I'm here visiting my Mum who has lived in Spain for the past 12 years. We got onto the topic of Brexit (obviously a big concern for her) and she complained about how unfair it was that she wasn't allowed to vote in the referendum as she is a Spanish resident and how all her local friends feel the same and would have voted Remain if had been given the chance. They also don't have the right to vote in Spanish national elections as they are not Spanish citizens.
This set me thinking as something didn't sit right to me. So I looked up voting rights of UK expats living in a n EU country on you.gov. And guess what? They can register as a British overseas voter for 15 years after leaving the UK which gives the right to vote in all UK general elections, referenda and EU parliament elections! So she and all her friends could have voted in the referendum. In her community alone that would probably about 200 voters who would have been overwhelmingly Remain voters.
DM was shocked. Apparently everyone in her community had been told by some "bloke who knows everything" that as soon as they became Spanish residents they lost all UK voting rights. So no one voted.
As I see it the implications are potentially enormous. Was this "bloke" a deliberate plant by the Leave campaign to prevent the predominantly Remain expat community voting? Were a series of "blokes" planted in UK expat communities throughout the EU?
TBH I don't know the number of UK citizens living in the EU, but I have a feeling that it may be a number which could have had a significant effect on the result. Has this issue ever been looked into?
If anyone knows any UK expats in the EU, please ask them to spread the word on this and encourage their fellow expats to register to vote before the 7th so they can have their say in the European elections and in a second referendum if it happens. It's easy to do online at you. Gov.uk/registertovote. All you need is the date you permanently left the UK, the address at which you were last registered to vote in the UK, your passport details and your UK NI number.
sorry that's really long, but difficult to summarise.