Should it be necessary to be British to vote in the EU referendum?
Yes, because it’s a referendum about what it will mean in the future to be British.
That’s something that we get to decide, not something that gets decided for us.
Should it be necessary to be British to vote in the EU referendum?
Yes, because it’s a referendum about what it will mean in the future to be British.
That’s something that we get to decide, not something that gets decided for us.
I’m surprised The Guardian doesn’t advocate a ban on white Brits having a vote: effectively limiting the vote to ethnic minorities – preferably supporters of Islamic State and Boko Haram…:-)
Yeah but the Guardian hopes that in the future Britain won’t exist. They hate Britain and the British and want us to disappear. Asking the British is precisely the wrong question for them. Asking the Scotch if they want to remain British is fine because they lean to saying no. But asking the British is wrong precisely because they might say no.
It almost beggars belief that the question came up. The media seems to be in the hands of a bunch of morons.
Question – did the French or the Dutch allow foreigners to vote in their EU constitution referenda?
For the Dutch, I can tell you absolutely the answer was “no”, cos I lived there at the time and could vote in local and EU (but not national or provincial) elections.
abacab – “did the French or the Dutch allow foreigners to vote in their EU constitution referenda?”
The French allowed their some of their former colonial subjects to vote in their Maastricht referendum. In fact didn’t France get a “yes” vote by a whole lot of last minute ballots that were found down the back of some couch in Reunion?
There’s a stupid question and a sensible one.
Uncategorized voters (ie with no restrictions) are not just British citizens. They also include Commonwealth citizens, and non-citizen British Nationals (BOTC, BOC, British subjects, BPP, BN(O)).
The sensible question is “why should Commonwealth citizens in the UK get to vote, but not EU citizens in the UK?”
I can see a case for everyone in the UK. I can see a case for only British nationals. I can’t see a case for Zimbabweans and Mozambiquans but not French and Germans.
There’s another forum I’m on which focuses on one of my interests. Not particularly political, but it’s populated by Guardianistas.
It’s funny watching some of the non-Brits get in a fury over not being allowed to vote on the EU. The same people who were very happy to be allowed to vote in the PW Referendum and gloated that ex-pat PWs weren’t.
The mental contortions are incredible.
No mental contortions required – what serves their ends at any given moment is what is right. End of.
Although my point re. NL and FR still stands……..
And why should people who cannot vote in a UK general election be able to vote in a referendum on something even more important?
Brits who live abroad should have the vote, even if they have been away 15+ years
@Steve Evans
Thanks, I’ll go with you on that one
“Brits who live abroad should have the vote, even if they have been away 15+ years”
The 15 year limit was one of the Blair-era innovations, presumably after they realised that the diaspora vote swings more heavily towards the Tories.
In 3 years, I will have no right to vote anywhere on any issue at any level (not that I would use it anyway due to stupid domicile issues, but ho hum).
48 hours ago, the Guardianistas said we didn’t need a referendum. Now they want to dictate the terms?
Fuck them.
What about restricting voting to those who can prove that both grandparents were british.
How about restricting voting to people who know how many grandparents they have?
‘Brits who live abroad should have the vote, even if they have been away 15+ years’
Define Brit. Brit Jihadi John lives abroad…..
‘What about restricting voting to those who can prove that both grandparents were british.’
Again, how do we define British? Passport holding? Residence for a certain period?
Brits have a British passport – some Brits are more equal than others
@john malpas,
No votes for Jews!
But seriously, it shows how shit-scared the septics are that they are already wondering how to gerrymander the right result.
Maybe this one can be also run again and again until the voters come up with the right answer. Looking forward to the next instalment of the Scottish neverendum already!
http://votes-for-expat-brits-blog.com/2015/04/14/conservative-manifesto-2015-commitment-to-end-15-year-rule-for-overseas-voters/
Look at the total clusterfuck that was the Scottish referendum: anyone – Scottish, English, Mongolian – who had been living in Scotland for the last few years could vote. Scottish living in England could not.
@Tim Newman:
To be fair, it is fairly easy to define who is living in Scotland, to some degree of certainty. It is much more difficult to define who is Scottish. Is the category even meaningful?
I don’t see any problem with excluding non-British votes, though.
> It is much more difficult to define who is Scottish.
They could have given the vote to people born in Scotland to Scottish parents who’ve lived in Scotland during the last ten years. That would have been easy.
”Scottish living in England could not”
Define Scottish….Not even a passport to help in these cases.
Have to admit the question of Britishness or Scottishness or Germanness etc interests me a lot and I see it at the root of many contemporary issues. Personally, I don’t see any ‘Brit’ who goes off to fight for Isis as British, passport holder or not.
Squander Two – “They could have given the vote to people born in Scotland to Scottish parents who’ve lived in Scotland during the last ten years. That would have been easy.”
Would it? You’re kidding right? How would you prove that you had Scottish parents? Two birth certificates? Also that has what the Americans call Disparate Impact on the recent non-White immigrant community. And presumably ten years’ worth of bank statements, or what?
Widdershins – “Personally, I don’t see any ‘Brit’ who goes off to fight for Isis as British, passport holder or not.”
The Left has a double standard on this. They claim that race is not important. But once the discussion gets to the bad things in British history, suddenly race is. British people of Sikh origin are, presumably, not expected to apologise for invading the Punjab. Nor those of Jamaican origin for slavery. Common sense says if they don’t share guilt for Empire and slavery, they are not British. Passport or not.
Define Scottish
Rod Stewart? Jim Davidson?
Both support Scotland at the football….
‘Both support Scotland at the football….’
I always thought Tebbitt’s cricket test had some merits…
In any case, the problem with the Scottish referendum was not who got to vote. It’s that it yielded the wrong answer. Must be, because there’s talk of how soon we can have another go. I blame the EU for setting a precedent.
Whatever happened to ‘No means No’?
@Widdrrshins
My thoughts exactly.
> How would you prove that you had Scottish parents? Two birth certificates?
Aye, why not?
> Also that has what the Americans call Disparate Impact on the recent non-White immigrant community.
Allowing Scots not currently in Scotland to vote would have harmed non-white people in Scotland? How? Fucking emmigrants, leaving the country, stealing our votes….
> And presumably ten years’ worth of bank statements, or what?
Perhaps you need to look up the difference between “for” and “during”. You might even consider thinking that, since the subject under discussion is Scots who weren’t allowed to vote because they weren’t living in Scotland at the time, your misunderstanding is completely asinine.
Which is arguably an improvement.
Ironically, it’s probably illegal under EU law to deny UK based EU nationals a vote on whether that EU law should apply to the UK.
@john malpas
Of course, for those of a certain age, our grandparents would have been citizens of the British Empire, not of any of the specific countries which constituted it.
Therefore somebody who immigrated from Jamaica in the last five years and who had become a British citizen would almost certainly meet your requirement just as much as I would.
Brilliant.
French-born SNP MSP whines that he can’t vote in the EU referendum.
http://m.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/french-born-snp-msp-cannot-vote-in-eu-referendum-1-3782858
Comment below the story:
“Mr Allard, 2014: “Let’s divide the country up based on 17th century notions of nationality!”
Mr Allard, 2015: “Wah I’m being discriminated against based on 17th century notions of nationality!”
Let’s remember it was the SNP who pushed to disallow non-resident Scots from voting. Karma, eh?
@john malpas / SE
Most Commonwealth citizens would have grandparents who were British subjects. There are about 1 billion Indians and hundreds of millions of Pakistanis and Nigerians to whom this applies. So it seems fair enough that these people, if legally resident in the UK, should have the vote.
And of course these citizens are the ones who would benefit from being put on an equal footing with EU citizens when it comes to immigration into the UK.
Squander Two – “Aye, why not?”
Because not a lot of people will have both their parents’ birth certificates. And if one sibling lives in Glasgow and the other in Aberdeen, it might be a little hard for both of them to present evidence at the same time,
“Allowing Scots not currently in Scotland to vote would have harmed non-white people in Scotland? How? Fucking emmigrants, leaving the country, stealing our votes….”
No. Insisting that someone have two Scottish parents for them to vote would have had a impact on how many non-White people could vote.
“Perhaps you need to look up the difference between “for” and “during”.”
That just makes it worse. How long do they have to have lived in Scotland for? If they spent their summer holidays in Scotland but normally lived in Manchester would that count? Again, how would you prove it?
“You might even consider thinking that, since the subject under discussion is Scots who weren’t allowed to vote because they weren’t living in Scotland at the time, your misunderstanding is completely asinine.”
What misunderstanding would this be? Again it looks like you wanted to go off on a self-righteous temper tantrum and so you are. Regardless of what I said. Which you have not actually addressed. Making a bad situation even more complex is hardly likely to make things better.
@SMFS – “They hate Britain and the British and want us to disappear.” Its the Tories that they hate, they don’t really care about “Britain”, that’s just fallout from their hatred of the Tories.
Come , come – being in the British Empire no more made you british than being in an oven made you a current bun.
Obviously you were not there before the great diversity. It was often tricky neing a Northener ( British) if you wanted to work in the south or vice versa.
Tut tut – us elderly are not all dead yet. Wait a while beforre peddling the big lie.
I don’t live in the UK any more, and therefore don’t see how I could have any democratic claim to vote on this subject. It directly concerns British people in Britain, and they should vote on it.
If you want the vote, go live there, and if you’re not British, apply for new nationality. If you don’t want the nationality put up and shut up.
And yes, where I am I did want to vote, so I did get the nationality.
Another point: nothing prevents people of any stripe who care about the subject (either way) from canvassing, writing, badgering, giving money to the cause of their choice.
SMFS,
> Again it looks like you wanted to go off on a self-righteous temper tantrum
Not really. I was quite happily having a conversation with other people. Then you failed to follow that conversation and butted in with irrelevant shite. As usual. But hey, at least you didn’t crowbar in some statistics about race-related IQ. So, progress.
>> since the subject under discussion is Scots who weren’t allowed to vote because they weren’t living in Scotland at the time
> What misunderstanding would this be?
This one:
> And if one sibling lives in Glasgow and the other in Aberdeen …
… then they are totally irrelevent to a discussion about Scots who weren’t allowed to vote because they weren’t living in Scotland. Obviously.
Still, bonus points for accusing someone else of self-righteousness. Comedy gold.
Ben S,
> If you want the vote, go live there
Some people have to spend a long time away from home for work. It’s not just about people sunning themselves in the Costa Blanca.