:17:32

metrocosm.com/eu-diaspora-map/

in the meantime

Joelsnan Tue 05-Jul-16 10:23:44

Durhamjen so if you had bed and breakfast guests would you be happy for them to tell you how to live your life and how to arrange your home? Maybe you would, however if you adopted a family then that would be a different matter as they had legally become family members and would be entitled to give a degree of input.

durhamjen Tue 05-Jul-16 11:12:17

I had a guest house for ten years, a vegetarian one, and some of the guests did tell me I should cook bacon for them. I said that every other guest house had bacon.
Again, you have missed the point.

durhamjen Tue 05-Jul-16 11:13:52

Interesting, granjura. We'd have a problem if they all had to come back.

durhamjen Thu 07-Jul-16 17:21:40

"The UK government has been under intense pressure from Conservative backbenchers and others to give a unilateral guarantee that the rights of EU migrants in the UK will not be damaged at the end of the Brexit talks.

Giving evidence to the foreign affairs select committee, Hammond again said he could not give such a commitment and blamed “Brussels bureaucrats” for declaring there could be no informal Brexit negotiations until the UK had triggered article 50, the formal process by which it notifies the EU of its intention to leave."

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/07/philip-hammond-to-hold-informal-talks-over-rights-of-eu-citizens-in-uk