Brexit to act as electoral guillotine

Divorce from the EU means Britons who have made homes across the continent will be disenfranchised.

SAINT-MARTIALSUR-ISOP, France — For many Britons living in towns and villages across Europe, the stroke of midnight Friday will mean losing the right to vote and run for office, with Brexit acting as an electoral guillotine on those privileges.

From being active participants in the communities where they have sunk roots and pay taxes, British expatriates in France, Germany and elsewhere in the European Union will suddenly find themselves on the outside, with no say.

Andrew Nixey must give up his seat on the elected council in Saint-Martialsur-Isop, the village in westcentral France where he has lived and raised cattle for 20 years.

“The fact that we can’t vote is illogical,” he said in an interview in the kitchen of his restored farmhouse, after a lunch of homemade bread, soup and British cheeses. “We pay taxes, why should we not vote?”

In the German village of Brunsmark, Brexit is forcing Scotsman Iain Macnab to cut short his third term as mayor that wasn’t due to end until 2023. German authorities told him last year that his voting rights and, with them, his mayorship of the village of 170 people must end with Britain’s EU exit.

“The guillotine is there,” Macnab said in a phone interview. “I will have a glass of sparkling wine with the local council on Friday and then thank them for doing an excellent job, and I will disappear into the twilight, ride off into the sunset.”

Many details of Britain’s separation from the EU still must be sorted out, and there won’t be a lot of visible changes Saturday, after the tortuous divorce becomes official.

But the loss still will be felt especially hard by Britons who left their island nation long ago to make new lives on the continent.

Already disenfranchised by British electoral law, which prevents expats from voting in the United Kingdom after 15 years overseas, Brexit will for many usher in an uncertain future with no ability to vote anywhere.

The problem could be fixed by becoming citizens of where they’ve chosen to live — an often drawn-out process. But some expats don’t meet the requirements, some have applied but are still awaiting the paperwork, and some simply don’t want to become French, German or whatever.

Still others haven’t gotten around to it, waking up late to the fact that they’ll soon have nowhere to vote at all.

Macnab said he doesn’t want to be a German citizen despite having lived in Germany for 40 years, because he may choose to move back to Scotland someday.

The right for all EU nationals to vote and stand in municipal elections where they live, even if they’re not citizens of that country, was enshrined in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty that established the EU.

But rules in Europe are not uniform for non-EU citizens, which is what Britons will become after Friday night. Some countries allow non-EU citizens to vote in municipal elections.

So even after Brexit, Britons should still have a voice at the local level in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and in two cities in Slovakia.

FRANCISCO SECO/AP A woman holds up the Union and the European Union flags at an event called “Brussels calling” to celebrate the friendship between Belgium and Britain on Thursday in Brussels.