BHTJKJ Ballot box, hand placing a vote into a ballot box, voting with ballot box. Image shot 2010. Exact date unknown. Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Alamy
Polly Toynbee rightly brands the Tory move to re-enfranchise British expatriates as “gerrymandering” (First photo ID, now votes for expats: the Tories are showing us exactly what election rigging looks like, 6 February). But the same applies to Labour’s efforts to prevent it. Both parties want to game our electoral system – one by enfranchising expats, the other by excluding them.
What Toynbee ignores are the constitutional and moral issues at stake. In Japan, like many other societies where dual nationality is unavailable, foreign permanent residents cannot participate in any elections. Denying UK votes to UK citizens resident in such jurisdictions thus renders them electorally stateless. Meanwhile, Japanese residents in the UK (who far outnumber British residents in Japan) have always retained full voting rights in Japan’s elections.
Internationally, the UK government’s previous rule on expats’ voting rights was an outlier, but it was part of a British regime that remains exceptionally discriminatory towards overseas citizens. Older people have their state pensions frozen and expats with foreign spouses are reduced to second-class citizenship by a visa system that prevents or deters many from returning to the UK.
Few expat Britons are the Tory-voting tax exiles of Toynbee’s imagination. Many of them have contributed hugely as workers and taxpayers to the British economy, and their foreign experience is an invaluable resource to their home country. Now that they have their votes restored, all UK political parties would be well advised to take their concerns more seriously.
Overseas voters who are keen to ensure this are invited to join the British Overseas Voters Forum (www.bovf.org.uk).
Prof Edward Vickers
Unesco chair on education for peace, social justice and global citizenship, Kyushu University, Japan
• In stating that “representation without taxation was whizzed through parliament on a statutory instrument in December”, Polly Toynbee is mistaken on two counts.
First, a large proportion of British citizens living abroad do in fact pay tax in the UK in a variety of ways – in my own case, for example, on a government pension and on rental income. We pay tax without being a burden on society or a drain on resources. As taxpayers – and British passport holders – we have a right to a say in how our money is spent and to the ability to hold the government to account. Indeed, until our vote was recently restored, far from being a case of “representation without taxation”, it was the reverse. In addition, many of us have no vote in national elections in our country of residence and have therefore been disenfranchised.
Second, this was in no way “whizzed through parliament”. The Conservative party pledged to remove the 15-year rule in three manifestos – in 2015, 2017 and 2019 – and there were several attempts to introduce the legislation prior to that. In April 2022, the Elections Act 2022 received royal assent. Various statutory instruments putting the act into effect were passed in 2023 and “votes for life” finally came into effect on 16 January 2024.
Ruth Woodhouse
Nerja, Spain
• So Polly Toynbee thinks it is a cynical move by the Tories to give us expats a vote. Fear not, for we read the news too and are appalled by the Conservatives. A great party (whatever you think) brought down by self-serving lightweights. I’m delighted to be able to vote them out of office.
Sebastian Wilberforce
Tai Tapu, New Zealand
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