Theresa May faces fresh demands to boost the voting rights of ten million “disenfranchised” migrants and expats as film director Mike Leigh and a string of MPs back a new campaign.
Let Us Vote calls for all UK residents and British citizens living abroad to be allowed to vote in general elections and referendums.
As it stands, European citizens can only vote in local and European elections while UK citizens who have lived abroad for more than 15 years are barred from voting altogether. Commonwealth and Irish citizens, however, are able to vote in UK general elections and referendums.
Labour MPs Clive Lewis and David Lammy are among those throwing their weight behind the politically-neutral campaign by the3million, British in Europe and Another Europe is Possible.
The group is aiming to change the law, either by securing the support of a majority of MPs in this parliament or by getting parties to pledge as much in their manifestos.
Leigh, the British director of Secrets And Lies and Mr Turner, said the lack of consistency on voting rights was unfair and must change.
“The outcome of the next few weeks in politics could determine the course of our lives for decades to come,” he said. “But many of the people who are most affected by the current situation - migrants living in the UK, and UK citizens living abroad - have never been offered the chance to have a stake in our democracy.
“Whatever our views on Brexit and party politics, we are united in the belief that it is fundamentally wrong that so many millions of people whose lives will be deeply affected by developments at Westminster are currently denied a vote.”
Katia Widlak, from the3million pressure group for European citizens, said it was unfair that European citizens’ voting rights were restricted to local and European elections.
She said: “To add insult to injury, we now face the loss of our right to vote and stand as candidates in local elections. We are tired of being talked about, instead of being part of the conversation - that’s why we want the right to vote for ourselves and for all immigrants.”
Alena Ivanova, from Another Europe is Possible, went further and said that the Brexit debate had seen “scapegoated and attacked and blamed”.
She said: “Abolishing free movement would mean the most significant shrinking of migrants’ rights in decades, but the vast majority of us have no say in general elections or referendums.”
The campaign also has the backing of the Joint Committee for the Welfare of Immigrants, the Migrants Rights Network and Global Justice Now.
Satbir Singh, chief executive of the Joint Committee for the Welfare of Immigrants, said everyone settled in the UK “has a stake and deserves a voice and a vote”, adding: “People who have come here from overseas and become part of our communities are constantly hearing their lives debated in the media and in parliament, as if they were passive and unaware or unaffected.”
Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown, is also backing the campaign.
He said that millions of migrant residents who “live in this country and have made lives here” are being denied full voting rights “ought to shame us as a society”.
“The past few years have taught us that not just public services, but fundamental rights and the right to live in the place you call home, can be threatened and undermined by politicians who claim to speak for all of us,” he said.
“This period has also taught us how inadequate Britain’s democratic institutions are. MPs have a responsibility to fight for the rights of those who have been silenced, and that is what I intend to do.”
The Conservatives pledged in their 2017 manifesto to extend the right to vote to UK citizens living permanently abroad, but has not legislated for this. The Labour Party did not match this promise.
Neither party has committed to extend full voting rights to migrant residents.
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The full list of people backing Let Us Vote
Lloyd Russell Moyle MP
Clive Lewis MP
David Lammy MP
Layla Moran MP
Stephen Doughty MP
Mike Leigh, film director
Ahdaf Soueif, writer
Satbir Singh, CEO of the Joint Committee for the Welfare of Immigrants
Jilna Shah, CEO of the Migrants Rights Network
Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now
Katia Widlak, the3million
Alena Ivanova, Another Europe is Possible
Jane Golding, British in Europe
Paul Mackney, former general secretary of the UCU
Martin Rees
Lord Navnit Dholakia PC,OBE,DL
Baroness Harris of Richmond
Lord Jones of Cheltenham
Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury
Lord Rooker
John Sandwich, the Earl of Sandwich
Lord Steel of Aikwood
Baroness Walmsley
Lord Andrew Stunell