Right to vote in British Elections
The results of the 2011 census and the imminence of referendums in Scotland and in the UK as a whole should focus attention on who has the right to vote.
The Scottish nationalists have already persuaded Prime Minister Cameron that the Scottish separation referendum, due in October 2014, should permit 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in the expectation that they would be more likely to vote for separation than their older peers, because they are supposed less likely to be able to weigh the real issues and would be carried away by rallies organised by the Scottish National Party.
The wider issue is this. At present, EU nationals, except Republic of Ireland citizens, cannot vote in British General Elections, but so-called Commonwealth citizens can. In all cases, a UK residence is required. We say so-called because like EU citizenship, Commonwealth citizenship doesn’t exist other than by the citizenship of its constituent member countries.
According to the 2011 Census about 1 in 8 of the population in England and Wales is now foreign born, corresponding to an increase of about 2.6 million people compared with the last Census in 2001 (which may well have underestimated the number of foreign-born). Given that the increase in Indians and Pakistanis in the 10 year period, reported by the Census, is about 1.6 million, possibly 1.2 million of these will be adults over the age of 18. This is equal to 2.5% of the British electorate, a very significant proportion if the EU referendum result were close.
Commonwealth citizens constitute a category which now includes the citizens of 53 countries apart from Britain, ranging from Canada, Australia and New Zealand whose citizens owe allegiance to the Crown, to the 1.5 billion people in the former countries of the Indian subcontinent plus the 350 million in 16 African countries, nearly 2 billion people who severed their allegiance to the Crown long ago and are now living in countries as foreign as China and Japan.
In 1995 Mozambique, a country of about 22 million people, formerly part of the Portuguese Empire, whose official language is consequently Portuguese, and where AIDS infections are extremely high, was admitted to the Commonwealth by approval of the governments of all other 52 Members, including Britain’s of course. In 1995 also another African country called Cameroon (population 18 million) over half of which was in the French Empire, joined the Commonwealth, again by formal assent of the other 52 Members’ governments. Neither of the two joinings impinged on the British political consciousness, still less on a vote in Parliament. In fact it’s doubtful if anyone in Britain outside the African section of the Foreign and Commonwealth office even knew of this change in the status of these two countries. Certainly John Major, British Prime Minister at the time, notoriously had difficulty in locating African countries on the map.
Despite general ignorance of these matters, they have implications for Britain, unlike any other Commonwealth country. By virtue of the phrase on every householder’s “electoral registration” form, all Commonwealth citizens are required to be put on the form and be eligible to vote in British General and local elections. So overnight, with virtually no British citizen knowing, the vote which one and three quarter million died to defend in 1914-18 and 1939-45, which was fully extended to women only after a 30 year struggle in 1928, has been bestowed on whatever fraction of 40 million Africans has got into Britain since 1995, just as it has been bestowed on nearly the two billion people referred to above if they should gain admittance to Britain, which a significant proportion are very keen to do.
By virtue of their membership of the European Union, citizens of the Republic of Ireland are entitled to travel to and work in the United Kingdom, accessing education and medical services (including abortion clinics) just like British citizens. But unlike the rest of the EU, Republic of Ireland citizens are treated like Commonwealth citizens for purposes of voting in British General Elections as well as in local elections.
This arises because in the Republic of Ireland Act 1949, the then Labour government decided to treat Republic of Ireland citizens as if they hadn’t actually left the then British Commonwealth. This was entirely of a piece with the political class in all three main parties pretending that the Empire hadn’t actually come to an end. Consequently the one thing remaining under the control of the British government, namely allowing unfettered entry into the United Kingdom by all former subjects of the British Empire should be maintained, even after they had become fully separate from the British Crown as India, the largest, did on 26th January 1949.
No aspect or implication of this fantastic exercise in egregious folly was mentioned, let alone discussed with the British people at the next General Elections in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, until in 1962 the MacMillan government legislated to restrict Commonwealth immigration in the teeth of hysterical opposition from the Labour party, an opposition which has to all intents and purposes continued on and off to the present day[1].
But notice that because MacMillan’s 1962 Act applied to Commonwealth citizens, it did not apply to Republic of Ireland citizens who remained free to come and go, and vote, as if they were British citizens. This exemption from control had and continues to have huge implications for one particular part of the United Kingdom, namely Northern Ireland.
In Northern Ireland, the most salient fact is that about 28% proclaim an allegiance to the Republic of Ireland and 21% carry only Republic of Ireland passports, identifying their exclusive national allegiance. While it is unknown how Commonwealth citizens would vote in a referendum to decide on Britain’s leaving the EU, it may be reasonably assumed that at least 20% or about 270,000 in Northern Ireland would vote to stay with the Republic of Ireland in the EU before any British consideration entered into their decision.
But it really shouldn’t matter what non British citizens think on the issue. For far too long the BBC’s airways have been crammed with assorted foreigners dilating on exclusively British matters from how we bring up our children to whom we admit or deport from our shores. This must stop. Doubtless as the Freedom from the EU debate hots up, we will hear still more.
Leaving or staying in the EU is fundamentally about British sovereignty – who or what is going to be the supreme source of Law in Britain. Will it be the EU, the European Court of Human Rights or courts exclusively based in the United Kingdom and staffed exclusively by British Citizens?
With a matter as fundamental as this, it would be a travesty of democracy and of justice to the British people to allow any non-citizen, however friendly and well-meaning, to have a say on the matter, and that embargo must cover those who, while resident in the United Kingdom, carry only Republic of Ireland passports. Particularly since many of these residents rarely pass up an opportunity to proclaim their independence from allegiance to the Crown: the ultimate symbol of British sovereignty in the United Kingdom.
Britain will not be able to recover its freedom from the European Union until after a referendum on the issue has been held. It is vital therefore that all those in favour of freedom from the EU should agitate from now on to ensure that only bona fide British citizens get to vote on this vital matter which will determine their and their children’s futures.
[1] The 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act is still nominally in force, but its principal provision, namely to restrict Commonwealth immigration to 5,000 A voucher holders per annum has not been enforced for 20 years. Why not, one may ask.
