https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clwe2wj01gjo
Brits living abroad for more than 15 years now have the right to vote in the UK general election.
Great! /s
“I deserve to have a say in what's going on,” 76-year-old Valerie Stacey says from her home in central Madrid.
Fuck off.
Even after almost five decades abroad, Ian takes a keen interest in UK government policy because of concerns about his pension.
He has spent 20 years campaigning for the UK government to improve state pensions for British citizens who moved abroad. Some countries, like Canada, do not have a financial agreement with the UK that allows for annual increases to the UK state pension
What a fucking leech
Absolute leach, he can get fucked. I can understand moving abroad after retiring. But he's not paid into the system for 50 years
My wife has lived in the UK for 20 years on an EU passport, she was 12 when she moved here, she is directly impacted by general elections as are all of us who live in the UK. This is the first year she can vote in one of these elections because we finally scrapped the money together to apply for her citizenship.
How does someone who has not lived in the country for 50 years have more of a say than the people living here. It doesn't make sense.
The article focuses on 70+ year olds who have lived in another country for over 50% of their lives. If you have not lived in the UK for 40 or 50 years, and you intend to continue not living in the UK, then please get back in your box. 🙏
Tbh, if you’re over 70 you should probably lose your right to have a say about things that will only come to pass after you’re dead. Just one opinion, ymmv.
Some people live to 90-100, you should be allowed to vote when you're going to live for that much longer.
Cut voting eligibility when you reach the age of life expectancy for your country.
It is less arbitrary than voting at 18.
I semi-seriously believe that you should get more votes if you're younger, or a more heavily weighted vote, based on the average expected number of decades you have left to live. Like, e.g., an eighteen year-old ought to live for roughly another six decades, so their vote should be weighted to take that into account. And I say this as a thirty-[mumble] year-old! Eighteen year-olds should have more of a say than I do, because they're going to be affected by the decisions made now for much longer than I am.
As it is young people do not turn up to vote, so giving an under experienced and fickle group additional voting power is wrong.
One person, one vote. Should people who contribute more taxes get more votes, after all they give more to the state. Should the unemployed not get a vote?
I wasn't making an argument based on contribution. Ironically, you are making an argument based on contribution by citing experience as a criterion for valuing voters. My argument was virtually the opposite, in fact: consequences, rather than contribution.
I'm not sure if young people are more fickle with their votes or not, but either way this is not a criterion we can use to judge the relative value of voters. Being allowed to change your vote at different elections - being fickle - is a foundation of representative democracy.
I dont have a problem with being fickle I have a problem with valuing someone's vote over another. My argument was that consequences or contribution it should not matter, everyone gets one vote and that is it.
That's fair enough. As I said at the start, I was only semi-serious in my argument. I just didn't think the reasons you gave against it were particularly good!
I've been saying that each country should disenfranchise the elderly by the national average life expectancy minus the same number of years you have to be to register to vote. We accept that young people aren't fully developed and shouldn't be allowed to participate until they reach a minimum age. Time to do the same with people who are at higher risk of dementia and who won't have to live with the consequences of long-term changes.
I realize that this will unfairly disenfranchise able-minded people. They still shouldn't get a say in our long-term future.
Just average life expectancy minus half the minimum age imo, seems more fair considering it's an average.
Minimum voting age also disenfranchises able-minded people so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"I still feel British so I should get to decide how people in Britain live. I mean does it really matter if the NHS gets privatized as long as my pension gets bigger so I can afford my lavish lifestyle. I care so much about my country just not quite enough to live there."
Both of my parents live abroad, and have said they're not voting. In part this is because they usually vote Tory but are repulsed by what the party has become, but can't bring themselves to vote for another party. But the other reason they're not voting is they don't feel they should, since they've been out of the UK for 20 years and don't have the same stake in it that people who live here do.
They are, however, in favour of my suggestion: Brits living abroad should have a vote, but their votes should be for a dedicated overseas MP who represents the interests of expats, instead of being attributed to constituencies they haven't lived in for decades.
I'm stuck in this dilemma. I've lived abroad for seventeen years. Strangely, it makes me much more aware that I am English, also British, but undeniably English. It also makes me incredibly grateful to be English - it's about the least worst country on the planet. I could bang on about doing 'stuff' for the UK overseas (intergovernmental and trade stuff), and that how my foreign wife's career would take a huge hit if we moved back to the UK (she's a senior medical doctor, but would be made to start from the lowliest grade should we return). But that's contextual and circumstantial. I've been painfully deliberating the principles for years, and fully appreciate the 'not here, no vote' sentiment. But, I am English and under the governance of the UK gov. I look to the year 1647, the Putney Debates, during the civil wars. The debates considered the rights of people (men) under governance. Colonel Thomas Rainsborough stated, "I think it clear, that every Man that is to live under a Government ought first by his own Consent to put himself under that Government." I am under the UK government, so doesn't that give me the right to vote? I want to vote now because I hate the tories. How much? A lot. I think a dedicated overseas MP is a great idea. We are global now, and it could feed useful information back into parliamentary debate. I'd appreciate any comments, constructive or abusive, they all contribute. Thanks.
I think you raise really good points, actually! The thought also occurred that if the country you're currently in went completely to hell - war broke out, government went crazy and started murdering its own people, whatever - you're still a British citizen and would have the right to ask the UK for help getting out of there. So logically you should have someone to represent your interests to the government.
I'm now convinced that a dedicated overseas MP (or MPs, if the correct number of them is determined to be more than one) is the way to go. Because there's also the fact that like... if you contacted the MP for your former constituency, they might struggle to help you because their responsibility is that specific geographic area. A proper overseas MP would (hopefully) be educated on the problems expats specifically have to deal with, and would be better able to both help with problems and represent your interests in Parliament. That seems more fitting than expecting a constituency MP, who may never have worked in the Foreign Office, to also be able to help people scattered all over the world just because they used to live in a particular town decades ago.
Thank you so much for your reply, it's greatly appreciated, and has removed enough fog of doubt to propel me to register to vote.
Regarding a dedicated overseas MP, this grows in attraction. Having support and representation would be beneficial for me, but I equally believe that feeding back the experiences of us overseas would enrich and inform the UK parliament. I have participated in a fair few trade missions, inter-institutional and cultural/soft-power events, especially under the remit of expanding British business overseas. The UK is still held in the highest regard, and with good reason. The policy of our institutions and government to publish their data, procedures and processes is of immeasurable help. If you're a medical doctor in a foreign country wanting to draft hospital wide procedures, the first stop is the NHS (and then copy-paste). If you're developing processes for the adoption of industry digitalisation, the UK institutions are amongst the finest (copy-paste). These should be enriching, or at least empowering, the UK, but are missed at High Commissioner/Ambassador level.
In this globalised world, and we have form in this, having one overseas MP to stand on their hind legs in the House of Commons and act as a conduit seems like a sensible investment.
Time to give some thought to action it.
This reminds me of my wife's parents. They voted pro Brexit - despite all warnings - eventually realised it's going to be shite, retired and moved abroad. Not an option for my wife's other three siblings though. They don't have dual citisenship. My wife and I only got married so she can live outside of GB in any EU country. Smh.
As UK citiziens, they are impacted by decisions that affect UK citizens, even citizens living abroad. Most obviously Brexit, but it's not difficult to see that there might be other decisions, e.g., around tax and benefits, that would affect them. I know various people with up to three different citizenships and they can vote in all three of those countries, for this exact reason.
Obviously the real reason the Tories have allowed this is totally cynical, but that doesn't mean there isn't a non-cynical argument for it.
Foreign votes are wrong, they can very easily shakeoff any austerity as necessary without having to deal with it.
The only vote I missed in my adult life was because I was out of the country for 3 nights. I really wanted to vote but by allowing me to vote it opens the door for a lot of people who I dont think should get to.
Foreign votes are wrong, they can very easily shakeoff any austerity as necessary without having to deal with it.
The argument seems to be that they shouldn't have a vote because they're insulated from some of the possible consequences of their vote. But that could be said for all kinds of things. As could the equal and opposite argument that, e.g., public sector workers have too much of a vested interest in being anti-austerity. We don't grant or deny votes on that basis and nor should we.
The only vote I missed in my adult life was because I was out of the country for 3 nights. I really wanted to vote but by allowing me to vote it opens the door for a lot of people who I dont think should get to.
I don't think that you can believe that someone with a job that requires them to travel internationally (like a long-distance truck driver) should be denied a vote just because the election fell at a time they happened to be out of the country.
I live in Ireland, where our politics would take a severe right turn if we opened the way for people outside the country to vote. We have a massive diaspora and if we open the for mail in voting, or give a window for how many days of the year you have to reside in the country to vote then parties could expand that to what suits them.
It is wrong that missing those days leaves you without a vote, there is pre ballot casting through the police barracks I think and there is a minimum of 6 weeks notice given for elections.
Except there is a big difference in that these people choose to live abroad. They have chosen diminished influence of British politics over their lives so they should have diminished influence over British politics.
If they really want to influence politics here, then live here. It is not fair on resident, tax paying citizens to have non resident non tax paying ex pats making choices that may benefit them at the cost of others.
For example, elderly expats may choose to support a policy which significantly increases their pension to cover their overseas lifestyle at the expense of resident pensioners or increased taxes or reduced public services for resident voters. While this is very unlikely to be proposed or succeed, it is theoretically possible. I'm sorry but if I resign from my job should I still get to make demands of my former colleagues because I worked there for 30 years or still feel like an employee??
I just can't reconcile the thought "I don't want to live there anymore" with the thought "I deserve a vote in the country I left behind".
It was a little different when we were in the EU. But we are not.
if I resign from my job should I still get to make demands of my former colleagues because I worked there for 30 years or still feel like an employee
If you still had a pension fund owned or controlled by your previous company you would - and should - still have some say in how that was managed. Having said that, I don't think the analogy between 'citizen' and 'employee' works that well. Citizenship is a fundamental legal right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human R ights, as are the rights and duties entailed by citizenship. It's not analogus to being an employee, which is fundamentally a transactional relationship.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Around two million British citizens who have been living abroad for more than 15 years can now vote in UK general elections, following a rule change by the Conservative government.
BBC News asked four expats if they will cast their ballots.“I deserve to have a say in what's going on,” 76-year-old Valerie Stacey says from her home in central Madrid.
The former English teacher is one of the 100,000 British citizens based overseas for more than 15 years who have already applied to vote, external following the change in rules.
They can apply online to vote by post, by proxy, or in person if they are in the country on 4 July.Although she has lived in Spain since the early 1980s, Valerie has strong views on the NHS and social care in the UK.
Jim made the grassland plains between Northern Victoria and New South Wales his home following a backpacking holiday in 2006, and despite taking a keen interest in British politics, does not intend to return to the UK.
It argued that 15 years was a “reasonable and proportionate amount of time for someone to retain a vote” and said the rule change would make it easier for wealthy donors who have not lived in the UK for decades to contribute.The Conservative government said that British citizens overseas retain deep ties to their country, external, and are affected by policy decisions in areas like immigration, defence or pensions.Others, like Belgium-based Daniel Allingham feel conflicted about having a right to vote in an election which will not directly impact them.
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