{"id":19183,"date":"2016-04-30T13:54:49","date_gmt":"2016-04-30T20:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/?p=19183"},"modified":"2016-04-30T13:54:49","modified_gmt":"2016-04-30T20:54:49","slug":"700000-british-expats-will-not-be-able-to-vote-in-eu-referendum-court-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/?p=19183","title":{"rendered":"700,000 British expats will not be able to vote in EU referendum, court rule"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Around 800,000 expats voters who are thought to live in Europe have not been granted the right to vote in this year&#8217;s referendum.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-19191\" src=\"http:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/eu-vote.gif\" alt=\"eu-vote\" width=\"216\" height=\"128\" \/>They had indicated before ruling that if they lost they would appeal to UK\u2019s supreme court so that is now highly likely.<\/p>\n<p>Lord Justice Lloyd Jones delivered ruling this week, saying that the EU Referendum Bill as it stands does not breach expats&#8217; rights of free movement under EU law.<\/p>\n<p>This ruling only relates to expats falling under 15 year rule who live in EU countries.<\/p>\n<p>The legal challenge was brought by 94-year-old Second World War veteran Harry Shindler, who lives in Italy, and lawyer and Belgian resident Jacquelyn MacLennan.<\/p>\n<p>They argued they were being illegally denied the chance to vote because they have lived in other European countries for more than 15 years.<\/p>\n<p>British subjects living the US can vote on the referendum but are also subject to the 15-year rule and must be registered in the UK\u2019s electoral rolls.<\/p>\n<p>The British government pledged to change what is known as the \u201c15-year-rule\u201d in the Queen\u2019s speech to Parliament after the 2015 election, but the changes will not apply to the 2016 UK EU referendum, which will be held on June 23rd.<\/p>\n<p>For more details visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.electoralcommission.org.uk\" target=\"_blank\">www.electoralcommission.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Who can vote in the referendum?:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Anyone who would be entitled to vote in a parliamentary election in the UK has the right to participate in the in\/out vote on the EU. This includes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>British citizens over 18 who are resident in the UK<\/li>\n<li>Irish citizens over 18 who are resident in the UK (due to historically close Anglo-Irish links)<\/li>\n<li>Maltese and Cypriots over 18 who are resident in the UK (other EU citizens will not)<\/li>\n<li>Commonwealth-born citizens over 18 who are resident in the UK<\/li>\n<li>British expats who have lived overseas for less than 15 years<\/li>\n<li>Irish citizens who were born in Northern Ireland and have registered to vote in Nothern Ireland in the last 15 years<\/li>\n<li>Commonwealth citizens in Gibraltar over 18<\/li>\n<li>Members of the House of Lords in Gibraltar will also be entitled to vote<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Around 800,000 expats voters who are thought to live in Europe have not been granted the right to vote in this year&#8217;s referendum. They had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19183"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19192,"href":"https:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19183\/revisions\/19192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.british-weekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}