Nights Of Historic Drinking: Elections

There is an election tomorrow apparently. I know there is because of endless chatter and comment which I listen to with general disregard and which I refrain from joining in with through a general disinterest. No, wrong word. I am interested. But only from a distance. I should perhaps concern myself but it is hard to do so. What's the worst that could happen? Britain leaving the EU, unlikely though this might be? What's the point of speculating how it would be? Something like that has never happened, though the consequence would probably be that we end up being Norwegians: treated in the same way, that is. No real change, then.

It's a shame in a way. Election nights were once such fun, even when Labour were being royally shafted at the polls. My own affiliation was never what you might call dogmatic. While friends were warning of the fires of damnation that would ravage the land if Thatcher won, I rather wanted her to win, if only because she was such a preposterous figure of strangled enunciation and unconvincing affectation. She would provide hours of amusement, and she did, though when she was seen addressing a collapsing and divided nation on a dodgy television in a distant land (an island in Greece) in the summer of 1981, I was reminded of those fires. The streets of Britain were burning.

Of course, the hours turned into many, many long years. Far too many. Was it such a surprise? When my red-rosette-wearing chums came into the pub on election night, 1983, an air of quiet optimism hanging over their pints of Fullers, I didn't have the heart to say that Foot didn't have a cat in hell's chance. I didn't need to. It was obvious. Nevertheless, we decamped to one of our number's flats, where ample refreshment would sustain us until first light and where we could play with our own improvised swing-o-meter, as we were also to in 1987 as Kinnock made only partial progress on the road to New Labour.

These were nights of historic drinking. More wakes than real parties, the body of Labour already turning an unlikely blue as the first results ominously stated their swings and the professorial psephologists calculated the final denouement through a mysterious alchemy of turning one result into over 600: the Duckworths and Lewises of election estimation.

Then hope. But no. Why did he do it? Kinnock, that is. Or maybe Sheffield hadn't been as crucial as was made out. I was asked, by a Conservative sort, the wife of a leading local politico who was a mate of Eric Pickles (this was from a time when I lived near Bradford), if my house could be used for a bit of a Tory election-night bash. Bloody cheek. It, the house, may have had its own bar, but I reserved the right to choose those who drank in it. So I did. Oh, Neil. Oh dear.

But 1997 came along. What a glorious, sunny spring morn it was. The park in west London was full of birdsong, the flower beds were blooming, there was a freshness and a newness in the air as I strode towards the polling station, one of the first through the door on that first of May, an appropriate day, some might say. And the second of May was just as wondrous. Hangovers on an industrial scale did not prevent those one encountered in the streets shaking strangers by the hand, embracing them with warmth and smiles. It was if the war had been won.

That was the last one. It was right to go out on a high. All was so disappointing afterwards. How much faith did Blair destroy? How much did he let down those of us who had partied like it already was 1999 on the night of the glorious first?

There have been no more parties because I haven't been there, and so the interest has gradually waned, while the trust had been shattered. A "regular guy"? Oh no he was not. And there will be no party tomorrow. Why would there be? What is there to party for? An election in what is all but a foreign land. Interesting but only somewhat. Besides, there is the disenfranchisement.

It's a shame in a way. That there is nothing to replace those nights. Elections are for observation, not participation. I'm not complaining when it comes to the Spanish election, though I know many do. Maastricht gave us what it did: Euro MPs, of whom we know little and for whom we care even less. Nevertheless, it would be nice to be able to vote, if only because of the mischief value. One more in favour of Sr. Iglesias wouldn't make too much difference, do you think? But it is not to be, and nor will the party night. 

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.

Voting Rights?: Go to New Zealand

One of the dangers with "burning issues" for the expatriate community is that we end up repeating ourselves, myself included. If not winter flights and tourism or all-inclusives, then voting rights. In addition to repetition, we might also not get a wholly accurate or complete picture.

"Brussels thinks Spain's stance on non-Spanish voters is undemocratic." ("The Bulletin", 15 October.) I'm not sure Brussels does think this. Brussels, or some bureaucrats or politicians lurking within its labyrinths may think, just possibly, that a new decree should be issued regarding voting rights for expatriates in national elections, but if they do, then they would have the whole of the EU in mind. The issue is not a Spanish one but a European one.

Just to remind you. Under terms of the Single Market, provision was made for expatriates (of whatever nationality within the EU) to be able to vote in European and local elections in the country in which they are resident. No provision was made for national elections. That was the agreement, and it still is.

The agreement doesn't prevent countries from granting a vote in general elections, if they so wish. But only two EU countries - Ireland and Portugal - have come anywhere near to doing so. In Ireland, a proposal to permit voting for the Dáil and for the President has been around for three years, but it remains only a proposal.

There are anomalies with voting rights for foreign nationals, such as Irish citizens (and Commonwealth subjects) being permitted to vote in a British general election and, in parts of the UK, a Spanish or any other EU resident being able to vote for a devolved parliament or assembly, while a Brit in Spain cannot vote in a regional election.

Anomalies aside, the undemocratic aspect of voting rights in the EU lies not with the current restrictions on foreign residents but with disenfranchisement from any national election. The UK 15-year rule is not the only such rule. If you are Danish and have permanently lived outside of Denmark for two years, you lose your right to vote.

Such disenfranchisement, unbalanced by a right to vote in the country of residence (i.e. Spain, for our purposes), is undemocratic, or appears to be, as it goes against the principle of universal suffrage. But suffrage itself is wrapped up in concepts of citizenship and national sovereignty. Limited suffrage can be granted, as with the provisions of the Single Market, but in the most important manifestation of suffrage - that of voting for national parliaments - unless you are a citizen of a country, you cannot vote.

There are countries in which foreigners can vote in national elections. Permanent residents in New Zealand can. In Uruguay, there is a fifteen-year qualification rule. But these are very much the exception. The principle is, overwhelmingly, citizenship equals the right to vote for a national parliament; a national parliament is a supreme expression of sovereignty; and sovereignty is enshrined in national constitutions.

The limited rights to voting within the EU have required constitutional amendments. To extend rights to national elections would require further changes and thus a huge political debate. In Spain, any constitutional amendment does, strictly speaking, require a referendum. The EU might mandate voting rights for foreigners in national elections (though I would personally doubt that it would, certainly not in the current climate with the problems with the Euro), but this would still necessitate constitutional changes.

Just think about it for a moment. Would the British Government go along with such a directive from Europe? Well, would it? Apart from anything else, the right-wing press would be in uproar. The same in Spain. While British residents might press their claims to vote, has anyone asked the Spanish what they would think? Politically, it would be a step too far, and for the EU to mandate such a move would probably signal its own collapse. And were it to, then the whole burning issue of voting rights would cease to be an issue.

I have no disagreement with citizenship being paramount in determining who should be allowed to vote (and please, let's not have any we're all Europeans speciousness). Where a change might be made is with respect to the length of time one has been resident, as in Uruguay, but there should also be strings attached, as contemplated by the Irish, one being to pass a language test. After all, if you can't command the language, how can you have true command of the issues, always assuming of course that you are interested? But that is a different matter entirely.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Mobile Homes: Residency and Spanish voting

Go on then, you're a British citizen, resident in Mallorca and therefore in Spain. National elections in Spain are looming. Would you vote, if you had the right? Would you know for whom to vote? Would you actually care or be interested?

The absence of voting rights for non-Spanish citizens, for our purposes those from the UK, is a matter that can stick in the craw with some. Tax me and let me vote. But you can't. Paying tax does not confer rights to participate in a political process. End of story.

Setting aside the apparent contradiction of being disenfranchised when it comes to electing parties which might, you hope, be less inclined to burden you with more tax, the issue of voting rights is a far broader subject, one that embraces nationhood, mobility, integration and whether you can actually be bothered.

An editorial in "The Bulletin" yesterday made a plea for the right to vote in national election. I pay tax, therefore I vote. Turn it around. You're Mallorcan, a Spanish citizen, resident in the UK, paying UK taxes. Can you vote in a general election? No you cannot. The right to vote at national level, as opposed to local or European elections, is an expression of nationhood, the domain of citizens of the individual country. If you are not a citizen, then you are not a national. Thus, you cannot vote. I find no contradiction in this.

Where the issue has become complicated, however, is through freedom of movement and rights to residency within the European community. The theoretical breakdown of discrimination against foreign nationals, enshrined in European law, has led to a wish to push the barriers back further - to exercise ever more practical applications, such as national voting.

European citizenship bestows rights to vote for a European parliament, not a national one, save for the parliament of your own country. For British citizens, this means Westminster; it doesn't mean Madrid. Where this does become discriminatory is a British matter, the fifteen-year rule effectively breaking European treaties that allow for voting in British general elections. This in itself isn't an argument for conferring rights to vote in Spanish elections; the national citizenship rule remains fundamental.

A quirk of the British voting system is that there are indeed those from other countries who can vote in a general election - those from Ireland and the Commonwealth. This, though, brings with it the whole baggage of integration and assimilation, one that applies just as much to expatriates in Spain.

Integration is a largely mythical state. It is a word bandied about without an appreciation as to what it might actually mean. Having a few "Spanish friends", eating tapas or knowing some of the lingo do not equate to integration. It's ludicrous to suggest otherwise. Mobility, and its convenient modern-day fellow-travellers, ease of communication and exposure to media, ironically militate against integration. Language and the nuance of language, culture, and, yes, politics remain the stuff of "back home". In the same issue of "The Bulletin" there was a yes-no interlude regarding Ed Miliband. Would there be a similar one regarding Mariano Rajoy and a pretender to his leadership? If you don't know who Rajoy is, you've probably answered the question. British politics 1, Spanish politics 0; for most expats anyway.

The editorial concluded by asking: "could it be that central government simply does not credit non-Spaniards with the intelligence to understand the issues at stake in a general election?" It isn't so much a question of intelligence as, for the most part, interest in or even inclination to understand the issues. Making non-Spaniard Brits part of the political process, i.e. granting them the right to vote, might spark an interest, but you might equally encounter a double whammy of apathy: a natural apathy to vote in whatever circumstances combined with an apathy to come to terms with political issues that aren't those of Britain. This is hypothetical, though; the situation doesn't apply.

Nevertheless, freedom of movement within the European Union does raise an issue in respect of citizenship, in a broad sense as brought about by residency, just as European laws have raised issues regarding absolute parliamentary sovereignty. It is the mobility encouraged by the single market that has inspired demands for national voting. The European Union has created the situation, only it can resolve the voting issue, which it partly addressed in the Maastricht treaty when making provision for voting in local and European elections. But the right for non-nationals to vote in a general election would be a political pill that would be hard to swallow, and it would be unlikely to happen. Or would it?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Commitments

The general election announced, now the discussion, a discussion not of a party political nature but of voting rights.

The editor of “The Bulletin” has bemoaned the fact that, being British, he is denied a vote. Letters to the paper dispute his entitlement, a point of the letter-writers being that there is a way to gain the vote, which is to “commit” to Spain and become a citizen. The editor responds by declaring that he is “European” and that, given freedom of movement within the European Union, the right to vote should come as part of that movement.

This is a loaded exchange. I shall try and keep it brief.

What does it mean to “commit” to Spain? Gaining citizenship may be a legalistic way of declaring this, but commitment goes way deeper. A national of one country has a psychological and sociological bond with the country of origin, one formed by family, culture and language. A change in citizenship does not necessarily change the way one “feels” or indeed the way one “is”. The commitment line of argument is largely specious, except in the case of second or later generations.

There are nearly 20,000 people from the UK registered in the Balearics. This past week, there were some figures released for the number of Spanish citizenships granted to people of different countries of origin. I wish I had now kept the paper in which these were published, but I can recall the figure for the UK was very low. The greatest number was for people from a country not in the EU – Morocco. I know only one British “expatriate” who for sure has Spanish citizenship. Maybe there are more, but one doesn’t as a rule interrogate friends or acquaintances as to their citizenship.

Insofar as a foreign national chooses to live in another country and contributes to its economy and pays its taxes (aspects linked to national politics), one might argue that there is a case for voting rights. But nations jealously guard their enfranchisements and active engagement with the political process. Even in the land of the free – the USA – a foreign-born politician cannot stand as President. Arnold Schwarzenegger could never go for the White House. There are limits to the extent that nations allow other nationals to affect their politics. The European Union is not a harmonised political entity, even if some might wish that it were. Free movement there may be, but national elections are still a matter for individual countries. In a country where immigration is a topic that exercises voters, one can well imagine the canción y baile amongst Spanish voters if foreigners were suddenly allowed to choose between Zapatero and Rajoy.

But the franchise does allow for non-Spaniards to vote, and that is at what currently passes for the level of centrality in EU democracy – the European Parliament. Free movement within Europe, freedom to vote for the institution that does represent Europe. The editor is European, he’s said as much, thus he has a vote. He is not Spanish, therefore he does not have a vote in the Spanish elections.

Let us assume though that those of voting age among these 20,000 Balearic Brits were to be granted a vote. How many would actually vote? How many would be interested? As there is no vote, there is little interest, and little interest would be about right. Were there a vote, then maybe that interest would be greater, though that is questionable. The local English-speaking media is faced by a similar conundrum. No vote for the Brits, so not much reporting of the issues. “The Bulletin” contains more about British politics than it ever does about national Spanish politics. There is nothing essentially wrong with this. It knows its audience, and its audience is more interested in Gordon Brown and David Cameron than Zapatero and Rajoy. Even in the week of the announcement of the election, “Euro Weekly” had not a single mention of it, despite the election having been announced on 14 January, three days before its 17 January publication date.

It comes back to commitment, or rather its almost inevitable absence. British expats live in Mallorca and Spain because they like the climate and the lifestyle and can easily maintain their connection to the old country. They do not live here because they want to vote for the PP or PSOE. The media reflects this. In the same issue of Euro Weekly, someone is praising the paper for printing British television listings that were not in the printed-in-Spain version of “The Daily Mail”. For many Brits, that is what it’s all about – sun, sea and Sky.

Spain and Spanish politics? Where’s the commitment?


QUIZ
Yesterday – The Kinks. Today’s title – ok, the film was known for having a record number of f-words, but which of their songs is also closely associated with Wilson Pickett?

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