Overseas Voters Could Swing UK Election in Seats Around the Country – Latest Figures Revealed

For the first time, British citizens living abroad are eligible to vote in the general election regardless of how long they have been living outside the UK.

Around 3.5 million Brits living abroad are now thought to be eligible to vote, though only a fraction of that number are likely to have registered for a postal or proxy vote. 

Since 16 January 2024, when the 15-year limit was abolished for living abroad and still having a vote, more than 170,000 British citizens living overseas have registered to vote, according to the Electoral Commission. 

The most up to date data the watchdog has on this is from December 2023, and predates the 15-year rule being scrapped. 

In total there were 61,683 overseas electors registered in Great Britian at the end of 2023. That means there are now likely to be around a quarter of a million people able to vote from overseas in the 4 July General Election. 

“It would seem likely that the local authorities below will now be dealing with a large number of applications from UK citizens living overseas. We will be collecting data from Electoral Registration Officers after the 4 July about the total number of overseas voters registered for this poll,” a spokesperson for the Electoral Commission told Byline Times.

As of December 2023, 46 of the 49 areas with the highest number of overseas voters registered to vote from abroad are in England, and three in Scotland. 

Nineteen of the 49 areas with the highest number of overseas voters registered are in London, while eight are in the South West and six in the South East.

Groups like Unlock Democracy and the Liberal Democrats are pushing for new ‘overseas constituencies’, so that Brits living overseas do not vote for representatives of seats they have not lived in for decades but instead have a number of regional representatives dotted around the world. France uses this system for its overseas electors. 

The London boroughs of Wandsworth and Camden top the list, alongside three other council areas where more than 1,000 Brits living abroad were registered to vote as of last year. The numbers may have tripled since then following the abolition of the 15-year-rule in January this year.

While most of the London boroughs are safe Labour strongholds, Cornwall, which ranks highly on the least, sees a fierce fight for the Conservatives to hold on to their six seats this election. Two of Cornwall’s six seats could go to the Lib Dems, while the others are potential Labour gains, though areas like North Cornwall and South East Cornwall require large swings.

While the voter registration and postal vote registration deadlines have now passed, overseas voters are still able to able for a proxy vote, where a resident voter casts a ballot on their behalf.

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Josiah Mortimer also writes the On the Ground column, exclusive to the print edition of Byline Times.

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