15-year-rule to remain as Whitehall blocks change to Expat voting rights

Long-term British expats hoping to be able to vote in UK general elections look set to be disappointed as Whitehall appears to have rejected the idea to change the 15-year law.

The pledge by former British Prime Minister David Cameron to scrap the controversial 15-year-rule barring long-term British expats from voting in UK general elections looks to have been overturned by the new government…

Ministers at Whitehall in London believe that it will be “too complex” to amend the current law, which stipulates that any Briton who has lived outside of the UK for a period of 15 years can no longer vote in general elections.

Instead, civil servants are all for maintaining the status quo now that David Cameron – who made the pledge in his 2015 election manifesto – is no longer Prime Minister, and the thorny issue of Brexit has, for now, been kicked into the long grass.

Last year, Cameron made an appeal to the millions of long-term expats around Europe and beyond by promising to scrap the 15-year law in return for Conservative votes in the May election. However, after securing a second-term, the then-PM put the issue on the backburner at the expense of another of his promises – a vote on the EU referendum.

The irony being, of course, that the many thousands of expats denied a vote in the referendum because of Cameron’s reluctance to change the law could well have saved his job by voting – largely en masse – to remain in the EU.

Now, with Cameron gone and the UK dancing around the Brexit issue like a dog with a piping-hot chip, Whitehall appears to have decided to quietly shelve the issue, reports the Daily Mail.

“Civil servants don’t like changes that are difficult,” said Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who had been campaigning for a change in the law. According to Whitehall, because electoral registers are only kept for 15 years, it would be difficult for government to establish the last constituency that a person lived in.

“I’m sure this is being used as an excuse – it’s a stalling practice,” Clifton-Brown added.

The u-turn contradicts a Tory party line that has been consistent for more than two years. In 2014, then-Party chairman Grant Shapps said: “Being a British citizen is for life. It gives you the lifelong right to be protected by our military and Foreign Office, and to travel on a British passport. We believe it should also give you the lifelong right to vote.”

The Daily Mail also reports that a former Foreign Office Minister has since admitted that forcing through the change is actually more complex than the government had imagined. That, allied to what appears to be a complete lack of political will among those in government, leaves many long-term British expats in something of a voting limbo.

“It is a complex matter,” said Commons Leader David Lidington, “because we would have to not just extend the franchise but establish a new system of voter registration – which is not straightforward given that voter registers no longer exist for periods that go back earlier than 15 years.

“We have to find some way of allocating those individuals to constituencies and verifying a previous place of residence.”

However, Clifton-Brown was having none of those excuses. “All a person has to do is to provide some evidence of their last place of abode and that really shouldn’t be too difficult,” he stressed. “There are doctor’s notes, passport numbers and National Insurance notes – and any of that can be used as proof of address.”