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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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UK Politics
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General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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As UK citiziens, they are impacted by decisions that affect UK citizens, even citizens living abroad. Most obviously Brexit, but it's not difficult to see that there might be other decisions, e.g., around tax and benefits, that would affect them. I know various people with up to three different citizenships and they can vote in all three of those countries, for this exact reason.
Obviously the real reason the Tories have allowed this is totally cynical, but that doesn't mean there isn't a non-cynical argument for it.
Foreign votes are wrong, they can very easily shakeoff any austerity as necessary without having to deal with it.
The only vote I missed in my adult life was because I was out of the country for 3 nights. I really wanted to vote but by allowing me to vote it opens the door for a lot of people who I dont think should get to.
The argument seems to be that they shouldn't have a vote because they're insulated from some of the possible consequences of their vote. But that could be said for all kinds of things. As could the equal and opposite argument that, e.g., public sector workers have too much of a vested interest in being anti-austerity. We don't grant or deny votes on that basis and nor should we.
I don't think that you can believe that someone with a job that requires them to travel internationally (like a long-distance truck driver) should be denied a vote just because the election fell at a time they happened to be out of the country.
I live in Ireland, where our politics would take a severe right turn if we opened the way for people outside the country to vote. We have a massive diaspora and if we open the for mail in voting, or give a window for how many days of the year you have to reside in the country to vote then parties could expand that to what suits them.
It is wrong that missing those days leaves you without a vote, there is pre ballot casting through the police barracks I think and there is a minimum of 6 weeks notice given for elections.
Except there is a big difference in that these people choose to live abroad. They have chosen diminished influence of British politics over their lives so they should have diminished influence over British politics.
If they really want to influence politics here, then live here. It is not fair on resident, tax paying citizens to have non resident non tax paying ex pats making choices that may benefit them at the cost of others.
For example, elderly expats may choose to support a policy which significantly increases their pension to cover their overseas lifestyle at the expense of resident pensioners or increased taxes or reduced public services for resident voters. While this is very unlikely to be proposed or succeed, it is theoretically possible. I'm sorry but if I resign from my job should I still get to make demands of my former colleagues because I worked there for 30 years or still feel like an employee??
I just can't reconcile the thought "I don't want to live there anymore" with the thought "I deserve a vote in the country I left behind".
It was a little different when we were in the EU. But we are not.
If you still had a pension fund owned or controlled by your previous company you would - and should - still have some say in how that was managed. Having said that, I don't think the analogy between 'citizen' and 'employee' works that well. Citizenship is a fundamental legal right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human R ights, as are the rights and duties entailed by citizenship. It's not analogus to being an employee, which is fundamentally a transactional relationship.