UK elections

Basically life happens and somehow such things creep up on you
I only have three but I have not ever considered dropping one - felt like too complicated and maybe not even possible. Countries are reluctant to let people go if they think there will be an inheritance to tax

I know, but in some cases they’re dual citizens just like that. Take the Spanish citizenship for instance - available to most people of Spanish descent based on a Spanish blood lineage. Italy - the same (many Argentinians are dual citizens). Spain makes you give up your primary citizenship if you’re European, but not South-American. Now that is undemocratic to me but hey, it’s Spain and we love Mallorca… :slight_smile:
So they have 2, move to say the Netherlands and acquire a third one. From 3 to 4 is only a short distance… :smiley: It is not as excessive as it may sound.
About voting rights - I guess it’s a niche for some politicians.

I got 2 nationalities just by being born. :smile: Born in the US of British parents so dual from day one. Given up the US one since all that FATCA crap happened.

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I’m wondering how Larry is coping with the change in Prime Minister.

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Get your updates here x.com

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Apparently he wants me to buy him a coffee!

How well did the Monster Raving Loony Party do? Some of their manifesto is genius

But you’re going to anyway.

Maybe you should consider why my question was so wrong, in your opinion, to ask?

Looking at this another way, I suppose, in the same way, if someone was dual Swiss-Iranian, but lived in Switzerland, and voted for the most hardliner in Iran as they themselves were a very strict Muslim and thought it would be the best thing for their extended family in Iran with three teenage daughters, that would be OK too?

You didn’t ask a question. You asserted that nobody had ‘explained their reasoning’.

I explained my reasoning with the proviso that I didn’t think people should need to explain their reasons for exercising their right to vote.

Fair, enough,. I added a “hypothetical” piece to the end of my last post.

One characteristic of democracy means that people vote in ways that not everyone agrees with: ‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ or summat.

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I think I’m going to have to agree to strongly disagree on this one.

Frankly I’ve had enough of people in one country deciding, how and by whom, people in another country should be governed, whatever their motives or “rights”.

You could replace the word country with one of the following and many people would agree with you but that is democracy in action.
state, county, party, religion.

Why does it bother you though? You could apply your own reasoning to yourself. You don’t live in the UK so what does it matter to you who votes there?

You could have cast your vote for a party that would shut down the overseas voting rights. I believe Reform UK tooted about putting a stop to all that.

Why is this thread in the “Daily Life, Swiss news” category though? :slight_smile:

But then he had to vote for “Reform UK” - the whole package. :slight_smile:
And frankly I don’t know why Tom would like such a thing, if his ties to the UK are still very strong.
I agree with others here, if it was his third/forth citizenship then it wouldn’t make much sense to cast a vote, but for someone who was born there from British parents? It doesn’t make any sense to NOT want to have voting rights to me.

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I don’t understand the objection to overseas citizen voting, the fact that I am willing to jump through extra hoops to vote should be an indication of my engagement with my birth country. And for the record the turnout for last weeks GA was abysmal, so if anything the more people who participate (including overseas) the better.

The overall turnout for the 2024 general election was the lowest it has been for more than 20 years. Just 59.9% of the population voted, a sharp decrease from the 67.3% that voted at the 2019 election. It was the worst turnout at a general election since 2001, when just 59.4% showed up to the polls – the lowest since before World War II.

In my experience, it is the way the overseas citizens vote that bothers some people, not that they can vote. But…you can’t please all people all the time.
We live in a very complex world which doesn’t resemble anything from say a few decades ago, and many people find these changes difficult to accept.

Why don’t we just scrap it. It seems like a huge cost in administration and carbon emissions for a small set of voters who will not change the result anyway.

Immigration… We will replace employees of the Border Force with GP receptionists. This will dramatically reduce the number of people getting in.

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Mine was a proxy vote. OK, so he’s an old bloke and a bit gassy but he was going to vote anyway… :laughing: