This petition was submitted during the 2017 to 2019 Parliament
Rejected petition Remove the arbitrary rule that disenfranchises UK nationals living abroad
Rejected on
Remove the arbitrary rule that disenfranchises UK nationals who have lived abroad for more than 15 years from participating in UK parliamentary elections
In a response to another petition (https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/228362) the government said that it is committed to removing this arbitrary rule, but the petition was closed because the next general election was expected to be in 2022. This is plainly now not the case.
The bill to remove this restriction needs has already made some progress, but the remaining stages need to be prioritised.
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/258710
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.