EMR

Brexit legislation can be rushed through in weeks but extending the right to vote a " simple one line bill " takes years.
I wonder why ?

Knoxy_UK

Should there be a government department for Ex-Pats ?

GeniB

Knoxy this has been a massive bone of contention since they introduced the very undemocratic rule of 15yrs.. I have written about it on here..at length. I was in fact prevented by the rules of the forum in posting a petition about it some months ago

The promise to change the law has been given time and time again,but never carried out .Why? Because there was always some crisis or other that panicked the government .
The last 'big' promise was before David Cameron was returned to parliament.. A time when he was 'panicked' by UKIP and the very real danger of the Conservatives losing. A tireless campaigner for ex-pat rights Richard Gardener had promised him over 100,000 staunch conservative ex.pat votes from France if he in turn promised to repeal this arbitrary law.
He agreed and the votes were duly delivered. His surprise re-election and the Tory majority then prompted him to immediately welch on his promise and break his word. (what a surprise!! not...)Richard Gardener died in a freak accident at his home in France so fortunately never knew of this betrayal,but his followers did. The subsequent shock of finding themselves lead into Brexit must have been enormous.
As the government found the time to include Gibralta and other protectorates in the Referendum they have zero excuse for continuing to plead.'.no time'for us.
The British Ambassador to Portugal Kirsty Hayes apologised n behalf of Theresa May saying she realised it was indeed unfair and wrong to exclude us. but adding. She will put this right.. 'sometime in the future'. i.e. the same old same old..
The UK is one of only 5 other countries within the EU to exclude it's citizens like this. In this sense it is amongst the least democratic countries in Europe

We had a discussion with a German ex-pat at the weekend where he came up to us and said how sorry he was that the UK was leaving the EU as it had been a 'levelling and important influence on the decision making process' before the Brexit rhetoric that was. We said we thought so too. 'But you voted for it' he said. When we explained our position he was flabbergasted.' But Turkish immigrants can vote in Germany'. he said. 'They can vote for Erdogan in their own country and Merkel in ours.' he stood for some minutes unable to believe what we had said. 'But it's England' was all he could splutter. Yeah it's England.

mikelincs

At one time there was no time limit, but then the 15 year limit was brought in because people were saying that it was unfair that people who had been out of the UK for 50 years really had no idea of what the UK was like or needed, so were possibly voting on their knowledge of the UK that was way out of date, and many people, including many expats agreed this was correct, so the limit of 15 years came in, not those same people who thought it was a good idea realise that now they have no vote, so for them it's now NOT a good idea.

RichardHenshall

Out of curiosity, how many of those who feel disenfranchised, by not still being able to vote in a country they left 15 or more years ago, have bothered to register and vote in the country where they live?

Red Eric

It's a good enough question.

However, as far as we EU citizens are concerned, we can only vote in local and EU elections and not in national parliamentary or Presidential elections nor in referendums.

So we're still largely disenfranchised, even if we have registered to vote.

RichardHenshall

I'm aware of the limitations but I think that there's a good argument that a vote in local government elections in your country of residence, in particular, has more relevance than a vote in a General Election after more than 15 years of absence from the UK.

Red Eric

I'd agree with you to a certain extent there and, in fact, I didn't exercise my own right to vote in the UK since moving here precisely because I didn't feel I had a right to it, morally.

However, after reading the arguments for Brexit coming from other non-residents on this and other forums, I decided I wasn't going to pass up my right to register to vote in the referendum and cancel out at least one of them and, having done so, have decided to keep on voting while I still have the right. I still have (and will always have) quite a lot of my past, present and future tied up in the UK which is affected by UK government policy.

If you gave me a straight choice, UK general elections or Portuguese, I'd take being able to vote in the PT elections every time. At the moment, though it's not that choice - it's UK general elections or no general elections at all. Being able to vote in PT local elections is great, of course but it doesn't have any bearing at all on the right to vote in GEs, which are actually of greater importance to me.

HKG3

You can get to vote in all Portuguese elections if you become a Portuguese citizen. Why not make the move now if this is what you prefer?

Red Eric

Because that brings with it a whole other range of issues which, for us Brits in the EU, haven't yet needed to be considered and some of which might be very difficult to get to the bottom of.

It's not necessarily as simple as having the best of all worlds (not that that's what I think I should be entitled to, you understand - it's just an observation).