Why people voted leave if anybody wants to knoe

[RBeer]

So I asked the smartest friend whom I have known for many a year why the majority of people voted leave. He told me to watch the big short movie. So I did. And on the 5th watch I found it. So , not that it matters, but I thought it good to share in case others could learn.
"People want an authority to tell them how to value things but they choose this authority not based on facts or results,” “They choose it because it seems authoritative or familiar.”

they chose to leave the country, they chose to seriously long term commit to not being a patriot. there are consequences to that obviously and not getting to vote in referendums is one of them. apply for citizenship in the country you have been living in for 15yrs and become a citizen again if you want citizenship rights.

they chose to leave the country, they chose to seriously long term commit to not being a patriot

... except that the EU nationals who did choose to make a long term commitment to this country didn't get a say either. So "long term commitment" is neither here nor there.

no citizenship is - which includes but is not restricted to residence.

i lived several years in egypt it didn't get me the right to vote there obviously though it did mean that i couldn't vote here or claim benefits here or have those years count towards my pension etc. i accepted that - i chose that lifestyle.

i could either have applied for citizenship in egypt (fat chance of getting it but i could have tried) or i could have moved back here and resumed being a british citizen.

this isn't rocket science is it? basic cake and eating it stuff we adjust to as children.

why would people who have lived out of this country for 15 years expect to have a vote on national matters?

Because it was a Tory manifesto commitment:
“We will complete the electoral register, by working to include more of the five million Britons who live abroad. We will introduce votes for life, scrapping the rule that bars British citizens who have lived abroad for more than 15 years from voting”
Tories got elected, so perhaps they could be expected to make good their commitments?

why would people who have lived out of this country for 15 years expect to have a vote on national matters?

There are two different, separate questions here. Should we get a vote in general elections, and should we have had a vote in the referendum?

It's clear to me that we should - as British citizens, and as the group of citizens most directly affected by the brexit question - have had a vote in the referendum. The referendum question was not purely about "national matters" but about the UK's relationship with the EU, and it has direct and important implications for the rights of British citizens living in the EU. As such, we should have had the right to vote.

Whether British citizens who are long-term residents in other countries should have a vote in general elections is more complicated. My own opinion has always been that we shouldn't: personally I chose to abstain from voting even before the 15 year period was up. But I no longer think the question is so clear cut. Many people who fall foul of the 15 year rule are still UK taxpayers - anyone claiming a government pension (eg civil servants and ex-military) will have tax deducted at source in the UK. These people, many of whom devoted their working lives to the service of the British people, should certainly get a vote.

In other countries, there is specific representation for citizens living overseas - for eg French expats elect a specific expat representative. I don't see why it shouldn't be possible for British expats, who number in the millions, to elect one or several MPs to represent their interests.

Plus, as Peregrina points out, it was a manifesto commitment. There is more of a mandate for rescinding the 15 year rule than there is for brexit.

Agree that it affects ex pats

They should have been given a vote in the referendum, not in an election if they have been away for a certain number of years

so they don't pay tax here, live here, use schools here, contribute to communities here, want to be here etc but should vote? no. i don't agree with that. it is a nonsense. i think they rescind that right when they choose non residence.

so they don't pay tax here, live here, use schools here, contribute to communities here, want to be here etc but should vote? no. i don't agree with that. it is a nonsense. i think they rescind that right when they choose non residence.

Read my post. Many in this situation are in receipt of government pensions on which they pay UK tax and which they earned via a life of patriotic duty to their nation. And people like you have the nerve to question their patriotism. What have you ever done for your country?

I have naval friends that havent lived here for years

Still in the BRITISH navy though

To be fair its only been about 10 years...but i dont think they have any plans to come back if they can help it

receiving a pension which is taxable counts as paying taxes? lol. that's hilarious.

we will have to agree to disagree on vote policy.

honeybadger pensioners in receipt of a government pension pay their income tax on that pension to the UK government.

Why don't you make a small effort to inform yourself before insulting people who know more about this than you do?

honeybadger Our citizens living abroad are also a source of soft power.I would assume that during your, I assume, working time in Egypt you favoured British interests in some way and form if only in being a representative, hopefully a good one, and I accept many are not, of our culture and values.

I really resent the implication that because you chose to live abroad you are unpatriotic. I am not nostalgic for Empire but I think that the residual value that leads people on adventures overseas is a good one and one that we will need even more when we leave the EU.

Both inside and outside the UK I have helped facilitate British trade overseas for over 15 years and I regard that as giving me a particularly useful insight into global trade, especially with where I lived overseas, that very manifestly most voters did not have.

Perhaps your concern is that that insight might lead people to understand the benefits of EU membership which politicians and the media had failed to whilst whipping up xenophobia and an obsession with abstract concepts like control and sovereignty that anyone involved in global trade understand to be just that, abstract.....

You would not want voters who actually know what the real world is like?

my point is very simple - i don't think people who haven't lived in this country for 15 years should vote in a referendum. i'm not casting aspersions on those people and i have no idea how you managed to wedge the word xenophobia into this.

paying tax on a benefit is not really paying anything imo. yes, we're allowed differing opinions.

Whereas i think it should depend on what the referendum is about

But you are right honey

We should agree to disagree

'Sides...its all done now

receiving a pension which is taxable counts as paying taxes? lol. that's hilarious.

As a pensioner myself, in receipt of both a state pension and a work pension, I don't find it particularly hilarious myself, and nor will you honeybadger when you become pensionable age - you have just made yourself look a little foolish in my eyes. State pensions are also taxable, even though they are actually paid gross. If that is your sole source of income then the tax due would be covered by the personal allowance threshold, but it doesn't make them 'non taxable'.

I don't mind paying my dues, but I do resent being told that somehow my contributions are a joke.

paying tax on a benefit is not really paying anything imo.
A full state pension is dependent on paying sufficient contributions. A work pension is also dependent on sacrificing part of your salary to go into the pension. So to say glibly, "it's not really paying anything" is, IMO, rubbish.

If I'd known both were freebies, rather than making provision for the later years of my life, I might have tried opting out of paying for both.

Honey Why assert that I wedged the word xenophobia in this? I wedged a lot of words into those paragraphs. Are we no longer allowed to use certain words in debate for some reason? Why not?

Perfectly legitimate to use that particular word in a paragraph highlighting the susceptibility of the voting public living in the U.K. to a tabloid media that was filled with stories that were designed to whip up xenophobia.There were some common misperceptions that took hold as a result e.g. about the proportion of criminals in our prisons who were immigrants.

There are also huge misconceptions regarding the % of the population that is made up of immigrants, the number of immigrants on benefits and in social housing.

you paid into your pension and you are receiving your pension - so far so good, no problem with that. voting when you haven't lived in the country for 15 years is where we disagree.

the fact that a pension is taxable does not mean you are paying taxes. if you are in receipt of a state pension it is, as you say paid gross, you only pay taxes if you have income of over 11,000 a year. i have no problem with people earning more than 11k a year paying tax on that income above 11k.

i shall try not to lose sleep over you seeing me as foolish.

The problem is Honey is that Cameron said these people would have a vote and they didn't get it.

I'll not even go into the fact that those EU residents here for a long time didn't get a vote, which I also think is profoundly unfair.

the fact that a pension is taxable does not mean you are paying taxes.
I am quite sure I told you that. I have yet to see why a pensioner's tax is 'hilarious'.

As it happens I live in the UK, but I have no problem in seeing people who pay UK taxes having a vote. Wasn't that what the US War of Independence was about - No taxation without representation?

I know of one Commonwealth citizen who happened to be working in the UK during 2015 to August 2016, who was entitled to vote and did so, despite only paying taxes in this country for 18 months of his adult life i.e. paying taxes elsewhere for about 25 years, and who has gone back to the Commonwealth country, so isn't affected. To my mind that seems unreasonable - a significant number of people who were affected were not eligible to vote - people whose ties are a little tenuous, should we say, but happen to come from an ex-colony were.

I think honeybadger and others are confusing state and government pensions.

The state pension is not necessarily taxed at source - if you are an expat tax resident in an EU state and receive this as your sole source of income it won't be taxed in the UK.

I was talking specifically about the government occupational pensions on which many Britons living in the EU rely. These people are ex civil servants, ex military etc. They have paid into these pensions for many years, often during a working lifetime of public service in the UK. These government pensions are always taxed at source in the UK; you do not have the option to receive them gross and to pay tax locally.

While there is a good argument that a state pension is a benefit, in which case I could just about see honeybadger's point, this plainly isn't true of the government occupational pensions to which I was referring.

HoneyBadger, my df was a senior army officer. Of the 20 years he's been out of the country, he's only been retired for 5 of them. Perhaps you can explain how living here is more patriotic than serving your country? By the way, the entire time he was serving (from age 17 to 55), he was a British tax payer, even though he was posted to countries all over the place.