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Post by johnloony on Jan 16, 2024 23:25:09 GMT
FWIW, I think that UK citizens overseas should not be allowed to vote if they have been abroad for a substantial amount of time. (Living abroad for a substantially long time (perhaps about 3 or 5 years) is a proxy for being unlikely to be back in the UK for any reasonably foreseeable time in the future.). The only people who should be allowed to vote are those who have a stake in the future of the country, i.e. those who live here. On the other side of the equation, those who do live in the UK, and who are likely to stay for a long time, should be allowed to vote. For me, that means that long-term resident alien / immigrants should get UK citizenship (perhaps after 5 years of residence) by virtue of long-term residency. Going off on a tangent, I think also that all prisoners should be allowed to vote (by postal vote) in the constituency where there home was before they were imprisoned. If a prisoner has a grievance about prison conditions or about the progress of their appeal (or whatever), they should be allowed to write to their MP about it, and judge their MP’s performance by their vote accordingly. For me, this is about the 68,537th most important issue, so in real terms I don’t care that convicted prisoners can’t vote. I am adamantly opposed to all those opinions and to the reasoning behind them. Care to advance an opinion on why I should have been denied a vote even though I spent my entire working life 'WORKING' in Britain and paying their taxes and NIC and continued to so whilst living abroad and was not entitled to vote in any other country? Under my system you would be paying taxes in Italy and being allowed to vote in Italy. |
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carlton43
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Post by carlton43 on Jan 17, 2024 0:49:36 GMT
I am adamantly opposed to all those opinions and to the reasoning behind them. Care to advance an opinion on why I should have been denied a vote even though I spent my entire working life 'WORKING' in Britain and paying their taxes and NIC and continued to so whilst living abroad and was not entitled to vote in any other country? Under my system you would be paying taxes in Italy and being allowed to vote in Italy. Don't like your system John. |
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stb12
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Post by stb12 on Jan 17, 2024 10:26:58 GMT
I would have just one seat for all brits outside of the UK. It would allow them to vote, be represented, ect, but not have any actual impact on government formation and ensure their votes still count for less than the people who actually live here. The elections in such a constituency would be fascinating. Well assuming you’re talking about this being an MP with full voting rights then they could potentially still have an impact on government formation in the event of a very close result |
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Post by edgbaston on Jan 17, 2024 12:21:24 GMT
I would have just one seat for all brits outside of the UK. It would allow them to vote, be represented, ect, but not have any actual impact on government formation and ensure their votes still count for less than the people who actually live here. The elections in such a constituency would be fascinating. Well assuming you’re talking about this being an MP with full voting rights then they could potentially still have an impact on government formation in the event of a very close result The chances of the UK MPs being split: Lab + Allies = Con + Allies must be very very unlikely. And in that case maybe it is fair enough for those living abroad to break the 'tie'. In any case such a government is not going to last very long.. |
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Post by philvn on Jan 17, 2024 13:03:19 GMT
I remain unconvinced that people who have emigrated permanently should decide what happens in Britain. And of course many of them feel the same and don't register to vote. However it is difficult to decide what 'permanent' means here, and the argument that people are still British citizens carries force. However if they are to vote, we should do what many other countries do, and have specific overseas seats for them to vote in. The MPs elected would then genuinely represent citizens living abroad, and wouldn't distort votes in Britain in places they may not have lived in for decades, or indeed at all. There was an easy loophole anyway, I've been facilitating it myself. I've lived abroad for 11 years, but I've been continuously registered at my parents' address in all that time, so there's no actual indication that I'm abroad. I vote by proxy every time with no issues. On a semi-related note, I've been shocked and disappointed at the number of expats with Remain convictions (I suspect most of us living abroad are) that didn't get their arse into gear and vote, in what was quite possibly the most important electoral event of our lives. I know about 10 people personally, in my fairly small circle - extrapolate that around the world and it could even have won the referendum for Remain. Cameron has a lot to answer for in not having some extra caveats. Still, it's history now, appallingly. |
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J.G.Harston
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Post by J.G.Harston on Jan 17, 2024 14:04:49 GMT
I freely admit that I haven't given enough detailed thought to the issue of British citizens living abroad to be able to come to a conclusion what position I would advocate, or what arguments would support that position. But I see it as an edge case rather than a fundamental issue. I remain wedded to Adult Citizen Franchise being the position with the strongest supporting principles. By neccessity adult resident citizens; non-resident citizens is a special case to work out how to plug into the system, not the core to build the system around.
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Post by timrollpickering on Jan 17, 2024 14:06:40 GMT
There was an easy loophole anyway, I've been facilitating it myself. I've lived abroad for 11 years, but I've been continuously registered at my parents' address in all that time, so there's no actual indication that I'm abroad. I vote by proxy every time with no issues. I've seen a number of F voters on the register at UK addresses; I suspect this is a common arrangement for those in the know that in particular may make it easier to get their ballot papers or a proxy. One major practical problem for ex pat voters is getting & returning the ballot papers in time. With the number having grown heavily whilst postal services across many countries are in decline & getting more expensive and electoral services budgets are ever more stretched it's becoming ever harder, especially when third party remailer services are used. Occasionally the media takes an interest and finds people whose packs landed far too late to get their vote in in time. (And it can annoy when the country they live in does things differently, allowing more time for postals to come in and/or having overseas voting at embassies.) It hit would-be Leave voters as well, perhaps disproportionally because those outside the EU were a greater distance. What caveats should there have been? The modern practice in referendums over the last 40+ years has been 50%+1 any turnout wins with all proposals for thresholds, super majorities and all the rest rejected (and the 1979 40% total electorate requirement precedent explicitly overturned in 1997). Any attempt by Remainers to make this vote different would have been seen as an attempt to stack it for one side and a Leave majority thwarted by an extra hurdle would not solved anything. |
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Post by John Chanin on Jan 17, 2024 14:20:53 GMT
There was an easy loophole anyway, I've been facilitating it myself. I've lived abroad for 11 years, but I've been continuously registered at my parents' address in all that time, so there's no actual indication that I'm abroad. I vote by proxy every time with no issues. I've seen a number of F voters on the register at UK addresses; I suspect this is a common arrangement for those in the know that in particular may make it easier to get their ballot papers or a proxy. One major practical problem for ex pat voters is getting & returning the ballot papers in time. With the number having grown heavily whilst postal services across many countries are in decline & getting more expensive and electoral services budgets are ever more stretched it's becoming ever harder, especially when third party remailer services are used. Occasionally the media takes an interest and finds people whose packs landed far too late to get their vote in in time. (And it can annoy when the country they live in does things differently, allowing more time for postals to come in and/or having overseas voting at embassies.). Proxy is the only sensible way to go. I used to hold one for a friend living in the USA. If you don't know anyone well enough to act as your proxy, you really shouldn't be voting at all (see my original post). |
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Post by philvn on Jan 17, 2024 14:36:12 GMT
There was an easy loophole anyway, I've been facilitating it myself. I've lived abroad for 11 years, but I've been continuously registered at my parents' address in all that time, so there's no actual indication that I'm abroad. I vote by proxy every time with no issues. I've seen a number of F voters on the register at UK addresses; I suspect this is a common arrangement for those in the know that in particular may make it easier to get their ballot papers or a proxy. One major practical problem for ex pat voters is getting & returning the ballot papers in time. With the number having grown heavily whilst postal services across many countries are in decline & getting more expensive and electoral services budgets are ever more stretched it's becoming ever harder, especially when third party remailer services are used. Occasionally the media takes an interest and finds people whose packs landed far too late to get their vote in in time. (And it can annoy when the country they live in does things differently, allowing more time for postals to come in and/or having overseas voting at embassies.) It hit would-be Leave voters as well, perhaps disproportionally because those outside the EU were a greater distance. What caveats should there have been? The modern practice in referendums over the last 40+ years has been 50%+1 any turnout wins with all proposals for thresholds, super majorities and all the rest rejected (and the 1979 40% total electorate requirement precedent explicitly overturned in 1997). Any attempt by Remainers to make this vote different would have been seen as an attempt to stack it for one side and a Leave majority thwarted by an extra hurdle would not solved anything.But there were surely far fewer would-be Leave voters than would-be Remain voters, as I pointed out above? I feel that 50% of the electorate should be required for making such a huge decision, though I do see your point (perhaps 40 or 45 would have sufficed). The second caveat would have been a second referendum on the nature of any Leave win (as one Jacob Rees-Mogg once advocated). Another one perhaps was that all permanent residents should have been entitled to vote, though I can see the issues with amending the franchise for one event. |
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stb12
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Post by stb12 on Jan 17, 2024 14:41:33 GMT
Well assuming you’re talking about this being an MP with full voting rights then they could potentially still have an impact on government formation in the event of a very close result The chances of the UK MPs being split: Lab + Allies = Con + Allies must be very very unlikely. And in that case maybe it is fair enough for those living abroad to break the 'tie'. In any case such a government is not going to last very long.. I don’t disagree that things being that exact are unlikely but numbers can fall in a way meaning individual MPs become quite influential as we saw during the 2017-19 parliament, further back you had the Callaghan government losing the Vote of Confidence by one vote But yes on the wider point it would be interesting to see which party such a constituency would vote for, or maybe even an independent would be a good fit? |
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Post by timrollpickering on Jan 17, 2024 15:11:10 GMT
It hit would-be Leave voters as well, perhaps disproportionally because those outside the EU were a greater distance. What caveats should there have been? The modern practice in referendums over the last 40+ years has been 50%+1 any turnout wins with all proposals for thresholds, super majorities and all the rest rejected (and the 1979 40% total electorate requirement precedent explicitly overturned in 1997). Any attempt by Remainers to make this vote different would have been seen as an attempt to stack it for one side and a Leave majority thwarted by an extra hurdle would not solved anything. But there were surely far fewer would-be Leave voters than would-be Remain voters, as I pointed out above? I feel that 50% of the electorate should be required for making such a huge decision, though I do see your point (perhaps 40 or 45 would have sufficed). The second caveat would have been a second referendum on the nature of any Leave win (as one Jacob Rees-Mogg once advocated). Another one perhaps was that all permanent residents should have been entitled to vote, though I can see the issues with amending the franchise for one event. A lot of the findings were anecdotal and vulnerable to the same herd mentality that resulted in people being shocked by polls as nobody they knew was voting the other way. But certainly there were Leave supporting ex pats, perhaps not so many in your circle, who didn't get a vote into the result for one reason or another and some of the problems outlined above would have hit some countries more than others. Rees-Mogg is often misquoted by people sharing a brief clip out of context in the hope of making a killer point. He was responding to proposals for a three way referendum, with a third option of remain & renegotiate. Many dismissed this as confusing (this was the same year as the AV referendum; also campaign law would have to work out how to regulate the differing options) and also the problem of the UK voting to go and renegotiate its relationship with the EU who were not obligated to do so (the same problem the Referendum Party's proposed vote had). He was suggesting two votes, one after renegotiation, as the solution to this. Instead we had a renegotiation before the vote so got it down to two options. The referendum had the same franchise as those who vote for Parliament (both Houses per AV) since Parliament would otherwise have taken the decision plus Gibraltar thanks to an ECHR ruling (on EU Parliament elections but per the same logic). Changing things for a specific vote would have had the same problems as introducing a novel hurdle for one side only. |
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stb12
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Post by stb12 on Jan 17, 2024 17:59:18 GMT
The SNP introduced votes at 16 for the Independence referendum initially, but that was changed for all Scottish Parliament elections right after it
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Post by therealriga on Jan 17, 2024 18:03:32 GMT
I can see both sides of this. I left in the early 2000s and last voted in the 2005 election and only then purely because I happened to be visiting when it occurred. After that, faced with the unappetising choice of the DUP or Sinn Féin, I didn't bother. I have paid NICs since then so I do have a small financial stake in what goes on so on that basis I should have the vote.
On the other hand, I can see why people get annoyed by the opposite. I knew an Australian Latvian, grandson of Stalin-era immigrants, who had fairly wacky views. He came here to live for a year and then decided it wasn't for him but still votes every time. I'm cool with the fact that I can't vote here (until a decade ago getting Latvian citizenship would have involved giving up both my British and Irish citizenship) since that's down to my decision to not jump through the citizenship hoops, but it grates that someone like him can vote on issues that affect me but not him in a country he has relatively few modern links with.
Regarding the EU referendum, it was a mixed picture here. I know some immigrants from the UK who told me they valued living here because they didn't like gays and/or non-white immigrants and they were pro-Leave. The others were some 2:1 in favour of Remain.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jan 18, 2024 11:51:14 GMT
I remain unconvinced that people who have emigrated permanently should decide what happens in Britain. And of course many of them feel the same and don't register to vote. However it is difficult to decide what 'permanent' means here, and the argument that people are still British citizens carries force. However if they are to vote, we should do what many other countries do, and have specific overseas seats for them to vote in. The MPs elected would then genuinely represent citizens living abroad, and wouldn't distort votes in Britain in places they may not have lived in for decades, or indeed at all. I was for some years one such voter myself and 'distorted' the vote in Ross, Cromarty and Skye. And then I returned and lived in that constituency again. I had elected to stay British and was thus not entitled to vote in the GE of any other country. Should I have been totally disenfranchised by your own strictures? If so ..... Why? And I paid tax on all income from every source to the UK as many others do. So what about the 'No taxation without representation argument'? And what about the 'distortion' to the vote in many places of 'here today and gone tomorrow' students, most of whom have little interest in and no commitment to the life and future of their very temporary partial part of the year abode. Many of whom being registered and voting at home as well? How does that sit with you? I see the case for expats being able to vote, but I think it's much more of a problem in a system with individual constituencies. Had you moved away from Ross, Cromarty & Skye to Inverness, you would have lost the right to vote in Ross, Cromarty & Skye, because you wouldn't have lived there and hence it wouldn't have been right for you to be making decisions about your former locale. I don't think that it makes a difference that your new domicile was somewhere where you didn't have the right to vote - it still didn't mean that you had an equal right to make decisions about Ross, Cromarty & Skye as somebody who was actually living in the constituency. I'd also note that there is an inherent contradiction between advancing an argument that there should be no taxation without representation, and suggesting that students (most of whom work during their studies) shouldn't be able to vote where they live. |
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carlton43
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Post by carlton43 on Jan 18, 2024 12:21:00 GMT
I was for some years one such voter myself and 'distorted' the vote in Ross, Cromarty and Skye. And then I returned and lived in that constituency again. I had elected to stay British and was thus not entitled to vote in the GE of any other country. Should I have been totally disenfranchised by your own strictures? If so ..... Why? And I paid tax on all income from every source to the UK as many others do. So what about the 'No taxation without representation argument'? And what about the 'distortion' to the vote in many places of 'here today and gone tomorrow' students, most of whom have little interest in and no commitment to the life and future of their very temporary partial part of the year abode. Many of whom being registered and voting at home as well? How does that sit with you? I see the case for expats being able to vote, but I think it's much more of a problem in a system with individual constituencies. Had you moved away from Ross, Cromarty & Skye to Inverness, you would have lost the right to vote in Ross, Cromarty & Skye, because you wouldn't have lived there and hence it wouldn't have been right for you to be making decisions about your former locale. I don't think that it makes a difference that your new domicile was somewhere where you didn't have the right to vote - it still didn't mean that you had an equal right to make decisions about Ross, Cromarty & Skye as somebody who was actually living in the constituency. I'd also note that there is an inherent contradiction between advancing an argument that there should be no taxation without representation, and suggesting that students (most of whom work during their studies) shouldn't be able to vote where they live. I do not follow this rather tendentious argument you style as 'it wouldn't have been right for you to be making decisions about your former locale'. I merely wanted an 'equal value' vote as a British subject, paying British tax, in my British GE. And no elector to the HOC is ever 'taking decisions' on anything to do with his constituency, other than selecting a representative. As an elector now in Sheffield Heeley I shall be helping in the process of electing an MP for that constituency. I shall not be taking decisions (plural) about anything to do with Sheffield Heeley other than the selection of that MP. I expect to be voting for the winner and thus for my MP; many will vote for other parties and not select the MP. What is all this about 'taking decisions' as an elector? Electors do not take decisions on anything other than who to vote for in their own representation. As to the side issue of students I feel strongly that they are merely migrant birds of passage with little or no input to the nature of the ongoing community where they study. They only reside there for the purposes of very temporary study and are only there for part of each year. More and more constituencies are having gross distortions to their natural balance and inclination by these short-term young migrants. They should obviously have a vote but it should be at their family home and nowhere else. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 18, 2024 12:54:32 GMT
I see the case for expats being able to vote, but I think it's much more of a problem in a system with individual constituencies. Had you moved away from Ross, Cromarty & Skye to Inverness, you would have lost the right to vote in Ross, Cromarty & Skye, because you wouldn't have lived there and hence it wouldn't have been right for you to be making decisions about your former locale. I don't think that it makes a difference that your new domicile was somewhere where you didn't have the right to vote - it still didn't mean that you had an equal right to make decisions about Ross, Cromarty & Skye as somebody who was actually living in the constituency. I'd also note that there is an inherent contradiction between advancing an argument that there should be no taxation without representation, and suggesting that students (most of whom work during their studies) shouldn't be able to vote where they live. I do not follow this rather tendentious argument you style as 'it wouldn't have been right for you to be making decisions about your former locale'. I merely wanted an 'equal value' vote as a British subject, paying British tax, in my British GE. And no elector to the HOC is ever 'taking decisions' on anything to do with his constituency, other than selecting a representative. As an elector now in Sheffield Heeley I shall be helping in the process of electing an MP for that constituency. I shall not be taking decisions (plural) about anything to do with Sheffield Heeley other than the selection of that MP. I expect to be voting for the winner and thus for my MP; many will vote for other parties and not select the MP. What is all this about 'taking decisions' as an elector? Electors do not take decisions on anything other than who to vote for in their own representation. As to the side issue of students I feel strongly that they are merely migrant birds of passage with little or no input to the nature of the ongoing community where they study. They only reside there for the purposes of very temporary study and are only there for part of each year. More and more constituencies are having gross distortions to their natural balance and inclination by these short-term young migrants. They should obviously have a vote but it should be at their family home and nowhere else. Are you expecting a very strange result in Sheffield Heeley or are you planning to vote Labour? |
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carlton43
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Post by carlton43 on Jan 18, 2024 12:58:59 GMT
I do not follow this rather tendentious argument you style as 'it wouldn't have been right for you to be making decisions about your former locale'. I merely wanted an 'equal value' vote as a British subject, paying British tax, in my British GE. And no elector to the HOC is ever 'taking decisions' on anything to do with his constituency, other than selecting a representative. As an elector now in Sheffield Heeley I shall be helping in the process of electing an MP for that constituency. I shall not be taking decisions (plural) about anything to do with Sheffield Heeley other than the selection of that MP. I expect to be voting for the winner and thus for my MP; many will vote for other parties and not select the MP. What is all this about 'taking decisions' as an elector? Electors do not take decisions on anything other than who to vote for in their own representation. As to the side issue of students I feel strongly that they are merely migrant birds of passage with little or no input to the nature of the ongoing community where they study. They only reside there for the purposes of very temporary study and are only there for part of each year. More and more constituencies are having gross distortions to their natural balance and inclination by these short-term young migrants. They should obviously have a vote but it should be at their family home and nowhere else. Are you expecting a very strange result in Sheffield Heeley or are you planning to vote Labour? I am voting Labour. |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Jan 26, 2024 18:53:14 GMT
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Jan 26, 2024 19:05:03 GMT
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Post by gwynthegriff on Jan 26, 2024 19:17:55 GMT
"Daniel. Are you OK?" "No, I mean really OK?" |
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