Should expats vote ?

(image www.guardian.co.uk)

I was listening to an article on the radio about the upcoming presidential elections (in France) and they were interviewing French nationals in London.With 300,000 French nationals living and working there, London is France’s “sixth city”, with a bigger French population than Nantes, Strasburg or Grenoble.

Why they’d actually want to live in the UK, when most expats we know have left the scepter’d isle for sunnier climes, is a question for another day. The question the journalist was asking was about which party they’d vote for. 

The French have recently brought in a system where MPs stand for specific global regions, such as Asia, Northern Europe etc., rather than the expats voting from their “home” address, and this has led to an increase in voting from abroad.

My question is this, should expats be allowed to vote? If you are not paying tax, using the national education system or police force, and are not paying into the national health system or pensions scheme, should you really have a word in deciding who is going to decide all that for you?

Personally, I have never voted, I left the UK at the beginning of my adult (say it quick and no-one will laugh) life, I have never paid tax or used any national amenities, do I have the right to decide who will be running the country for the next five years or so?

What is your opinion?

 

Comments

[BT]

same for me. Haven't voted since I moved abroad. If voting is part of a social contract and you have left the society, then why should you continue to make decisions concerning that society? But the dominant view at the moment is that citizenship is a birthright, so citizens who leave the society can vote but many immigrants who are contributing to society can't.