So Brits who live abroad can now vote in the General Election.

I have lived in France for ten years.. my children, grandchildren sisters and wider family are all still there in the UK and of course it’s the motherland so we still care about what happens over there and the impact on our families.. we pay tax there still too. we can’t vote in French national elections but take an interest in what goes on here politically too.

nanna8

Not a question of loyalty or non loyalty though. Many of us who were born in the Uk still like the place , believe it or not. There are many, many reasons why people leave. Not all of us despised the place. No, I think the reason we shouldn’t vote is because we are out of touch with what is going on. We only hear biased views from reporters and people on forums like this. We are not really in a position to judge who will be good and who will not. From what I hear, I wouldn’t vote for Starmer but that is just it, I only hear a small amount. I wouldn’t vote for Sunsk, either, come to that. He might be a wonderful leader for all I know from a distance.Just don’t hear much at all - nothing to go on.

Do you not read UK newspapers ? I keep in touch with the USA that way. You can even access various news per TV etc. so if you are out of touch than that’s your choice but that’s not the case with most people.

Thank you Syracute. The other thing that surprises me is why this has suddenly become a topic of discussion. It was announced over two years ago and has made due process through the legislature. Surely people who disagree should have raised their objections when Boris Johnson first proposed it? It wasn't headline news, but certainly covered in the media.

I’ve just visited an aunt in Australia now 92 still has British citizenship she will be delighted that she can vote, I guess she has to apply for a postal vote.

Wether she should is a different matter, most expats are likely to be higher income and support the Tories, the change in rules allows them to scrape a few extra votes together.

Here is a tribute to World War II veteran Harry Shindler OBE, without whom this might never have happened.
www.britishineurope.org/articles/115157-harry-shindler-1922-2023

Katie59 Your Aunt will need to register as an overseas voter.https://www.gov.uk/vote-uk-election
One has to register annually. After she has completed the registration form she will receive confirmation that she is registered. Then she has to fill another form in to apply for a postal vote.
Whether she pays tax in the UK or not is irrelevant. She is eligible to vote if a British citizen.

I heartily agree with all of Mamie's posts.
The British people I know here in Canada were all born, educated and employed in the UK. They worked in the NHS, Education and other Public Services. They care about their mother country and read the newspapers, watch BBC news online and listen to radio 4 etc.. The technology to keep abreast of what is happening in the UK is at our fingertips and of course we return to visit friends and family. Most of us are pretty disallusioned with the present Government.

Wrong . You decide to vacate this country …you have absolutely no right to vote !

Saggi

Wrong . You decide to vacate this country …you have absolutely no right to vote !

I think that there should be a period of time when you can still vote but my Godmother has lived out of the country for the last 50 years and has no intention of returning so it is a mystery why she should still get a vote. However, quite a lot of my family went with her and then came back after 10 years so they would have had a vested interest. It's a difficult one.

Saggi

Wrong . You decide to vacate this country …you have absolutely no right to vote !

That’s no longer the case . So everyone had to get used it .

they care about their mother country

Not so much. They decided that another country offered a better life. Fair enough. So they should get on with their better life abroad and leave the rest of us to sort out Britain. The fifteen year rule, now abandoned, was a perfectly acceptable middle way. A lifelong entitlement to vote in British elections is immoral if taken up. My daughter currently lives in New Zealand. I made it my business to find out what their rules are yesterday. Citizens of NZ can vote in elections if they are living abroad for the first three years of their time abroad. After that, they must return to NZ if they wish to vote. Sounds reasonable to me. It’s the recognition that those who leave to live long term or permanently elsewhere have their interests in another country. They have left their country because they believe their interests are better served by living elsewhere.

Annie1 How much do you know about the local issues in the constituency you belong to in the UK? What local issues do people discuss outside school? or at the Post Office? Where are the most potholed roads, What issues does the local school have, which roads had problems with the drains when we had the heavy rains? which culverts got blocked.

In my village and my constiuency, those are the issues that will swing the election one way or the other and that has little to do with party politics. My seat is a pretty safe |Conservative seat, but an extra dozen or so expat votes will have no effect whatsoever on the result of the election in this constituency - and that will apply to most constituencies. Even if there was a specific expat constituency, it would only provide one ot two MPs, highly unlikely to significantly alter an election result. Very close elections cause hung parliaments and new elections.

I am strongly opposed to expat votes, but I also do not think their votes are anywhere near as significant as they like to think they would be.

If there is a change it will be all the floating voters with no party alliegance, fed up that 'temporary' lane restrictions on our railway bridge have been there for over 2 years, with no end in sight, it will people in the villages worried about the planned reservoir and its affect on the local flood plain. Our village was badly flooded a few weeks ago and roads that didn't flood in 2007 flooded this year because lots of new houses have been built on the flood plain.

Even if there was a specific expat constituency
Ooo I'd like to be the MP for a constituency made up of expats! Ìt would be a fairly cushy job.
On the other hand, expats are likely to be the ones with too much time on their hands, so they might be even more demanding.

And think of the additional £92,000 needed to pay for the expats' MP's salary, plus expenses.
It's a good job it wasn't viable.

I agree with you Nandalot. I am an expat Scot living in The Netherlands. Why should
I have a right to vote in the UK when I don't own property or pay taxes there? I am passionate about Scotland being independent and I would love to vote for it, but, as tempting as it is, I no longer have that right.

I haven’t read a British newspaper since the early 1970 s but I do watch YouTube with British news ( very biased,though). Mostly it is the dreaded Nigel Farage who tends to be very,very negative about the UK. We really hear almost nothing here and that it why I like to read gransnet. I wouldn’t think that would qualify me as a voter, if I followed what I hear on YouTube I would be to the right of Genghis Khan in my views !

M0nica
Quite honestly, there are people who live in a constituency and have no clue what is going on!

It seems as if basically anyone who has lived in UK for whatever period of time but has chosen to live elsewhere can now vote.

nanna8

I haven’t read a British newspaper since the early 1970 s but I do watch YouTube with British news ( very biased,though). Mostly it is the dreaded Nigel Farage who tends to be very,very negative about the UK. We really hear almost nothing here and that it why I like to read gransnet. I wouldn’t think that would qualify me as a voter, if I followed what I hear on YouTube I would be to the right of Genghis Khan in my views !

If you call Farage 'dreaded' you can't be all bad, nanna8 😆

Well I hope that since British people who haven’t lived in Britain since they were children, maybe not lived here almost their whole lifetime, are now going to be allowed to vote, that British children who have been taken abroad to live by their parents, will now be allowed to come back to British universities and only pay the same fees as other British children pay, rather than be charged far more, because they are considered to be foreign students now.

British for a vote.
Foreign when paying university fees (even though still a citizen of Britain and only allowed to reside in another country due to their parents residency rights)

I am surprised that voters, living in U.K., actually are of the opinion that they INFLUENCE any of the political decision, made by any of the parties in office. Furthermore it might be interesting to examine which policies they think they influenced. That have made this country a better place to live. As surely this is the ultimate objective. Who indeed has voted for the state we are in? Would anybody?

Exactly maddyone, our children were foreign students at University because we had just relocated abroad at that time. They went on to do their Masters too. Their fees were considerably higher than other UK students. The irony is that these same children now work in the UK and are in the higher rate tax bracket. But, c'est la vie.
In the past, there were a lot of people giving fake UK addresses and finding loopholes to avoid such rules. I'm for fairness all round, and if the Expat vote is allowed, then plenty of other things need to be granted too.
To my mind, the Expat vote will be inconsequential, but it's the principle.

I would change it around and say anyone who’s a British citizen but chooses to live abroad for longer than five years loses the right to vote here.

People have a number of different reasons for leaving the UK. When we left no one had thought of leaving the EU. The country seemed to be on an even keel and, for most of us, all was right with the world.

We had a nice house, good friends and a good lifestyle. We weren't wealthy but, approaching retirement (me at 60) we wondered what we would do with our lives.

We wanted a project and had thought about buying some land and building a house in England. Unfortunately the price of land was extortionate. I had been going on to my DH for several years about having a holiday home in France. He was reluctant, having spent his adult life, part time, working on our homes.

So we decided to move to France. we bought a plot of land and had a house built. We had no thoughts as to whether we would stay or return to England.

One of the things I like about France is the countryside. I grew up in Dorset and my DH in Kent. In both counties tracts of beautiful countryside have been destroyed by road building. He used to cycle in the Nashenden Valley looking for fossils and snakes etc. That was bisected by the M2 and more recently the TGV line. Where we now live reminds of me of that 50's countryside. It is very much like Southern England - fields, woods etc but the climate is a little more extreme. Usually if it's hot in the UK it's hotter here. If it rains we get more.

If any of us decry the UK - it's not the country but the Tory govt.

One the that struck me over the last year or two was the increase in food banks in the UK. That and the number of people sleeping in the streets. The last time we were in London, pre covid, I was shocked at the numbers in Central London around Covent Garden and The Strand for example.

When we moved to Suffolk I started volunteering with Save The Children. Before then I had not done any voluntary work or even made donations apart from putting a few coins in a tin. I became increasingly aware of the demand for funds by the various charities and subscribed to the local Wildlife Trust, Amnesty International and animal charities. The Christmas before last there were a number of adverts for The Trussell Trust, Sally Army and so on. For the first time in my life, my donations went to those two charities and other homeless ones.

That is one reason why I am shocked by what is happening in the UK right now.

My DD has lived abroad for 14 years and no I don't think she should be able to vote. If you leave the country of your birth then live by the rules of where you have settled.