Estimates: Expats and voting

So, Sir Roger Gale's question to William Hague (raised with regard to the non-replacement of the British Consul in the Balearics) asking the British Foreign Secretary to estimate the permanent number of expatriate UK citizens and other UK homeowners in the Balearics drew a blank. I am not exactly surprised. I don't know if Sir Roger is a member of the Bow Group, but he could have ascertained from its website that the question was always likely to be met with silence. From an entry of 23 July, I quote: "British citizens are not required, or even prompted, to register with their local consulate upon taking up full or part-time residence abroad. The result of this is that it is not possible to obtain an accurate figure on how many British citizens live abroad, or how many live in any particular country".

Asking for an estimate was as good it could get, but what sort of estimate might have been forthcoming? The Foreign Office itself appears to believe the generally touted figure of 50,000 UK residents in the Balearics. Or at the least the British Embassy in Madrid believes the figure. It said so in its statement announcing Andrew Gwatkin's taking consular responsibility for the Balearics. I wonder where the Embassy gets its figures from.

There is a figure that one can work from, one that isn't an estimate. It is the official number of Brits who the Balearic Government says are registered, and this number is nothing like 50,000. It is under a half. Even taking account of those Brits who don't bother to register, this represents a sizable difference. And, always depending on which source you care to find or to quote, this 50,000 does not include part-time residents. There are thousands more of them. Apparently.

What I think we can safely assume to be accurate, and therefore the reason why the lackey in the Hague office felt unable to give a response to the Gale question, is that no one has the faintest idea what the number is. Except the regional government which gives a figure of some 23,000.

Getting a rather better grip on the numbers is of interest to the likes of the Bow Group. The quote above comes from an article on its website about expat voting rights, and the Bow Group, good Conservatives that they are, would fancy that the Conservative Party would be sure of scooping up the great majority of expat votes, if only these expats voted or were able to vote. (I don't know that the Bow Group should be so sure of this. Turkeyish and Christmassy it would be in terms of voting, but UKIP might well scoop the expat jackpot, but be this as it may.)

It isn't only the 15-year rule that has got the backs of the Bow Group up, it is also the fact that so few expats who are entitled to vote actually do vote. And it fingers the Foreign Office, in the form of "consulates", for being partly to blame. Mr. Gwatkin may care to note that "the system for voting from abroad is ... obtuse, unaided by our consulates". A parliamentary exchange earlier this year highlighted the exact number of expats anywhere who are registered to vote: Sir Peter Bottomley, "Will my Honourable Friend give those figures again? Did he say 23,000 out of four million?" My Honourable Friend had indeed said that.

Tempting though it is to take the coincidence of the 23,000 and assume that all of these expat voters are in the Balearics, this clearly would be wrong. But on the basis of the Balearic 23,000 and four million or so voting-age British expats across the globe (according to My Honourable Friend), then one could conclude that there is approximately half of one expat in the Balearics who is currently registered to vote.

Much though the system for voting may be obtuse and much though the consulates may not be helpful, there are other factors. Sheer apathy and lack of interest, for example. It may be the circles in which I move, but I can honestly say that voting in a British general election is not a subject high on the list of topics to discuss, unlike the Premier League or Strictly Come Dancing, which are.

Apathy isn't an excuse for the British Government to ignore expat voting rights. Denial of the right to vote under the 15-year rule goes against the principle of universal suffrage. Britain may not be the worst offenders as far as this denial is concerned - Denmark is far worse - but the suffrage principle is fundamental. The rule should, therefore, be scrapped, unless a change to Maastricht were to be made to enable voting in Spanish or other countries' general elections by non-nationals.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.