Expats Voting in the UK

 News arrives that an elderly Briton living in Italy was finally successful in his long-term campaign to persuade the British Government to allow Brits living abroad the right to vote.

Each country has its own rules about this chestnut. The British either lose their right to vote after fifteen years abroad; or they don’t, because they never had it in the first place (being born abroad or leaving the UK as a minor). Most other nationalities do not lose this right.

The idea is that we Brits abroad should finally have representation in the World’s Greatest Democracy. What this means is unclear, since the Parliamentary Member for North Norfolk (for example) might have a few dozen supporters living across the world – all of them clueless about sugar-beet and the price of Norfolk wherries (it’s an obscure type of barge).

Much better we expatriate Brits, all thirteen million of us (Wiki) of which 1.2 million are estimated to be living in the EU (here) – that’s about the size of the city of Brussels by the way – get some useful representation where we live.

Just for comparison, the official number of Brits in Spain (even after Brexit) is around the same size as the city of Alicante, or ten times the size of the city of Teruel (here).

Having the vote – probably even swinging the vote – for the Brexit referendum would have been very useful, but it's not much use to us expatriates any more, unless Westminster allows foreign-based constituencies. The French have eleven of these, representing the French citizens who live outside of their motherland (Wiki). The MP (deputy) for the French diaspora in Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Monaco is called Samantha Cazebonne. I'm sure she is kept busy.

So, unless we have someone who solely represents us Brit expatriates in Westminster, there's not much point.

My constituency was North Norfolk, and I haven't been back there since I left the UK (via public school somewhere) at the age of 16. Would the different candidates write me glowing testimonials about their work with sugar beet futures? After careful consideration, which one would I chose to represent me (or rather, not represent me) in Westminster? Hmm, tricky.

In general terms, having the vote – or rather representation – here in Europe would be much more useful and fair. So thank you Beacon of Democracy, but I’ll not be bothering to vote.