Voting Rights (and Wrongs)

by Lynda Goetz

If you were living in a country on a temporary basis, would you expect to be able to vote in their elections? I am pretty sure it is not a question many people have thought to ask themselves. They would have thought the answer was self-evident.  Nor are they likely to have considered the flipside of the coin. How many foreigners who are not UK citizens, many  living in our country on temporary visas, are entitled to vote both in our local and our national elections? Rather large numbers, it turns out.

This issue came to my attention quite by chance. As a landlord (of just one property), I was collecting post from the then-empty property. There was a notice to “The Occupiers’” encouraging them  to sign on to the Electoral Register. Well, I said to my husband, “I can bin that.  It's likely that the new tenants will be foreign students, so they wouldn’t be entitled to vote.”  “I wouldn’t count on that, “,  he returned. So I checked. It turns out that anyone on any sort of visa from any Commonwealth country, including student visas, is entitled to vote here, not only in local elections, but in national elections as well. (The rules for EU citizens changed in May last year as a result of the 2022 Elections Act to which I will return later). I was surprised and shocked, as I’m fairly certain many others would be too, if they realised.

The Commonwealth of Nations is a free association of fifty-six countries, all but four  of which were formerly colonies or dependencies of the UK. The four - Gabon, Togo, Mozambique, and Rwanda - have no historical constitutional connection with the UK. As most people are fully aware, the Head of the Commonwealth is the monarch of the United Kingdom, currently King Charles III. The position does not carry with it any degree of power and is largely symbolic. All fifty-six countries, with very diverse political, economic, social and religious backgrounds, are regarded as equal and cooperate as an international organisation within a framework of supposedly common goals and values.

In addition to citizens of the  UK, this country also gives the vote to anyone over the age of 18 (probably shortly to be 16) who is a citizen of the Commonwealth.  “Qualifying Commonwealth citizens must be resident in the UK and either have leave to remain in the UK or not require leave. Your leave to remain can be indefinite, or time limited.” (from website ‘Voting as a Migrant’).  The majority of Commonwealth countries do not reciprocate this right. Most view other Commonwealth citizens as indistinguishable from any other foreign citizens. In just fourteen of the other Commonwealth countries rights are granted to other resident non-local Commonwealth citizens to vote in elections.  This does not include either Canada or Australis, two of the longest-standing members of the Commonwealth. Yet here, basically because of the historic connections with most Commonwealth countries, citizens of those countries,  resident, however temporarily, in this country are essentially not viewed as foreign nationals. Subject to their right of abode, many are even eligible to take up public office and stand as MPs. In spite of the stated  ‘common goals and values’, many such foreign nationals, citizens or not, do not actually share our culture and values, as has been highlighted by the rape gangs (euphemistically referred to as “grooming gangs”) operating up and down the country.

In their Briefing paper No.315, Migrant Watch UK wrote in 2013 that,  “There could be as many as one million migrants from the Commonwealth who have the right to vote in UK Parliamentary elections, despite not being British citizens”. It went on to say that,  “Voting rights for the whole Commonwealth are an anachronism from the days of the British Empire and should be brought to an end except for citizens from those few Commonwealth countries which grant British citizens reciprocal voting rights”. This paper was written twelve years ago, and a lot has happened since then, including the small matter of Brexit, which has changed the situation vis-à-vis members of the EU. Nothing has changed in regard to Commonwealth citizens, however.  All EU citizens who were resident in the UK used to have the right to vote in local, but not national elections. That right was reciprocal. The Elections Act 2022 changed that. According to the Election Commission’s blog:

“You will only be able to register, vote or stand as a candidate in these elections if:

you’re a citizen of Denmark, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Spain who is resident in the UK, has permission to enter or stay in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man, or who does not need permission;

you’re a citizen of any other EU country who on or before 31 December 2020 was legally resident in the UK, had permission to enter or stay in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man, or who did not need permission, and this has continued without a break."

In other words, you will be entitled to vote in local elections here, either if you are a citizen of one of the four countries in the EU which has given British citizens reciprocal rights or if you were here prior to 31 December 2020 and still have a right to be here.

The legislation outlined above seems logical. It seems entirely illogical that, having amended the rights regarding EU citizens, we should still be giving rights to citizens of fifty-six foreign countries, (many of whom are now demanding trillions of pounds from us in reparations for perceived historic wrongs). This includes such countries as Cameroon, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda and Tanzania and gives them the right to vote not just in local, but in our national elections, should they happen to be here legally when they take place. As registration to vote can now take place monthly,  not just annually as used to be the case, this effectively means that almost from the minute they step ashore these foreign nationals are legally entitled to join the citizens of this country in choosing our elected parliamentarians. If Migrant Watch estimated this number to be in the region of a million in 2013, how many more is it likely to be now?

Migrant Watch UK’s Briefing Paper, written over a decade ago, is extremely interesting and highlights the unusual situation prevailing in this country with regard to voting rights. Most countries in the world limit these rights to citizens, whether natives or those who have acquired citizenship. This would seem, as Lord Goldsmith pointed out in his report, produced several years earlier in 2008 for Gordon Brown’s government, to ensure that “the right to vote is one of the hallmarks of the political status of citizens; it is not a means of expressing closeness between countries”. Unfortunately Lord Brown’s government did nothing about implementing Lord Goldsmith’s recommendations, quite possibly  for reasons of political expediency or advantage.

As was pointed out in the Paper, large numbers of Commonwealth citizens move to the UK, either permanently or temporarily. “The 2011 census data shows that there are an estimated 960,000 Commonwealth citizens (who don’t have British citizenship) living in England and Wales who have the right to vote but are from countries that do not allow British citizens to vote”. Up to date figures appear not to be available. The 2021 Census showed only ‘Population of the UK by country of birth and nationality’ *and even that data collection has, according to the Office of National Statistics, now been discontinued.  No figures are available separately for Commonwealth citizens .

Nevertheless, numbers have clearly increased and could potentially have an impact on both local and national elections. The fact that the proliferation of foreign student visas is one of the current issues we are facing and that large numbers of these do actually come from Commonwealth countries, particularly India, Nigeria and Pakistan, highlights the bizarre nature of our approach to non-citizen rights in this country. Given that successive governments have allowed, against the wishes of the majority of the public, for immigration to get completely out of hand, the very last thing we need is the addition of non-citizens to have any say in our election processes. This, as Migration Watch pointed out way back in 2013, is an anachronism of which the general public is largely unaware and which needs to be rectified immediately.  British citizenship alone should confer the right to vote in general elections and, of course, in any referenda.

*In the year ending June 2021, the non-UK-born population was an estimated 9.6 million and the non-British population was an estimated 6.0 million; both the non-UK-born population and non-British population have remained broadly stable since 2019.