Sue from Manchester

Just wondering cos my mum and dad have just seen an advert saying they can still vote in UK elections for up to 15 years after having left the country. My guess would be most people couldn't be ar#*d with postal votes or appointing a proxy but it's important to my folks. I've had to download a form from the web, they've got to complete it and send it to me, meanwhile I've got to get a proxy to fill in another part of the form and get it to London before 10th March. Bit of a tight deadline. Proxy can't be a relative. Are most people just glad to be done with UK politics?

Phoenixuk2oz

It's a personal choice and I admire your parents for taking the trouble once they've left UK. However, I personally felt once I'd left UK that I had no designs to vote for how it should be run. I felt I'd lost the right, after all, I'd left the country and everything it represents.

I'm now more interested in how my new country is run and to be honest, feel more obliged to vote here in Aus as it's this country's politics that will directly affect me / my family. I'm still interested in what happens to the UK and of course want UK to do well, however my input is in my new home, not the old one

No right or wrong answer. It's about personal choice

jas_uk

Interesting fact though, I wasnt aware this was the case! Is this still true if you take up citizenship? I guess Aus having mutual agreement with UK that you can have joint citizenship means that it would be so?

Also agree with Phoenix - if you are leaving it behind then should you (univeral you, not you personally ) be allowed to have a say in how it is governed?

Sue from Manchester

Yeah, my parents do have Australian citizenship but have a hatred of a certain prime minister here!

JAJ

- Taking up Australian citizenship has no impact on voting rights in the UK
- There is no 'mutual agreement' between the UK and Australia on dual citizenship, it's allowed because there is no law in either country to forbid it
- There is no such thing as 'joint citizenship', if you have two or more citizenships they are held on an individual basis and each country normally treats you as if you were solely a citizen of that country.


Jeremy

rubbeldiekatz

Im a german but I will ALWAYS vote when there are elections in germany....everybody should vote.....

bondipom

I will vote as I have family over in the UK. My current issue is MRSA. I will be writing to the tory MP where I was last living press for a policy on the issue. Gran may not have had much more in her but MRSA did take her life. I question whether it had to happen the way it did. MRSA can take the lives of stronger younger people. If my small piece of pressure has any impact it will be worth it. Without a vote that pressure would be smaller.

NedKelly

One vote doesn't make any difference. That smug cheesy grinning liar will get in again.

bondipom

You could get a smug bald liar instead! "Something of the night" were Anne Widdecombes words about Michael Howard.

rubbeldiekatz

thats absolute crap

NedKelly

What?

"One vote doesn't make any difference."

or

"That smug cheesy grinning liar will get in again."

or both?

rubbeldiekatz

this one

jas_uk

Good point, badly phrased on my part,... i knew what i meant... ..i think..! but thanks anyway!

RichS

Is there supposed to be some referendum in the UK re our position on Europe, wrapped up with the currency issues. I'm certainly keen to vote on that one...in fact more than keen.

BP - what do you need to know about MRSA? In the UK hospitals have wards dedicated to the isolation of MRSA patients. Here they don't. I remember when my first child was born one of the wife's colleagues came down to visit and wasn't allowed in the maternity area as she was the sister in charge of the MRSA ward (where my wife worked).

bondipom

I know very little but plan on finding out a lot. I know that it took out gran in a week. She was in a nursing home. They suspect a visiting nurse may have passed it on. I am not bitter about it however I do not want to be ignorant about something that maybe preventable.