Nearly half of all British citizens support an extension of the voting rights of EU nationals in Britain to include a right to vote in general elections after Brexit.
The first opinion survey taken since the UK government unveiled the detail of its offer on citizens’ rights to EU nationals shows that three-quarters of the British public support at the very least maintaining their current rights to vote in local elections.
Most of the 3 million EU nationals in Britain do not have a right to vote in general elections. The exceptions are citizens of Ireland, Malta and Cyprus. More than 1 million Commonwealth citizens settled in Britain, including those with Indian, Pakistani and Zimbabwean passports, also have a right to vote in general elections alongside British citizens.
The findings come in an Opinium survey commissioned by Prof Michael Bruter and Dr Sarah Harrison, of the London School of Economics’ electoral psychology initiative.
They show that only 10% of the British public would support removing the right of EU citizens to vote in local elections in the UK after Brexit. The UK’s policy paper published last Monday detailing the offer of “settled status” for EU nationals after Brexit made no mention of safeguarding their right to vote in local elections or seeking to ensure the continuation of voting rights for Britons in the EU. This gave rise to speculation that they may be at risk.
Both Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians backed extending the right to vote in general elections to EU nationals last week. One senior Lib Dem, Chris Rennard, said in a letter to the Guardian: “There must also be a change in electoral law to ensure that everyone living in the UK and entitled to vote is registered in order to enable them to participate in elections.”
The survey says that 48% of the British public back extending voting rights to the 3 million EU nationals after Brexit, while 25% support the status quo of voting only in local elections and 10% support the option of removing all their voting rights.
Harrison said: “British people clearly consider EU citizens who have settled in this country as a full and essential part of society. They would like to maintain their electoral rights and, for nearly half of them, give them the right to vote in general elections. This signals people will likely resent any offer that takes rights away from Europeans who have made their life here and contributed to British society.”
Bruter added that the poll results showed that the British public might be willing to treat EU nationals the same way as Commonwealth citizens. “It seems that if the government wanted to propose a new status that did follow the preferences of the British electorate, this would in fact include the right to vote in general elections,” he said.
Bruter said such an effort could be seen as a genuine sign that Brexit UK wants to propose its own innovative package of integration to EU citizens living locally rather than just seeing what rights could be withdrawn.
The survey, conducted online in the week beginning 25 June, shows voters evenly split on the five-year continuous residence condition to qualify for “settled status”. It got the support of 42% of British voters, with 41% opposed, including 25% who think all citizens of other EU countries coming to settle in the UK in future should continue to receive the same rights.
The UK offer to EU nationals includes a requirement that they be fingerprinted and apply for a biometric residence document or lose their legal right to remain in Britain. The EU has proposed that while the UK can issue residence documents they should only be voluntary and “declamatory” and refusal should not impact the legal right of the EU national to remain in Britain.