YOUR VIEWS

I WAS fascinated to read the Bulletin's attack on the “… battle to win expatriate votes.” That the Labour Party should be pursuing these votes, when it was they who were responsible for looking to disenfranchise expatriates by removing their voting rights, is at best disingenuous and at worst an admission of their guilt of their shameful policies. If the Conservative Party had not fought Tony Blair tooth and nail, his plan for the removal of expatriate votes would not have been modified to the reduction from 20 years to 15 years – the time after which votes were no longer valid in the U.K.

The whole saga needs to be abolished. Expatriates have paid, and many continue to pay, taxes in the U.K. They are subject to alterations in their state pensions and the U.K. should, as is the policy of many other nations, accept the right of British subjects to votes in the U.K. in perpetuity.

If there exist 2.5 million expatriates, should there not be MPs to represent them?

Yours faithfully
A.G.P. Niblett