The Elections Bill has just received Royal Assent and so it has become the Elections Act 2022. Among other things it removes the 15-year rule for overseas voters, so we should soon all be able to register to vote in UK national elections.
It has been a very long haul, but now we have got there!
Here is an important message for all British citizens resident abroad and not impacted by the 15-year-limit on their voting rights, from Greg Clark, Minister of State for Cities and the Constitution:
Register as an overseas voter!
This is important for both the European elections in 2014 (if you have not already registered where you are resident) and the next general election in 2015.
As we continue our struggle for unrestricted voting rights for all British expats, it is very important to get all those who are not affected by the arbitrary cut-off rule (currently 15 years), to register. If you have not lived outside the UK for 15 years or more we would urge you, and any of your colleagues and friends who are similarly qualified, to register!
Since British expats living in EU Member States may choose to vote in the European Parliament elections in the UK, instead of in their country of residence, it is worth registering as soon as possible, and at any rate before the European Parliament election registration deadline of 7th May 2014.
This is what you should do. You will need the postcode of your last address in the UK, and your current passport number and its place and date of issue.
Go to the Electoral Commission website www.aboutmyvote.co.uk and enter the postcode of your last address in the UK at which you were previously registered to vote. Click on GO in the green bar.
The next screen enables you to download the form, and tells you where to send it once you have printed it out, and completed and signed it.
If this is the first time that you have registered as an overseas (as opposed to UK-based) voter, you will need another British citizen to countersign the form as witness. The countersignatory must also provide his/her passport number and place and date of issue.
The form also enables you to register for a postal vote, or a proxy vote. We can provide help in both those areas, and with any queries connected with the registration process in general.
We hope this has been useful to you, and that you will take the important step of registering as soon as possible! Do feel free to forward this web page link to others who might be able to take advantage of it.
The lack of a clear connection in law between British citizenship and the right to vote has permitted successive British governments to allow the following injustice.
Fellow but expatriate British citizens are rather arbitrarily in law deprived of their right to vote in UK elections after 15 years abroad but an estimated 1 million non-British citizens from 54 Commonwealth countries currently resident in the UK will be entitled to vote in , and possibly influence, the 2015 general election.
According to the press article referenced below, in 2007 the then Labour government ordered a review of British citizenship laws by Lord Goldsmith QC, the Attorney General, but did not act on his advice that it should make a ?clear connection between citizenship and the right to vote?. MigrationWatch, which campaigns for lower immigration, is also quoted in this article as suggesting that Labour refused to act because voters from black and minority ethnic communities were more likely to vote Labour than Liberal Democrat or Conservative.
Shouldn’t the Conservative party be pressing for a clearer connection in law between British citizenship and the right to vote in UK elections as part of its overall immigration policy?
Reference: Commonwealth citizens ‘should lose the right to vote’, The Times, 28th August, 2013
Leading figures in the British community in France and in our own British Conservatives in Paris (BCiP) are struggling, to little effect, to obtain voting rights for citizens living abroad but this is of minor importance compared with another struggle which may confront them.
The efforts to gain voting rights are for those who have lived abroad for more than 15 years: not the right to vote for MPs who would defend the rights of expatriates, a privilege which French citizens abroad enjoy, but a vote in whatever constituency with which they may feel an affinity, even though they may not know the MP’s name or the major concerns of his constituents.
No, I write of another threatened struggle. A year ago I was treating threats of Britain voting to leave the European Union as a diverting quirk, typical of my countrymen. Now it is dawning on me that the threat is becoming a real one. The Economist this week also turns its attention to the matter, devoting its cover and two principal articles to the subject.
Both in the populace and in political circles it is taking on an immediacy which should give us serious concern. Apart from all the diplomatic, political, economic and trade issues at stake and whatever your views on them, Britain’s leaving the EU might have considerable repercussions on British citizens living on the Continent. Without being any sort of authority on the subject, I would wager that there would be increased financial difficulties and bureaucratic problems ten years down the road regarding ?cartes de sejours?, importing of household goods, health insurance, pensions etc., all of which would have to be re-negotiated.
I will not expatiate here on the advantages and disadvantages it would have for Britain. The Economist says our departure from Europe is becoming ?ever more possible?. Despite the fact that the leaders of the three main political parties, business leaders and the trade unions all want to stay in, 80 M.P.s of our Conservative party are pressing for a referendum and the polls say that over 50% of the population would vote in favour of leaving and only 30% would vote for staying.
So, I believe this to be more of an issue (than voting rights) on which we should be considering with great concern.