It is a pretty bad joke for the government to offer lifetime voting rights to expatriates at the precise time when its own policy endangers the future of those of us who live elsewhere in the EU (Expats to get voting rights for life, 8 October). Our rights of residence, our rights to access health and welfare systems and so on, which were guaranteed before 23 June, are all now up in the air.
They could be secured in a moment, if the government were to guarantee the continued rights of EU citizens in the UK, but instead both they and us are to be used as bargaining chips in a game of international blackmail. If, as a result, we lose our rights, many of us will be forced back to the UK, losing our homes and employment in the process. When this happens, what use will expatriate voting rights be to us?
Justin Horton
Huesca province, Spain
• If expats are to be given votes for decades after they have lived in the UK, then a special constituency should be created for them so that their influence is contained within it and they cannot change the outcome in other constituencies where people need to be resident in order to judge who would be their best local representative in the House of Commons. There must also be a change in electoral law to ensure that everyone living in the UK and entitled to vote is registered in order to enable them to participate in elections.
Chris Rennard
Liberal Democrat, House of Lords; co-chair, all party parliamentary group on democratic participation
• I am capering in dangerous rage at the news that only now, safely after the appalling and undemocratic Brexit, is there a plan to let up to a million Brits living abroad vote. This is as useful now as was the development of anaesthetics for someone who had previously had a limb sawn off while awake. Brexit affects those like me profoundly, yet we had no vote. This alone should be enough legal and moral grounds for the overturning of it.
Brian Smith
Berlin, Germany
