Give us a vote: we’ve got most to lose if UK quits

[unhappycamper]

http://www.thelocal.es/20150522/give-us-a-vote-weve-got-most-to-lose-if-britain-quits



2.2 million Brits live in another EU country. 2.3 million people from elsewhere in the EU live in the UK.

Give us a vote: we’ve got most to lose if UK quits
James Savage
22 May 2015 08:41 GMT+02:00

Who is more affected if Britain leaves the EU: the South African student living in the UK for six months or the German who has lived there and paid taxes for fifteen years? The Indian working in the City for a couple of years before moving back to Mumbai, or the British pensioner who retired to Spain in 2002?

Some time in the next year or two there will be a referendum on whether the UK leaves the EU.

In a bizarre anomaly, if you’re one of the million people from the rest of the Commonwealth living in the UK, you will likely be given the vote (as you are in general elections) - but you won’t if you’re one of the 2.3 million people from another European country, or if you are British and have lived outside the UK for more than fifteen years.

As I left the UK in 2003 I’ll probably get the vote if the referendum is held in 2017, but it will be a close-run thing. Millions of others who moved slightly longer ago will be deprived of a say.

[Ghost Dog]

2. Is it really 15 years now? Last I was aware it was 10 years,

and not ten years since you left the UK, but ten years since you were last registered to vote in the UK. Last time I tried to recover the vote I was told there was no way since I had never been registered to vote (where I lived last time, in Kensington & Chelsea, there wasn't much point in voting for who I would have voted for).

There is information-sharing between EU tax offices, and we all have passports, so they know who we are, where we live since when.

There is a big difference between someone living quite close to home as a UK and an EU citizen, and someone who has permanently emigrated to Canada, Australia or wherever...

Regardless of how long we have been away, or if we ever voted in UK elections, UK citizens resident in another country of the EU should of course have a vote in this referendum. The result, if negative, can affect our resident status in the EU, and even our right to return to live in the UK.