Saturday 10 January 2015

Get The Fox Out

Liam Fox proposes to remove Irish and Commonwealth citizens from the electoral register.

That proposal has brought to prominence the fact that there are now only 345,000 Irish citizens on that register, barely more than Indians, who with Pakistanis add up to a whopping 486,000, practically half a million.

Notice, also, that there are vastly more Indian than Pakistani voters in Britain: 306,000 to 180,000.

Not necessarily, indeed almost certainly not, that there are vastly more people of Indian than of Pakistani descent, and vastly more of those combined than of Irish descent. But that is something very importantly different.

Still, would Fox like to see Irish and Commonwealth citizens replaced with American and Israeli citizens? Would he be opposed to that, if someone were to propose it?

I would let Americans, Israelis and everyone else vote, too, if they were legally resident here, with everything that that entailed. But I would allow only British citizens to stand for Parliament. That would be the deal.

Similarly, if 16-year-olds must be given the vote, then, without prejudice to the term of anyone already there, the minimum age for MPs would need to go up to, say, 30, along with the minimum age for jurors.

It is in any case, I am told, beyond unlikely that the Bill would fail to preclude 16-year-old jurors, since various categories of voter are already excluded from or excused jury service.

Yes, that would work, wouldn't it? To vote, you would need only to be legally resident here and to be at least 16. But to stand for Parliament, you would need to be British and to be at least 30. Look out for that.

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