Labour May Give EU Nationals Full Voting Rights, Says Starmer

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer makes a speech to the Progressive Britain conference at Congress House, central London, on May 13, 2023. (Yui Mok/PA Media)

The Labour Party may give settled EU migrants full voting rights if it wins the next general election, party leader Sir Keir Starmer has said.

Starmer made the remarks in response to a report by The Sunday Telegraph, which said the opposition leader is prepared to allow settled migrants and 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in general elections.

Talking to LBC radio on Monday, the Labour leader said it “feels wrong” that people who have contributed to Britain’s economy and raised their children in the country are not allowed to cast a ballot.

He said: “If someone has been here say 10, 20, 30 years, contributing to this economy, part of our community, they ought to be able to vote.

“You go to doors sometimes in a general election and you’re met with someone who says ‘look, I’m an EU citizen, I’ve been living here 30 years, I’m married to a Brit, my kids were raised and brought up here, they’re now working in the UK. But I can’t vote.’

“I think that feels wrong and something ought to be done about it.”

He added that the fact settled migrants do not have full voting rights “actually just doesn’t pass the common sense test for me.”

Allowing teenagers aged 16 and over to cast a ballot is also “not such an outlandish idea,” Starmer added.

He pointed to Labour-administered Wales, where the voting age for Senedd and local government elections has been lowered to 16.

But Starmer added the proposals are still under consideration.

“These are some of the ideas that are going into the mix, but they’re not policy—we’re just looking at them,” he said.

Tory Objection

This is not the first time Starmer has proposed expanding the voting franchise to EU nationals.

Granting “full voting rights for EU nationals” was one of the pledges he made during his 2020 Labour leadership campaign, though there has been no policy announcement since then.

Sir John Curtice, a polling expert, said that EU nationals and young people are more likely to vote for Labour.

“The presumption we all have, rightly or wrongly, is that they’re more likely to be opposed to Brexit, and therefore less likely to vote for the Conservative Party,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.

Conservative Party Chairman Greg Hands hit out at Labour, accusing the party of “laying the groundwork to drag the UK back into the EU by stealth.”

He added: “Sir Keir spent years trying to block Brexit and overturn the largest democratic vote in this country’s history. This is an attempt to rig the electorate to re-join the EU.

“The right to vote in parliamentary elections and choose the next UK government is rightly restricted to British citizens and those with the closest historical links to our country.

“No other EU country allows EU citizens who are not their nationals to vote in parliamentary elections.”

‘Not the Final Plans’

In response to the accusation, Labour frontbencher Jonathan Reynolds said his party is only trying to strengthen democracy.

The shadow business secretary told Times Radio on Sunday: “We are interested in strengthening our democracy. We want more people taking part in it. We want to, frankly, say to people who are making a contribution to this country that they should be recognised, that they should be part of those deliberations in some way.

“But it is absolutely in no way about partisan advantage to look at any part of changing the British constitution.”

Reynolds said that proposals to expand the voting franchise are “something we will look at,” but stressed such moves are “not the final plans for the Labour manifesto.”

PA Media contributed to this report.