General Chat

IF there is a referendum &IF the vote is to leave the EU, what will happen to the status of all the ex pats who have moved to other EU countries & all the immigrants from other EU countries who live in the UK?

Just wondering.

No one seems to know or if they do they're not saying. Worst case scenario

"
"If the UK leaves the EU, British citizens living in Spain will have to go back to Britain and start the procedure of residency at the Spanish Embassy in the UK, as a non-EU citizen," Balcella International Lawyers Group, based in Barcelona, told The Local. "

http://www.thelocal.es/20150529/british-expat-fury-over-eu-referendum-snub

I have no idea what will happen but I know that for several years I have been entitled to vote in the country I once lived in but have not done so.

My reasons for not doing so are

(a) I vote in the country I now reside in, and

(b) I don't think it would be fair of me to vote on decisions taken in a country that I no longer live in.

Very well said, JoyLouise.
A pity many other folk do not think and do as you note.
This said, however, British ex-pats can only vote in UK General Elections if they moved from UK within the last 15 years.
I did not know this until the election last May.

JoyLouise,

Interesting that you have a vote in another Country.

We Scots living in other parts of the UK did not have a vote on Scottish independence last year.

Unfair?
Also unfair that the people living in other parts of the UK did not get a vote!!

Different European nationalities have been living in each other's countries for hundreds of years without needing the EU.

Even today it is not very difficult for a UK citizen to establish residency in (say) Switzerland or Norway or vice versa. Supposing the UK voted "no" then it would not be a case of the UK being out of the EU the following day. Transitional arrangements would take a year or so to be agreed and implemented and the residential status of UK & EU nationals living abroad would be one of them.

The Spanish lawyer is talking nonsense ( as Spanish lawyers usually do the only thing they are good at is taking a long time and charging extortionate rates ).

The EU referendum will happen by 2017 as the last parliament passed a law to that effect driving a bus through the dictum that no parliament can bind its successors.

The "no" group published today the results of a poll it commissioned which showed that the "yes" group is ahead by about 8%.

It takes a great deal to shift the status quo and while the "no" group can neither quantify the risk of leaving nor propose a viable alternative it is very difficult to see it getting the result it wants. Little Englandism and carte blanche for the far left / hard right to do as they want without Brussels putting on the brakes is not going to win out.

For much the same reasons as for the Scottish referendum it seems to me very unfair and wrong that EU citizens resident in the UK will have no vote. It is even worse that the 16-18 age group will have no vote when it will affect their futures a lot while for the over 70s it is a dead rubber.

It is even more wrong when this whole charade is simply a deux ex machina designed to hold the Tory party together. It won't.

I worked abroad for years but I still owned property in the UK ( thus paying UK taxes ) and didn't see any reason at all why I should not vote so I did :-) seeing as I remained domiciled in the UK.

Brave Dave negotiating position at Chequers with Frau Merkel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmp-ITOI0-I

Amokavid- surely as UK citizens we should have the right to vote on everything that affects the UK.

Surely if England wanted to expel Scotland from the Uk without the Scottish residents having a say would you agree? Or if England wanted independence from the rest of the UK would you want a vote?

I, too, owned property overseas (thus paying taxes there) while residing in the UK and paying taxes here too. As I was not going to return to live overseas and I had a vote in England I was not convinced that an entitlement to vote in a country I no longer resided in was morally correct.

I expect that there are people who disagree with me but I do what I think is the right thing to do. As does everyone else, I should think.

It seems to be beyond the ken of many people that without a lot of UK expats working abroad doing all sorts of jobs - health, civil engineering, I.T., aero engine maintenance, media and so on often on contracts of 2-5 years duration the country would find its balance of payments deficit a d site larger than the record size it already is.

These people have not emigrated they are just working abroad often at the direction of a UK employer. Why should they not vote? They are legally entitled to do so after all.

The Scottish referendum was yesterday's news.

As you say, Rollo, your domicile was in the UK while you worked abroad so you quite rightly voted in the UK. I think UK-born people who are now domiciled in another country ought to have registered to vote in that country.

I consider it unfair that people who are now domiciled in another country should expect to vote in the UK.

I do believe that we ought to stay in the EU so it's as if I've shot myself in the foot by my comments about ex-UK domiciliaries because I think they would probably be in the 'yes' camp. Even so, I stand by my belief that nobody who is domiciled outside the UK should be allowed a UK vote.

But Amokavid, we are all members of the United Kingdom.

UK expats living in the EU (*) are being extremely illogical not to vote in the referendum in 2016/7 if they can since an "out" vote would change their lives immeasurably.

Domicile is not the same thing as tax residency don;t conflate the two.

You can be living outside of the UK domiciled in the UK paying UK taxes - all UK diplomatic staff and armed forces for instance ; living in the UK paying income tax on UK earnings but non-domiciled ( the famous "non-doms" ) ; not living in the UK not paying income tax but domiciled in the UK ; not domiciled in the UK and not paying tax in the UK.

Some countries eg the USA consider all of their citizens liable to US taxes world wide all their lives so the quesion of domicile never arises. Osborne wants to move towards that position.

As a rough guide UK Tax&Excise consider you to be domiciled if you have property in the UK or have income arising in the UK including pensions. The main advantage of being non-dom yet living in the UK was that it protected overseas assets and income from UK Tax inc disclosure. Not so long ago the annual fee was £ 35K and good value but it has gone up in leaps and bounds such that the non-doms living in the UK are now a very exclusive bunch.

Wealthy non doms are for the most part very strongly against the EU as they see it as gunning for their financial health. They are right.

(*) who consider themselves non-domiciled ( something very difficult to pull off )

Whay I was really wondering is what will happen if the UK leaves the EU,not whether ex pat< <hould be able to vote.
Will we be seeing millions of people passing each other across the channel, many of whom will have been living abroad for decades & have married nationals of their adopted country.
I´m married to a Spaniard & have lived here for more than a decade, I could vote in the UK elections, but I don´t. I can vote here in the local elections, but not the national ones. I can´t apply for Spanish nationality until I have lived here for 15 years & then I would need to give up my British nationality as dual nationality is not allowed in Spain..
There must be many ex pats in a similar position in all EU countries.
What a mess. :-S :-S