To Think expats shouldn't be able to vote in the EU referendum?

[Snowflakes1122]

Am I right? Those expats living abroad less than 15 years have a right to vote in the EU referendum?!

They decide to get out, then want to decide fate of those who stay behind and actually live here? AIBU to think they should duck off as it doesn't have anything to do with them since they left?

Actually Want2bSupermum I didn't say that I think EU citizens in the UK should be allowed a vote. I said that if you do not allow UK citizens abroad to vote because they have been away for more than 15 years than you should allow EU citizen that have been here more than 15 years to vote.

Thank you pointythings that's interesting. Might phone the Dutch embassy again and check this as certainly if we exit I think it might be worth having a dual nationality for my children.

Supermum no worries. Sorry you are having a tough time and I hope your friend stays safe.

Bingo that link seems pretty unequivocal. Your DC should have Dutch nationality through you, so you just have to maintain passports for them. It's a paperwork nightmare but we combine it with shopping/museums.

I left the UK 18 years ago and live in Asia, but as I have 2 children who will go to university there ( and I will have no pay extra fee's as we will not get home status ), I think I have every right to vote for what I believe to be the best way forward. Most people who have been able to make themselves a better life abroad are hard working people who I would think have a better understanding of business and have greater experiences of global markets.

But they don't actually live in the UK. If you've lived in another country for that long, you've emigrated. You're a migrant.

It's an unpleasant hang over from the invading British Empire to claim that you're an expat because you were originally from Britain, whereas anyone else is a migrant.

My mouth is agape that someone thinks they have a right to vote because their children may come to university here at some future point.

I'm not disputing the actual right to vote at all, and I feel for people on the Costas who don't have the right but think they ought to, but as a reason, that one has actually made my jaw drop.

ftw I think British citizens living in Europe should also have the right to vote. I also think being out of the UK for 18 years should not preclude them from voting in British elections. They are still British citizens regardless of where they live in the world. You can't start taking citizenship away from people just because they don't live in the UK.

I'm not trying to take away any rights to vote (as indicated by my saying 'I'm not disputing the actual right to vote'), I'm just at the pp saying she had a right because her children would go to uni here.

If she'd have said she had a right to vote because she did/because the law/because citizenship I wouldn't have even blinked because she does have that right.

It was the reason she gave.

I'm a British citizen living in another EU country. I'm horrified that some people like the OP think I shouldn't have a vote. This decision affects families like mine directly. My children are British citizens but if Britain leaves the EU their children lose their right to move back to the UK. This is the same for all expats whose British children were born abroad,

I have been out of the UK for 31 years. For the poster that said that after 15 years I should be looking for local nationality, just no. My dcs went to local schools, I speak French and Dutch, I have local friends but I do not and will never feel Belgian. The 22 years I spent in the UK were the most important for defining my nationality. I would have liked to have been able to vote on Brexit but understand why others think I shouldn't.

My dss are both living in the UK though and are both voting to stay.

Foggy if you intend to return to your birth country (especially if you are on a fixed term contract) you have not emigrated. That applies to a domestic helper from the Philippines working in Hong Kong or to the head of an American bank in Singapore or a data base administrator from Wigan working in Paris ... None of those have emigrated if they are on a fixed term contract after which they intend to leave the host country.

A migrant is the catch all category - not all migrants have emigrated, all emigrants are migrants. Not all migrants are refugees, but refugees are a category of migrant.

If you have emigrated you have moved permanently to one new home country where you intend to remain for ever. If you are moving from country to country for 20 years on a string of 3-5 year contracts but your ultimate aim is to return to your course try of origin you have not emigrated. Clearly.

What I find, shall we say interesting for want of a better word, is that the current rhetoric in this country labels people who've not lived in Britain for 15 or 30 years "ex-pats", but persists in calling overseas workers in Britain as "immigrants."

It's an hypocritical rhetoric - most EU "immigrants" are here for a few years, and then go home. They are ex-pats by the definitions on this thread.

Those of you who don't actually live in this country can't have it both ways.

I would use immigrant for someone looking for permanent residency.
I live in China - call myself an expat and the Chinese refer to me as an alien on the official forms.

I've lived outside the UK for 12 years, in another EU county so I suppose I am migrant. I hate the term 'ex pat' as it makes me think of the retired, old colonial types, living in their Brit enclaves, who don't integrate and who do nothing but moan about the country the have chosen to live in.

I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of the leave/stay debate but from my own perspective I'm worried about my status here if it ends up being a leave. I'm hoping that as this is a Commonwealth country with very strong ties to UK that it will be OK.

Ironically, my retired Mum, dyed in the wool Daily Mail reader, is voting out purely based on immigration, then later in the year will be coming HERE to live with us. So she will then be a migrant herself. The irony is totally lost on her.

There are more British migrants living in other EU countries than other EU citizens living in Britain.

And the other EU citizens living in Britain are largely people who would be called "ex-pats" if that term were applied to anyone else but the British. They work here for a few years, and then they go home. British citizens (like your mother) living in Spain, Portugal etc, are - for all intents & purposes - migrants, as they intend to stay.

If elegibility to vote is based on citizenship (which it is to an extent as EU citizens that aren't British can't vote) then it should include all British citizens regardless of where they are currently living.

I don't call myself as "ex-pat" for the same reason as Effendi. I say I am an immigrant. Migrant I think suggests people who are not staying, that will move on or go back home. Like migrant workers. I am 100% an immigrant and so are all the other Brits who have moved and are planning to stay. I don't think many of them would have a problem with that term. Maybe I am niave.

YABU. Brexit potentially affects expats a lot. I've lived outside of the UK for nearly 9 years but still a British citizen so have exercised my right to vote. And my vote isn't just for me, its also for my mum who is an EU citizen living in the UK for nearly 40 years who can't vote.

Exactly dizzy - ex pat conveys transience.

I'm not an ex pat as I have no real plans to return to the UK nor am I moving countries every few years with an international career - but I am at why Foggy needs to be so snippy and demand to re label people on her terms. The term Foggy wants is the umbrella term for any type of international movement but doesn't make the sub categories incorrect just because he or she has a bee in his or her bonnet for some reason.

allegretto more to the point, every British citizen, regardless of their residency, should be allowed to vote. Im not happy with the process because denying anyone the right to vote based on their residency is wrong.

In terms of voting rights long term expats ... or whatever name you want to refer to people living and working out of their country of origin but intending to return to it eventually and often not settled in any one host country long term... and therefore not applying for citizenship elsewhere... are already likely to be somewhat disenfranchised due to limited voting rights in both host and home country. So far from having it both ways it tends to be not having it (full rights) either way.

I'd call myself an emigrant as I don't plan on returning any more.