Extracted from an article “The EU Referendum Decision” by Robin Baker, a British expat living in Paris:
“However for me, and I must confess that as an expatriate I am biased in this respect, the worst feature of the referendum was the fact that expatriates of more than 15 years standing were denied the vote.”
“The Conservative Party had promised expatriates votes for life and the Government had over a year to prepare and table legislation to correct this injustice. Alternatively, the referendum could have been delayed until they were ready.”
“The new minister, Chris Skidmore, was appointed Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office on 17 July 2016. His Policy Statement announcing details of the intended Votes for Life Bill was made at the Conservatives Abroad conference on 6 October, i.e. less than three months later.”
“This timing can only mean either that Skidmore achieved within less than three months what it was impossible to do between the general election on 7th May 2015 and the referendum on 23rd June 2016, or that the paper was already prepared and ready before his appointment, i.e. before the referendum, but not released.”
“Either way I now have no doubt that the failure to table the Votes for Life Bill prior to the referendum was deliberate in order to help the Brexit side win.”
Votes for Expat Brits blog 
I still want my vote, as a British Citizen whose whole future is as equally affected as any person living in the UK then I’d like to why we were deemed ineligible to vote.
Is anyone challenging this BS in court? I mean particularly from our standpoint, considering we could well have swung the balance back.
So yes, my vote please…..
It’s ok I’m not so detached from reality but I hope Brexit means Brexit means it takes years and years and years before they get anywhere.
Fairly new to this site. Has this been resolved yet and if so, how do I go about voting in the next election?
The issue of the 15 year rule has not been resolved yet.
To vote in the next election, you can register on-line via the link here (if you have been non-resident for less than 15 years ago):
https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
Once you are registered to vote,however, you will still need to re-register each year prior to the next general election although the local electoral office in the constituency in which you are registered should send you a reminder (but I would not assume this).
Administrator
The 15 year rule – Overseas UK Citizens Register – promises by D Cameron on Parliamentary debate for a vote for life WAS A SMOKESCREEN – his Gov. stated that there was insuficient time to table a bill and pass the necessary legislation with REGARDS TO REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLES ACTS prior to the ‘ Brexit ‘ Referendum. THE REFERENDUMS ACTS PERMIT the Government to table a commons motion to hold a refendum with principally date , question to be asked of the Electorate AND THE QUALIFICATION TO REGISTER TO VOTE. ( example Westminster passed a similar motion for 16 /17 year olds for the Scottish Indy Ref.) The Government / D. Cameron NEEDED ZERO EXTRA TIME to include Overseas UK Citizens ( in EU or outside ) THIS IS TYPICAL BRITISH BULL SHITE – attempting to hoodwink the serious issue of promises to a Court that the UK Gov. would explore AS SOON AS POSSIBLE to ‘find out’ if there was indeed a need to change the 15 year rule ( remember the Electoral Commisions advertising on this subject prior to GE 2016 !) BS/BS/BS…………………………………………………………
I am not sure that not changing the the 15 year rule in time for the referendum would have changed anything in the result. The assumption is that people living in Europe, affected by the 15 year rule would most likely vote to remain. My anecdotal evidence, from asking all my affected expat friends is that they are split 50/50 between remain and brexit, pretty much inline with the UK average.
I have no doubt however that the government did purposely delay this legislation believing it would sway the vote one way or the other, but not necessarily to help the brexit case.
Well where I live everyone but one person thought Brexit was a farce and all but one would have voted against it, there’s a lot of Brits here (I mean 5 – 10000) so yea from our perspective it would definately have changed the result.