Roger Casale
24th March 2024Systematic denial of voting rights awaits many EU citizens in the UK
Dear Supporters of Our Vote Denied Campaign
First of all, a huge thank you once again for all your support when over 1.6 million EU citizens were denied a vote in the European elections in the UK.
We did not imagine at that time that we would be writing to you today to ask for your support with a similar campaign.
The Government has passed legislation which means that many EU citizens will be stripped of the right to vote in local, mayoral and regional elections from June this year unless they came to the UK before 31 December 2020 or their country of origin has a reciprocal agreement with the UK.
This will mean the introduction of a two-tier system of voting for EU citizens in the UK.
Not only is this profoundly unfair and discriminatory, it will also create confusion, add to complexity and escalate costs for local councils.
Wouldn't it be much better to put energy and resources into promoting the participation of ALL EU citizens in our democracy rather than systemaitcally excluding some of them?
That is why we are doing everything we can to mobilise EU citizens' participation in the local, mayoral and regional elections taking place on 2 May - the last ones in which all EU citizens will be able to vote.
- We are Electoral Registration Officers across England reminding them of their responsibility to ensure all EU,
- We are publishing information leaflets in many different EU languages about the right to vote in local, mayoral and regional elections,
- And we are lobbying MPs to make sure they do what they can to reach out to EU citizens in their community to encourage them to register and vote.
Your generous support in the past has helped us to break through and make sure that this issue of representation of EU citizens in the UK is not forgotten.
We believe that every voice should be heard and every vote made to count.
Please consider supporting us again for this campaign and chipping in what you can to make sure that EU citizens are not denied the vote.
Thank you!