Our Electoral Franchise is a mess!

Excellent article by Lord David Frost 9th May 2025.   The Conservative Party should adopt his solutions as policy!

Our Electoral Franchise is a mess

By

 Lord David Frost

Our electoral franchise is a mess. You might think you have to be a British citizen to vote in British elections.

Not a bit of it. Millions can do so. Aussies and Canadians. Nearly half of Africa. All Indians and Pakistanis. In fact, getting on for a third of the entire world’s population can vote here if they can get here.

Most of this is a legacy of British Empire and our sentimentality about the Commonwealth. Any citizen of a Commonwealth country can vote if they are living, working, or studying here. That’s 2.7 billion people. The reverse is very rarely true. Indians coming here to work under our new free trade deal with India get to vote straight away. Brits going to India certainly do not.

Some of it also stems from the British establishment’s chip on its collective shoulder about Ireland, and indeed the Irish establishment’s determination to hang on to some of the benefits of being part of the UK – including letting us defend Irish waters and airspace – despite being an independent country for over a hundred years.

Irish citizens not only get to vote in all British elections. Irish citizens can come here without restriction, work here, live here, and be educated here, including paying UK-level fees at universities.

Brits get similar benefits in Ireland but there are more Irish people in Britain than the way round. It’s Irish citizens who get the benefits of Brexit and those of being in the EU too: truly the best of both worlds.

Even other EU citizens get a pretty good deal. The 6 million Europeans here before the end of 2020, if they stayed, all get to vote in local elections. The Scots and Welsh have gone even further and say that any resident foreigner, whatever nationality and whenever they arrive, can vote in not just the locals but elections to the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments.

What effect does this have? Estimates suggest there were around 2 million Commonwealth citizens in the UK in 2021, most without a British passport. Since then we have had another 2.5 million people net coming to the country, many from Commonwealth Nations. Yes, some will be children or won’t register, but it is plausible to think 2-3 million Commonwealth citizens are, or could be, on the electoral roll. There are also getting on for half a million non-dual citizen Irish. And millions of Europeans could be on the register for everything but national elections. The local election register is 2.4 million bigger than the parliamentary one, which suggests many already are.

Numbers on this scale could easily start to distort electoral outcomes – especially since foreign voters will certainly be concentrated in certain areas.

We already see Labour MPs taking up the Gaza issue, and we now have some Tories arguing India’s case in the brewing conflict with Pakistan. i But how many of those whose votes they are trying to attract are British citizens at all?

Similarly, EU citizens would get the vote in a future Scottish independence referendum or Northern Irish border poll. It’s entirely plausible to think they might not just take a different view to Brits but also affect the outcome.

Add to this the persistent, if scattered, evidence of fraud in postal voting. Add the low level of evidence required to prove your identity at a polling booth. And finally, add to that the voting age issue – 16 for locals in Scotland and Wales but 18 in England. Labour want to solve this by cutting it to 16 for everything – though they may yet have a rethink if they decide it might backfire on them.

It’s all a mess. It is time it was tightened up to bring our elections into line with what most people think and want, with a very simple four point plan.

First, only British citizens should get to vote and stand in British elections – and, by the way, we should be much stricter about who we give citizenship to as well.

Second, you should have to prove your status to get on the electoral register.

Third, you should be required to identify yourself with proper ID at the polling station – and so we should restrict postal voting further too. 

Fourth, all voting rules for all elections should be set nationally. The powers of devolved “governments” to set their own franchise should be revoked.

Of course Labour won’t do this, but opposition parties should commit to it. British democracy shouldn’t be open to people who wander into the country for a couple of years.

It is for people who are born to this country or have chosen to commit themselves to it. It is not just a right but a privilege. Most people think that already. Time to make it like that in real life.