Boyd wrote:Why **** should foreigners get to vote? How do you know they pay there taxes? The majority of the ones I know never earn enough to pay taxes or only just go over the tax allowance before going home. Some no doubt go to other countries and use there tax allowance there.
PS I have done it
You need to look at how and who the outcome of an election impacts an individual. When you are a UK citizen living overseas you lose your right to vote in UK Westminster elections after being non-resident (in the UK) for 15 years (from memory). So should you then lose your right to vote for the government (in your state of residence) that determines so many things that impact your life (your taxes, your benefits, the laws you live under).
Same applies the other way round. People resident in the UK live under rules determined by the Government of their country of residence (i.e. what taxes they pay, what laws they have to obey, etc.) so is it not right that once those people have demonstrated they are not transient that they should have a say in the democratic process ?
And as it stands, after a much shorter time residents get to vote in the local elections and the MEP elections in their country of residence (rather than they country of citizenship).
It is a far more complex discussion that the rather simplistic "
Why **** should foreigners get to vote?" - maybe made harder by the rather loaded use of "foreigners" vs "British Citizens". And what happens when one of the "foreigners" also get British Citizenship (something they are eligible to apply for after being resident in the UK for 5 years).
Ian