As a local councillor, I have 1,344 EU voters in my Swiss Cottage ward, i.e. citizens of other EU countries who can only vote in local, London and European Parliament elections. This excludes citizens of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta who can also vote in parliamentary elections.
That's 15% of my electorate. It's a similar picture in other Camden wards - 947 in Hampstead Town ward, 13% of the electorate. The lowest figure in Camden is Highgate ward, at 541 or 7%. Generally in Camden it ranges from 10-15%. The picture is not dissimilar across London, though in some places there are obviously many more French and Germans, and in other places more Poles or Spanish etc. I haven't researched the figure for London as a whole, but it's in the region of 400-500,000 I think.
These residents have had these voting rights since the 1990s. They've also had the right to live and work here under the Single Market rules from the 1980s. Some are very long settled here, others not. They don't vote in the same numbers as UK citizens, but their turnout is rising, and quite large numbers of EU citizens come and ask for assistance from me and my two councillor colleagues. Since they have a vote, they are our constituents in just the same way as anyone else, and they are also the constituents of the local London assembly member, of the Mayor of London, and of London's eight MEPs.
So I started to wonder what would be the position of these EU citizens in terms of voting and residency rights if the UK were to leave the EU. I asked Camden Council's senior managers and lawyers for their understanding of the position. The answer wasn't encouraging, not very clear. In terms of voting rights, this would require UK legislation to be changed to take them off the electoral register. But of course in the event of Brexit, this could happen - why give EU citizens, including new arrivals, a vote when we've left? On freedom of movement and right of residency, it seems this is more a matter of EU regulation and its application in the UK, rather than primary UK legislation. Certainly the automatic right of any EU citizen to live and work here would go. Perhaps, in practice, all of those living here would be given the right to stay, but it's unclear and would be messy and very unsettling for those involved. Of course, these residents are not just City bankers (nothing wrong with that), but also doctors and nurses at the Royal Free - they are a long established part of our local community and part of what makes London fantastic.
So my question to my fellow local councillors in Camden, and across London, and to London assembly and London mayoral candidates, and London MEPs, is simply this - do you favour a course of action which would probably disenfranchise many residents you either represent or seek to represent? Do you favour a course of action which would, at the very least, create considerable uncertainty about their right to live and work in London? I know I don't.
These voters have not been given a vote in the EU referendum - that ship has sailed. They do however have a vote in the London mayoral and London assembly elections in May. I hope that they are asking all the candidates where they stand on Brexit. I'm a Conservative and I hope all our candidates will do the right thing.
Andrew Marshall
