COPY LINK

For members

BRITS IN AUSTRIA

The key deadlines Brits in Europe need to know to vote in the UK election

The UK will go to the polls on July 4th, but there are a few important dates for Brits abroad to keep track of if they want to make sure their vote will be counted.

Published: 4 June 2024 17:05 CEST
Updated: 4 June 2024 18:40 CEST

The key deadlines Brits in Europe need to know to vote in the UK election

If you're voting in person, polls will be open from 7am-10pm on July 4th. Photo: Adrian Dennis/AFP

June 18th

The deadline for registering to vote is 11:59pm on June 18th, but overseas voters are advised to register earlier in order to leave time to arrange a postal or proxy vote, if they need one.

READ ALSO: How Brits living in Europe can register to vote for UK election

Most people who are eligible can register to vote online. It takes around 5 minutes. If you previously lost the right to vote due to living outside the UK for more than 15 years, you should register here instead. People from Northern Ireland have to register on paper.

June 19th

Registering to vote is only the first step – you’ll also need to choose how you want to vote.

There are two possible options for Brits living overseas. You can opt for a postal vote, where you’re sent a ballot paper which will need to reach the polls by polling day, or ask for a proxy vote, where a UK-based voter you trust can vote on your behalf.

You can also travel back to the UK on election day and vote in person in the constituency where you’re registered, but unless you just happened to be planning a visit home at that time anyway, it’s probably more convenient to apply for one of the two above options.

The Electoral Commission recommends overseas voters to apply for a proxy vote.

You can apply for a postal vote by post or online. Your application must reach the electoral office by 5pm on June 19th, no matter which option you choose.

You may prefer to opt for the proxy option, in which you authorise someone else to vote for you. Your proxy can either opt to vote in-person at your polling station or they can ask for a postal vote on your behalf.

Again, you can apply by post or online. If applying by post, your application needs to reach your local Electoral Registration Office by 5pm on June 19th.

June 26th

If you apply for a proxy vote online you’ve got a bit more time, but you’ll still need to submit your application by 5pm on June 26th.

July 4th

Polls close at 10pm on July 4th, so you’ll need to make sure your ballot reaches your local Electoral Office by this deadline, or that you or your proxy casts your vote in-person before then.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

For Jewish collective Golem, “the far right is the main danger threatening Jews and French society,” its spokesman Lorenzo Leschi told AFP.

But “there is obviously a big anti-Semitism problem at La France Insoumise” (LFI), the hard-left outfit whose ambivalent response to Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel left it temporarily shunned by other left parties, he added.

Three major blocs are competing for votes in the two-round ballot on June 30th and July 7th: the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) of Marine Le Pen, President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp, and the left Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) alliance, of which LFI is the largest member.

It was “a total disgrace” for France’s traditional left party of government, the much-weakened Parti Socialiste (PS), to ally with LFI, which “makes hatred of Jews its electoral stock in trade,” the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (Crif) charged.

Raphaël Glucksmann, who led the PS to an unexpectedly strong result at June 9th European elections, acknowledged to an anguished voter on a phone-in show last week that the alliance places “a very difficult choice before you” – while insisting the far-right “threat” was “infinitely too great” to renounce working with LFI.

LFI itself has always strenuously denied allegations of anti-Semitism, and the left alliance programme includes a condemnation of Hamas’s attacks and a plan to tackle Islamophobia and hatred of Jews.

The hard left’s campaign for June 9th European elections laid massive emphasis on stopping Israel’s campaign in Gaza, while its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon claimed that France today suffered only “vestigial” anti-Semitism.

Such sorties angered many Jewish people in the face of a 300-percent year-on-year surge in anti-Semitic incidents in January-March in the wake of October 7th attack and Israel’s reprisal in Gaza.

This week, two teenagers from a Paris suburb were charged with the rape and abuse of a 12-year-old Jewish girl, acts apparently motivated by anti-Semitism.

Mélenchon – a leading candidate for prime minister should the left score a majority – posted on social media that he was “horrified” by the hate crime.

But the attack offered an opening for three-time presidential candidate Le Pen to blast “stigmatisation of Jews” by “the far left”.

Le Pen’s party was co-founded by a former member of the Nazi paramilitary Waffen-SS and long led by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who made repeated anti-Semitic remarks in public and is a convicted Holocaust denier.

Since she took over, sidelining her father and renaming the outfit, she has attempted to win over potential Jewish voters, including with vocal support for Israel.

Historian Serge Klarsfeld, who has spent decades researching the Holocaust in German-occupied France, stunned the community on Saturday by saying he would vote for the RN over the left alliance if forced to choose in the July 7th run-off.

“My life rotates around defending Jewish memory, defending persecuted Jews, defending Israel,” Klarsfeld said.

“I’m faced with a far left that’s in the grip of LFI, which reeks of anti-Semitism and violent anti-Zionism,” he added – traits Klarsfeld believes the RN has “shed”.

“Serge Klarsfeld is… worsening confusion and outdoing everyone in erasing history, which is part of the RN’s ideological programme,” philosopher Michele Cohen-Halimi, writer Francis Cohen and actor Leopold von Verschuer wrote in a joint op-ed in daily Le Monde on Thursday.

The RN itself and its rightwing allies withdrew support for two candidates on Wednesday who had made anti-Semitic posts on social networks.

The election is ‘totally weird’ said comedian and activist against anti-Semitism Emmanuel Revah told AFP.

He is leaning towards voting for LFI because “the most important thing is beating the RN”.

“It’s very difficult, I’m rationalising by telling myself I’d rather vote for a candidate or a party that’s just a little rather than completely anti-Semitic,” he added.

“We don’t have the choice, we’re voting for any candidate against the RN,” said Brigitte Stora, author of the book “Anti-Semitism: an intimate murder”.

Once the parliamentary polls are over, though, “we have to take Mélenchon and his little lieutenants out of the game,” she added.