Policy paper

Local Voting Rights for EU Citizens Living in the UK

EU citizens’ voting and candidacy rights in local elections need to be updated to reflect our new relationship with the EU.

• From: Cabinet Office, Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (2018 to 2021), Home Office, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Chloe Smith
• Published: 17 June 2021

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

Documents

Local Voting Rights for EU Citizens Living in the UK

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Background

During the UK’s membership of the European Union, it was a requirement of membership that EU Citizens living in the UK could both stand and vote in local elections across the UK. These rights were reciprocated to UK citizens living in all EU Member States.

Now that the UK has left the European Union, and Freedom of Movement has ended and a new points based immigration system has been introduced, EU citizens’ voting and candidacy rights in local elections need to be updated to reflect our new relationship with the EU.

Voting rights for UK citizens living in EU Member States are now not the same across all countries and some EU Member States have not retained voting rights for our UK citizens living abroad. Each individual EU Member State has the authority to make their own voting agreements with the UK.

Published 17 June 2021