Jason Moore09/06/2017 00:00
TW
3

Are you voting today, many Spanish colleagues asked me yesterday. They were amazed to discover that I couldn’t vote because I have lived outside Britain for more than 15 years. "Oh, ok then. Well at least you can vote in Spanish elections." Well no! As a British citizen I can only vote in local council elections in Spain and even that looks at risk because of Brexit. So how many British citizens must there be in Spain who can’t vote anywhere? I would say thousands. No vote in Spain, no vote in Britain. Is this democracy? Well obviously not. If I want to vote, I have to either a) return to Britain or b) take out Spanish nationality. At this moment in time I do not want to do either. So, I can’t have a say anywhere. Well tough, some might say.

But why is it that many countries give their citizens a vote for life? Are they more democratic than Britain? Well perhaps so. Once you move abroad you lose many of your benefits. Some will say that to be able to vote you have to reside in the country. Why? Even though I have lived in Spain for most of my life, decisions taken by the British government have a direct effect. Take Brexit. The people who will be most affected by Brexit are those people who were unable to vote in the referendum (expats Brits). Britain quite rightly prides itself on its democracy but the treatment of millions of British citizens living abroad is far from democratic. We should have our say because we should have equal rights.