Monday 15 May 2023
I bet a referendum on it feels wrong too
Keir Starmer says it ‘feels wrong’ EU citizens living in UK can’t vote
Change to voting status could enfranchise about 5 million EU citizens over the age of 18
Keir Starmer has said it “feels wrong” not to allow EU citizens who live and pay tax in the UK not to have the right to vote in general elections.
While the Labour leader said there was “no settled policy”, he confirmed in an interview on LBC radio that the party was “looking at some of the voting issues”.
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8 comments:
We all know about Starmer. The real test will be whether the Conservative Party go all out on the attack on this one. It's an open goal, really: the Tories could easily appeal to people's sense of fair play, the betrayal of the Brexit referendum result, moving goal-posts, etc. It really is a case of the electorate delivering the wrong result, so being rejigged in order to deliver the right result.
That's why Starmer is floating the idea, rather than putting it in the manifesto.
A concerted fight-back from Sunak? Let's see...
Labour always desperately searching for the next tranche of tame voters to hoodwink. First the working man, then feminists, then the gays, the People of Colour, then Muslims, then the painfully woke, and now visitors and those too young (previously) to vote.
But as each new set of clients is added on I expect there are an increasing number of clients dropping off - as they realise Labour doesn't really care about them.
Why EU citizens? Sounds racist to me.
Sam - Starmer may have concluded that Sunak can't easily fight back on this issue as the media would not present it in a way favourable to him. The fair play argument is strong, but the media would probably dig out a few cases of EU citizens having been here for decades as a counter to that. The BBC certainly would.
DJ - yes and in the long term it may be a losing game, but much damage may be done while it works itself out.
dearieme - it could possibly be made to seem so and that may be Sunak's best angle of attack.
The phrase, 'No taxation without representation', springs to mind. If people are living here and paying taxes, maybe they should have the right to vote?
I dunno, maybe the fault is not with the voting system but the immigration system? It seems to be incredibly easy to become a British Citizen these days, so if you want to vote, maybe you shoud do that?
Or if you have settled status and live here permenantly, maybe you should be allowed to vote in local elections?
Maybe immigration should be severely tightened, but those who make it through should then be given the right to vote?
I've not thought about it much, but I'm not automatically against the right to vote for people who live, work and pay tax here.
The probalem is, if Starmer is coming up with the idea, he motives are no doubt underhanded and probably some tactic to improve his voting base. Dearieme asks why EU citizens? Maybe it's because that idea is more likely to work, then in a couple of years he extends it to all the worlds citizens? "You didn't mind about EU citizens, why are you complaining about African citizens? Are you racist?"
All we need to do is ask Sir K S, "5 million more voters from the EU? Can we have a referendum on that!?" (Then we can all ignore the result if we don't like it.)
Bucko - to my mind it's a referendum issue. We voted against EU membership but Starmer presumably thinks his idea would shift the opinion of voters towards a much more pro-EU stance. Other moves towards the EU would probably follow, all without a referendum.
Tammly - that seems reasonable to me and maybe making big decisions by referendum could become the norm, such as voting on Net Zero, but maybe that possibility would kill the idea.
A K Haart - I said Starmer would probably be up to something, but I was thinking more of getting extra votes for Labour, I didn't think about the EU thing, or if they would get to vote in a, stay out / go back in, referendum
I would agree that it's a referendum issue, but think that about a lot of things that they just do without asking us. I suppose remoaners would vote for it in a referendum, if they tought it would help get us back in
I also think there is a case for taxpaying residents to be allowed to vote, but only in a world where the political class are not in it for their own nefarious reasons
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