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isp001's avatar

Great piece. Is the commonwealth voter data available by constituency. It would be interesting to see how many MPs are reliant vulnerable to commonwealth voting blocks. As we saw in Gorton where many seem to have flipped en masse to the Green (as in the flag) party

Inquisitive Traveller's avatar

Great article. Do we have any suggestions on how best to change this? Are we seeing any political desire to change it?

I feel that Reform will be slightly reluctant to touch it just yet as it might be seen as targeting the “strivers” who come from commonwealth countries, with even the notion of the commonwealth being fairly nostalgic and therefore having some intangible value for a lot of Reform’s older base.

James Allen's avatar

If your estimate of 1.6 million is correct, and given there were 28 million votes cast at the last general election, it's feasible that just under 6% of votes cast could come from commonwealth voting.

Thoughtful India's avatar

“Under such a definition, a British subject born in India had the same rights as a British subject born in England if they were able to transport themselves to the United Kingdom.”

Interesting. This reminds me when Veer Savarkar (an Indian freedom fighter who was a student in London) had to be forcibly shipped to India so he could be arrested as he couldn’t be arrested in UK for writing pamphlets.

He jumped out of the ship and swam to France but was later caught again.