With the exception of Cypriot. Irish, and Maltese residents of the UK.

I obviously don't support this move, since I have relatives in the UK who are only Greek and French citizens. This decision is extremely unfair for people who already have the right to permanently live in the UK, but haven't chosen to acquire UK citizenship (which is totally useless if you're already an EU citizen).

Why the fuck should non-citizens be able to decide the fate of the country? It defeats the point of a national citizenry altogether.

Because this referendum would affect them a great deal. And there are only 1.5ish million EU citizens living in the UK. I think that an exception should have been made for something like this, since not only UK citizens will be affected, and EU citizens should have had the right to vote on this as well.

And my other concern is why the fuck Cypriot and Maltese citizens were allowed to vote in this referendum (Irish citizens, it actually makes sense for). It seems suspiciously like they're just trying to prevent EU citizens who actually live there in meaningful numbers from voicing their opinions.

Quote from: Not Comms Officer on May 25, 2015, 06:04:05 AM

Because this referendum would affect them a great deal.

And whichever part of the mandate dealing with foreign aid affects people a lot. . . Questions on welfare affect non-UK citizens a lot.

Simply being affected by something doesn't give you the right to vote.

Then why the fuck are Maltese, Irish, and Cypriot citizens allowed to vote in this referendum despite the fact that there are fewer combined Maltese, Irish, and Cypriot citizens (~500,000) than there are Poles? All of them have would be living in the UK based on the same residency status, so why only enfranchise a small portion of them?

If it affects them directly, they should be allowed to vote.

And seeing as their residence in the UK would probs get revoked when the UK left...

And seeing as their residence in the UK would probs get revoked when the UK left...

I highly, highly doubt that.

Nobody cares about your family

Has everyone forgotten that Gibraltar is an Overseas Territory and Malta is a member of the Commonwealth <_<

That's why they get to vote in the UK referendum regarding the EU because they are both British and EU citizens (Although malta might be more complex than that) and it's the same deal with ireland.

It's a tricky one because more EU citizens voting would help make sure we stay, the outcome I would like, but I don't think that stacking the deck is the best way to go about it. It's Britain deciding if it wants to do something stupid or not, not the EU deciding for us >_>

Edit: I actually missed the bit about Cypriots but I'm pretty sure it falls under the same deal as malta.

Hm, looking at it, Cyprus is indeed a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. I guess that explains their rationale for including only those 3 nations. But I still think that it's unfair that EU citizens who are permanently living in the UK are unable to voice their opinion in the matter. And there aren't enough EU citizens living in the UK (about 1 million once you remove Irish, Cypriots, and Maltese) to overwhelmingly change the vote.

But if the UK were to leave the EU, I'm sure that there would be a way for the EU citizens who are living there to acquire UK citizens, as most of them have probably lived long enough to naturalize, but have chosen not to do so due to lack of necessity.

Well gee, maybe they should have became citizens...

Why should they when they're already citizens in all but formality? It's just a waste of time, really.

Quote from: DAS "كافر" B00T on May 25, 2015, 07:08:17 PM

Well gee, maybe they should have became citizens...

Why should they when they're already citizens in all but formality? It's just a waste of time, really.

Democracy is the system of involved citizenry, not people just hanging around who will be affected. If they'd been paying attention, they'd have known that the probability of a British referendum. If they really wanted to express their interest, they should've become citizens beforehand.

If they want to now that it's definitely on the cards, they forfeited their right to participate with their apathy.