Votes for expat Brits, where are we now?
- Written by Paul Rees
Votes For Expatriate Brits? Where are we now?
So, is there a plan? Like so many adventures in life, you put your foot forward and a journey begins, the destination is unknown. There are distant lights of a city on the horizon but you have little idea what adventures lie on the way or what greets you at the summit. So it is with the web-site www.votes-for-expat-brits.com.
Some have criticised the Team behind this site for not raising a campaign on the Government sponsored e-petitions site.
There are two very pertinent reasons why not. The first is the huge backing that is needed via the popular press and a UK based movement to get people to sign. If only we could get the support of The Sun or The Mail! To get any real pressure you would need huge numbers to get anywhere, preferably 100,000!
The second and more important reason is that the e-petition site has no opportunity to place comments. The comments on the expat votes web-site could prove to be a most valuable store of ammunition.
I explore the geography of this campaign.
1. Parliament is the key to everything. We have to light a fuse and at some point feed in the ammunition. We have seen in Parliament some discussion on how the lists of electors should be assembled. In Britain up to now, the head of each household has been required to fill in, each Autumn, a list of electors in that household. The Government has observed that this leads to fraud. It is suspected that there is a good deal of voting fraud at election time. The Government wishes to introduce a different procedure of individual registration to vote.
There is also discussion on the reorganisation of electoral boundaries and the number of MPs. A Bill or Bills would have to be discussed in Parliament to make any changes. This is a fuse to light.
2. These parliamentary processes expose chinks by which one might introduce a clause on the voting processes of expatriate electors. Expatriate electors need to register for a constituency – but which? Some expatriates have never had any allegiance to any UK based constituency, or it is so nebulous and changing that is has no value. But British electors they want to be!
Some ammunition is already prepared.
3. At this very same moment in history, two law cases are in process of being considered and in both cases judgements are expected shortly – that of James Preston, resident in Spain and that of Harry Shindler, resident in Italy.
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4. Further there are movements in other countries for expatriates to be represented at home (e.g. Egypt- Malaysia). Very many countries already have such provision. e.g. Tunisia, Morocco, and many European countries.
5. The person responsible for introducing any Bill to Parliament is Mark Harper, MP for the Forest of Dean, and also Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform.
6. NOW is the time to influence Mark Harper MP – House of Commons, SW1A0AA,
http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/mark-harper/31687
For at this time, one assumes, a Bill is being constructed!
7. Then, when we know that the Bill is drafted and as long as it contains some clause useful to our cause, then we need somehow to inform the bulk of the MPs of the world-wide feelings of the lack of representation. They need to read the comments which the votes site has accumulated. How to do that is a difficulty. Postage costs are enormous. It may be possible to send a resumé to each MP by email and somehow place a fuller compendium in the House of Commons Library.
8. As to the clause in the Bill. Here is a quandary. [see 2. above]
a. It could just say that the 15 year cut-off is abolished. That would be some progress, but in my view is not enough.
b. It would be helpful to follow the leads of France and Italy and Portugal. In these States the expatriate is represented by someone with the interests of the expatriate at heart. In short at least there should be one MP elected by the expatriates. Since the British expatriate is, at present, so slow in coming forward, there may not be enough people to register for voting in the whole of Europe, let alone the World, for more than one MP. However, I suspect that if the principal is established, the demand for Representation would escalate.
This second alternative removes some objections from those MPs and others with insular perspectives. i.e. That the vote granted to 5 million expatriates could swamp the existing UK based voters. One, two, or even three expatriate MPs could not possibly swamp the opinions of the House. But they could certainly express the feelings of the expatriates.
9. The situation in Europe is special. I have correspondence from the office of the Vice President of the European Commission (Viviane Reding) which displays unease at the non-representation of expatriates of the countries of Britain, Greece, and Ireland, which are the only three EU nations to give no representation at all to their citizens resident in other countries of the EU.
10. What the individual can do at this time.
a. Express your views on voting and constituencies to Mark Harper
b. Spread this mail to other British expatriates.
c. Get others to add their names and comments to http://votes-for-expat-brits.com/Sign-up-Poll.php
Brian Cave – organiser of http://pensionersdebout.blogspot.com/
