Voice for Britons abroad moves a step closer
Tories at last make commitment to fund long-standing manifesto promise
THE LONG-promised ‘Vote for Life’ for British citizens living in Spain – and across the globe – has taken a step nearer.
In the 2021 ‘Budget Red Book’, the full details of the UK state budget headlined by chancellor Rishi Sunak in his speech to the House of Commons, there was a funding commitment by the Treasury to cover the move.
It read: “Overseas Electors – The government is providing an additional £2.5 million to remove the limit preventing British citizens who live overseas from voting after 15 years.”
The introduction of a vote for life and abolishing the rule which effectively disenfranchises people who start a new life overseas has been a
long-standing Conservative Party manifesto commit- ment.
And expats of all political colours will celebrate the positive step forward after a
long campaign to scrap the much-criticised laws, which would allow them to vote in a
UK general election.
In an email to Conservatives Abroad members following the budget, Heather Harmen MBE said that all British expatriates around the world currently disenfranchised will celebrate the news that the government ‘is taking the necessary steps to abolish the 15-year rule which opens up the prospect of the measure coming into fruition in the near future following Parliamentary legislation’.
“This will be great news to the many who have campaigned for this for years; including Harry Shindler MBE in Italy who turns 100 this year,” she said.
“So fingers crossed for further announcements in the very near future.”
A MOTION of no confidence presented in Murcia region on Wednesday morning has set off a political earthquake with aftershocks being felt nationwide.
Ciudadanos (Cs) – who had been governing in coalition with the Partido Popular (PP) and Vox – announced a pact to run the region with the opposition Socialist party (PSOE).
This sent shockwaves across many other regions and municipalities where the PP is in power with Cs.
The PSOE won the most seats in the last regional election in Murcia and with their new allies would total 23 deputies, enough to form an absolute majority with Cs regional coordinator Ana Martínez Vidal as the new president.
She said it had proved impossible to govern with the PP, who have held power in the region since 1995, saying they only gave her ‘barriers, excuses and obstacles’.
Their relationship has worsened over issues such as PP officials receiving vaccinations before their turn, pressure from Vox to approve the socalled ‘parental PIN’ (which would enable parents to opt their children out of education in subjects on ideological grounds), and alleged corruption of public contracts in Murcia city hall.
Motions of no confidence have also been announced in the municipalities of Murcia, Ceutí, Fuente Álamo, Pliego and Caravaca de la Cruz.
One of the first aftershocks came in Madrid, where PP president Isabel Díaz Ayuso called early elections for May 4 rather than face the possibility of a motion of no confidence.
However, the PSOE and Más Madrid party both presented motions in an attempt to prevent this election and the courts will have to decide which course of action will take precedence.
C’s was in coalition with the PP and Vox in Madrid as well, but Sra Ayuso has frequently clashed with her vice-president from Cs, Ignacio Aguado, over her handling of the pandemic, since she has defied national pressure to close the region’s borders and bars despite some of the highest infection rates in the country.
Although Sra Ayuso and national PP leader Pablo Casado were both fiercely critical of Catalan independence parties recently calling regional elections in the midst of the pandemic, they now claim that Madrid has to choose between ‘socialism and freedom’.
The 2021 budget and a €600 million pandemic aid package which the regional government was about to approve this week
will no longer see the light of day. Nevertheless, the PP-Cs coalition in Madrid city hall seems to be firm, with both parties restating their commitment to govern together.
Their coalition in the Castilla y León regional government had appeared to be relatively stable but the PSOE have presented a motion of no confidence regardless, and would only need four of the 12 Cs deputies to support it.
In Andalucía, Cs assured their government with the PP is stable and even refused to rule out running in coalition with them in next year’s regional election – although
national Cs leader Inés Arrimadas rejected this idea outright.
The Alicante provincial government also appears to be stable even though the PSOE offered the two Cs deputies an opportunity to end what they claimed was ‘20 years of uninterrupted bad government by the PP’.
Cs provincial coordinator Javier Gutiérrez assured their pact was ‘in very good health’ and the situation in Murcia was not comparable, while PP president Carlos Mazón said he felt ‘very comfortable and calm’ about it.