Title: No vote, no voice: EU migrants and the general election
Headings: 
24 April 2015
No vote, no voice: EU migrants and the general election

Content: Tomescu, originally from Romania, is a founding member of the party established in 2013 that aims to enforce the same voting rights as members of the Commonwealth for EU migrants living in the UK. The party believes that most of the political parties in the UK do not defend the interests of EU migrants. In last year’s European election the party gained around 10,700 votes. “The right to vote in the UK is not necessarily given by the citizenship,” says Tomescu, a dentist who moved to the UK in 2010. He bases his argument upon the fact that UK law says that UK nationals who live overseas for more than 15 years can no longer vote in the UK, even by post. “It is not fair to be discriminated. There are now more EU residents in the UK than from the Commonwealth,” Tomescu says. “A lot of people ask me how it is that they cannot vote here although they are members of the European Union, while people from Malta or Gibraltar can.” He explains that with recently introduced rules on housing and child benefits, which make it harder for EU migrants to claim for them, EU nationals get continually fewer rights in the UK. Earlier this year, London-based Tomescu wrote to 650 MPs and members of the House of Lords and introduced to them the party’s “Let Us Vote and Stand” campaign.