UK’s 1.5m migrants may decide EU poll
BRITAIN could be kept in the European Union if more than a million foreigners living here are given a vote in the referendum, campaigners have warned.
Eurosceptic Conservative MPs want ministers to commit to allowing only British citizens to take part in the vote on whether or not the country leaves the EU.
There are worries that pro-Europeans will rig the result by insisting on including EU citizens living here. They are already allowed to vote in local and European elections but not general elections.
The Conservative Party manifesto promised that David Cameron would negotiate new rules with the EU and ‘then put these changes to the British people in a straight in-out referendum on our membership of the European Union by the end of 2017’.
But there are concerns that Mr Cameron might water down this pledge because he wants Britain to remain inside the EU. Liberal Democrats in the Lords could also join forces with pro-EU Tories and Labour to give foreign nationals a vote.
The Government has said it will decide on exactly who can vote when it publishes the Bill. If the in/out referendum result is close, the votes of the 1.5million citizens of EU countries living in Britain could be decisive.
Tory MP Philip Davies said the Government ‘would never be forgiven’ if foreign voters made a difference to the referendum result.
He added: ‘Clearly they shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Any attempt to change this will be unacceptable.’
Mr Cameron has said he wants to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership of the EU so that Britain gets a better deal with controls on immigration. He is then expected to campaign for the country to remain in the EU.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who is known to be Eurosceptic, last week said he wanted to campaign for an ‘in’ vote and raised the prospect of bringing forward the referendum before the December 2017 deadline.
Labour leadership frontrunner Andy Burnham yesterday increased pressure on Mr Cameron by demanding a referendum next year.
Mr Burnham, who made clear he would campaign for an ‘in’ vote, said: ‘If Cameron doesn’t deliver legislative change in terms of abuse of the rules of free movement by agencies and the effect on people with jobs here, it won’t be good enough.’
‘Clearly they shouldn’t be allowed to vote’