Why we need Overseas Constituencies

Even if you do not live in the UK - if you are a UK citizen - decisions made in Westminster and Whitehall can have a big impact on your life. Whether it is a question of your pension being uprated with inflation or the cost of a visa for family members there are still many issues that legislation and government policy can influence.

This is why the LibDems think it is important that UK citizens established abroad continue to vote and have a say in their democracy. We were happy to see the old “15 year rule” where voting was limited to those who had left the UK in previous 15 years, abolished in favour of allowing all UK citizens previously resident in the UK to vote.

However much this was a positive step forward, currently overseas voters must vote in the constituency where they were last registered before leaving the UK, or where they lived if they were too young to vote. The result is that the overseas vote is spread over all the 650 constituencies in the UK and is often a very small number of voters in each constituency. 

Even with the best will in the world, it is unlikely that your local MP will be particularly familiar with the issues that effect overseas voters; at worst, many don't even seem to realise that it is their job to represent all the voters in their constituency - whether they live there still or not.  The result is clear, the concerns of overseas voters are often not clearly represented by anyone and there is a lack of expertise and understanding.

The LibDems have improved matters by appointing two peers to have special responsibility for representing the interests of overseas voters. This is certainly better than nothing but they are not allowed to represent individuals on issues that should be the purview of the “local” constituency MP.

What we would like to see is MPs elected by overseas voters in special constituencies to represent their interests. Clearly, the level of representation for overseas voters would be far fewer than for UK residents. We would like to see perhaps 5 to 10 MPs to represent the interests of the more than 3.5 million voters who live overseas.

The exact details are open to debate - but each MP would represent a specific geographic area, say North America, or Australia or Western Europe.  They would have expertise in the issues facing overseas constituencies and would be far better at providing constituency MP services. New legislation and government policy could be examined by these MPs for its effect on overseas citizens - improving the outcome and preventing accidental perverse effects.

Many countries already have some form of representation for their overseas citizens - including France, Portugal and Ecuador. We need to stop seeing UK citizens established overseas as “out of sight and out of mind” and recognise them as a potential source of influence and soft-power in the countries where they live.