Lib Dems draw up plans for local Costa del Sol MP

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg wants to change the law to allow expats to vote

Following the recent furore around British expats being denied the vote after residing overseas for 15 years, Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg has drawn up plans to introduce ‘overseas constituencies’ represented by UK-based MPs.

According to Clegg – who famously has a Spanish wife – the move would make the current system much fairer on the estimated 2.2 million Brits who live elsewhere in the EU, and would simply be following in the footsteps of other European countries…

France, for example, has six additional seats in Europe for French people who live abroad. This system enables French expats to vote on general and local elections as members of their local constituency – despite often being thousands of miles from home.

The plans will be officially unveiled at next month’s Liberal Democrats spring conference, with the party set to explore “the viability of overseas constituencies such as those used in some other European countries,” according to a Lib Dem statement.

“British citizens can already vote when they move abroad for up to 15 years, but their votes are counted in the constituency in which they used to reside,” said a Lib Dem spokesman. “This would create separate constituencies in Parliament for the representatives of these voters.”

The proposed overhaul – dubbed Power to the People – also includes lowering the legal voting age to 16 in the UK. Tory MP Sarah Wollaston has spoken passionately about similar reforms in the Conservative Party, while Labour has so far stayed silent on the issue.

Any proposals will have to wait until after next year’s general election to be finally ratified, so until then British expats in Spain must look to the European Court of Human Rights for further hope that the current system might soon change for the better.