To think if you can't understand English/Welsh or Gaelic you shouldn't be voting in a British election?

Yes but I think if you introduced any kind of test before voting I think we would need to roll out programs to educate people (in schools but also available and accessible to all adults who wanted to participate). Basic stuff like FPTP, how a majority works, what a coalition government is, ect. Procedural stuff, as depoliticised as possible. I think it would also need to be disability friendly as well and the point shouldn’t be to catch people out, but to help them participate. This would be a huge and costly thing though and probably will never happen.

The amount of people I’ve come across who think we directly vote for the PM is insane. They always say “oh we weren’t taught that in school” and I don’t remember getting taught FPTP til college, but surly you pick it up from the news or the fact we get 500 election leaflets for different MPs and MSPs every few years.

Sorry for double-replying, but I'm trying to frame my question better.

Noting that almost every route to British citizenship, other than the typical "inherited through parentage" route that applies to most citizens, requires English language proficiency, which of the limited avenues would you close, or how would you narrow the parentage route?

I'm curious where the disagreement is.

Is it the exceptions for minors or the elderly (for those without a British parent), or do you want to scrap/vary the parentage-based system for children born to a British parent, and replace it with something else?

We disagree. That’s fine.

I'm talking about citizenship, not right to vote.

But, in the UK, citizens are entitlement to vote regardless of their mental capacity, and I think changing that is real can-of-worms stuff.

If someone’s intellectual capacity is such that they cannot learn to talk, do they really have the mental ability to make a considered vote? It’s clearly different if someone has full intellectual capacity but just physically struggles for whatever reason to speak.

In Sweden any immigrants who want to work or get benefits have to learn the language. You have two years to graduate Swedish language school before your benefits at stopped. Seems fair enough to me.

Why should people who have no interest in being part of the wider UK society get a say in how it’s run?

But people who don't inherit British citizenship through their parents already - with limited exceptions - do have to demonstrate English language proficiency. So this "issue" is close to non-existent, unless the plan is to strip citizenship from people otherwise entitled to it because their language skills aren't up to scratch.

I disagree, at least as an absolute rule.

Its fine to require language proficiency for residency/naturalized citizenship, which is already a requirement (but with exemptions for under 18s and over 65s - again, which I don't find particularly objectionable as they'll likely be dependents).

But British citizenship is conferred automatically in other circumstances where the citizen might not be proficient in English - for example, a child of one or more British parents, born overseas. I'm not sure if you're saying that should be revokable based on language skills, but I find that problematic. Equally, as an absolute rule, it would seemingly have worrying implications for people with certain developmental disabilities.

Of course, I don't imagine you would want to revoke citizenship for those classes of people, but "citizens should be able to speak the languages of the country in which they live" isn't a good blanket rule, and the rules we have already seem perfectly adequate.

Reform Mayor of Lincolnshire has just cut English language lessons for foreign nationals.

Quite.

Now back to the real world ......

Maybe people moving to other countries should learn the language? Brits as well?

If I moved to Spain or France I'd make a concerted effort to learn the language.

What the original link shows actually is that Reform couldn't care less about any vote or voters that isn't in their core. In deciding to suggest that Urdu speakers who are not fluent in English aren't worthy of campaign material, they are very clearly communicating they neither expect nor want their vote- or the votes of people who are from that cultural group. The disdain and contempt in which they hold Urdu speakers is crystal clear. I cannot think of any other party that is so clearly and deliberately exclusionary and pour contempt on another party for its inclusivity.

I am pondering what would happen if Reform ran campaigns in community language but suspect this will never happen given that even when campaigning in Wales, they can't be bothered to have Welsh language materials.

Even in the US Trump had campaign materials in Spanish.

If the UK enacted such a law, it would have to be ready to receive a fucktonne of reimmigration back from Spain and France, as they gleefully reciprocate 😀

Not really. I have four - spare, not English; it’s a hobby - but I don’t think UK elections should be held in any of them. Participating in the culture and democratic process of where you live requires a bare minimum of familiarity and that includes the language. If you want to socially exclude yourself by not speaking the local majority language - it’s your choice, but you don’t get to dictate what language is spoken for election to public office. Because public office is also elected by and for the majority where they live.

The English horror of other languages runs deep.

This I think.

I don’t mean that I think people should be banned from voting or made to pass an exam. I think there should be much better, compulsory education re politics and philosophy in schools. And the basics of how economics works. Should help people not to be lead astray so easily! Maybe something about responsible and safe use of social media too? It should be dynamic so that we can respond to new threats.

I think language lessons should be easily and readily available to help people learn at least one of our native languages, but I don’t think it should be a bar to voting. What you’d end up is more women disenfranchised than men - women who are tied to the home through childcare or “cultural” reasons and can’t access education, and elderly women too.

You don't have to be a naturalised citizen to vote.

“A Swedish friend’s son married a Chinese-Malaysian woman, and they later moved from KL to Sweden. Until she had reached a satisfactory standard in Swedish, his wife was not granted citizenship.
IMO we should do the same here, and refusing to attend classes because of ‘cultural’ aka religious issues, should not be a valid excuse.”

Agree with this.

As a qualified EFL teacher, I once attended an introductory session about helping female immigrants with their English.

I was keen to do it, until I realised that it was virtually all to be done one to one, in their own homes, because all too often they were not allowed (by husbands or other male relatives) to attend classes. Presumably because there might be men present.

I declined, largely because I infinitely prefer teaching a class, though I have since helped an Eritrean woman, one to one in her own home, long term. She’d have happily attended classes, but still had a toddler at home, her dh was working full time, and there was no available free childcare - she could not have afforded to pay.

A Swedish friend’s son married a Chinese-Malaysian woman, and they later moved from KL to Sweden. Until she had reached a satisfactory standard in Swedish, his wife was not granted citizenship.
IMO we should do the same here, and refusing to attend classes because of ‘cultural’ aka religious issues, should not be a valid excuse.