The UK government quietly has shelved a long awaited and promised change in legislation to give an estimated one million overseas Britons the vote, shifting the blame onto civil servants who claim that changing and implementing the necessary legislation would be too difficult.
The Conservative government under former Prime Minister David Cameron promised to lift the current 15 year time limit after which overseas Britons no longer are allowed to vote in UK elections and referenda, but the mandarins in Whitehall are blocking the move.
The long-awaited change in the legislation was included in the Queen’s Speech as far back as 2015, paving the way for a legislative alteration to allow longer term overseas Brits to vote for an MP in the last constituency in which they lived in Britain and in referenda such as the EU membership vote that saw a million expats disenfranchised.
The feeble excuse being used by civil servants is that as electoral register records are kept for 15 years only, it would be too hard a task to establish the last constituency that a person lived in.
The thought of asking people seems not to have crossed their minds.
This unprecedented stance by the civil service, which is employed to carry out the government’s policies, has annoyed many MPs who have sympathy that many overseas Britons can neither vote in the UK or in their country of residence unless they take citizenship, which many are unable to do.
The delay in carrying out the changes in government policy meant that the ‘over 15 years’ expats were banned from voting in the EU Referendum despite a spirited campaign by 95-year-old Harry Shindler in Italy.
The Leader of the Commons, David Lidington, said the issue that appears to be thwarting civil servants is how expats could prove former residence in a particular constituency.
Lidington said, 'It is a complex matter, because we would have to not just extend the franchise but establish a new system of voter registration which is not straightforward given that voter registers no longer exist for periods that go back earlier than 15 years.
This is political bullshit at its most dense as voters could be asked to prove where they lived 15 years ago rather than relying on records known no longer to exist.
More than five million British citizens live abroad, of which at least one million are barred from voting under the 15-year rule. Expats were first given the right to vote in 1985, but only those who had lived abroad for five years or less. The period was extended to 20 years and then reduced to 15 years by Tony Blair's administration in 2000.
Lidington, although lacking in basic grammar, concluded, "The Government remain committed to new legislation that will lift the 15-year bar. The Cabinet Office are at work on these matters already."
