Have you been disenfranchised by the UK ?

[suein56]

Here's your chance to (mildly) complain about it by signing this parliamentary petition :

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/252711

Edit : This petition is nearly at its end : 16 October 2019

Sorry I cannot make the link clickable.

[NormanH]

Thank you I have signed.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/252711

Should be clickable

[suein56]

NormanH wrote : Thank you I have signed.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/252711

Should be clickable

Thanks for making the link clickable Norman .. not being able to do that with this site's software is the main downside of using Chrome on here.

But then we are fortunate that the forum still exists.

[Loiseau]

Oh gosh, there are only 6,000-odd signatures so far! A lot more needed in only a short time to have any chance of it being noticed.

[idun]

I was disenfranchised after 20 years, and accepted it. I chose to live abroad and I realise that  other countries give rights to their ex pats, just mine has a time limit.

Surely not many are very concerned by this, with so few signatures.

[NormanH]

Possibly many people keep a foothold in the UK, such as an address which allows them to vote, or possibly they are just not interested.

In the 20 years you were abroad were you still paying UK taxes as I am (I pay in both counties)?

My basic argument remains that

1) all citizens of a country should have a right to vote as  a fundamental part of being a citizen wherever one happens to be geographically at any particular  moment.

2) Having  to pay taxes without a vote is 'taxation without representation' and  there is a very  long history of protest against it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_taxation_without_representation

[suein56]

NormanH wrote : My basic argument remains that

1) all citizens of a country should have a right to vote as a fundamental part of being a citizen wherever one happens to be geographically at any particular moment.

2) Having to pay taxes without a vote is 'taxation without representation' and there is a very long history of protest against it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_taxation_without_representation

I agree with Norman.

Elsewhere I have said that, although OH and I no longer have property in the UK, we spent 55 years of our lives there and our children and grandchildren live there.

We receive UK pensions and pay some tax there though most tax is paid here in France, where we have lived for almost 15 years.

The UK government did promise to change the law regarding expat entitlement to vote but, so far, they have not followed up on this.

As much of our life is affected by what is decided by the UK government it would be helpful to have a say in that from time to time wherever we decide to live.

[idun]

 

As I keep saying, this does not bother me. Otherwise, all those years when the fisc took their pound of flesh I would have felt aggrieved.

I can get on my high horse about lots of things, but never was this one of them, ever.

IF I had been upset, would I have taken that flag of convenience of taking french nationality???? Because that is what it would have been, but  I am simply not french, in spite of my life taking on so many things and ideas 'french'.

What surprised me was that so 'few' have signed the petition, as there must be an awful lot of expats all over the EU.

[mint]

[quote user="Loiseau"]Oh gosh, there are only 6,000-odd signatures so far! A lot more needed in only a short time to have any chance of it being noticed.[/quote]

Ignorance and Apathy, dear Loiseau; it's the opposite of turkeys voting for Christmas but the result would be about the same.

BTW, I am only talking about British people (whatever their political persuasion) living in the EU.  So, idun, I do not mean you, OK?[:P]

[nomoss]

Maybe people have realised that the facility for these petitions is just window dressing for the "caring government".

Like referendums, as much use as tits on a boar hog.