‘When I obtained to the polling sales space, there was a line by means of my identify, and I used to be turned away’ – voters shut out of democracy
Daniela Onyewuenyi was excited to vote in the 2024 general election. “I had just turned 18, and it was my first year to vote,” she remembers. “I was in high school, and everybody was talking about the elections.”
But when she arrived at her local polling station in Paisley, Scotland, Daniela was turned away. “The person told me there was a line through my name, and they just turned me away,” she says. Originally born in Italy, Daniela had moved to the UK a decade earlier with her parents. “The polling station handed me an Electoral Commission leaflet, so I called the number, and they told me I had no right to vote because I didn’t hold British citizenship. I felt sad and defeated.”
As we approach critical local elections that may decide the future of the Prime Minister and the national government, across the UK millions of people are locked out of the ballot box simply because of their nationality. Different residency restrictions on the right to vote means 4.4 million residents in the UK cannot vote in general elections, and over 1.2 million cannot vote in any election – according to a report from the Migration Democracy Project utilising Office for National Statistics data.
For millions, this is a double bind. While people who have migrated to the country for work or to seek refuge are especially weaponised by some political figures during election cycles, they also can’t make their own voices heard at the ballot box. And now, figures like Reform’s Nigel Farage and the Conservatives’ Sir Gavin Williamson, are arguing England should restrict the franchise even further – denying even Commonwealth citizens the right to vote.
So, on Monday this week, the deadline for voter registration, Daniela joined over a hundred people from across the UK at the Houses of Parliament to join a mass lobby in support of Votes for All.
Shams Moussa, a refugee forced to flee from Niger, West Africa, because of political persecution, told us he was unable to vote in his local elections in Wallsend, near Newcastle, despite having lived in the UK for 10 years. If he lived just 65 miles further north in Scotland, he would be able to vote in the local elections, because Scotland and Wales have introduced residence-based voting rights for their local and devolved elections.
“It’s not anger anymore, but frustration,” Shams, a community support worker, says. “When you have refugee status, you can work – paying tax, paying rent, paying your bills, council tax. Yet I can’t have a say in who will be my local councillors. We are giving 16 year-olds the right to vote, yet there is me, a middle-aged man and I cannot have a say. All I’m asking for is a fair system, just like Scotland and Wales.”
Raissa da Cunha Balduino, 37, lives in Belfast with her Northern Irish husband and young daughter. Born in Brazil, she moved to Belfast 12 years ago, but has no right to vote in local or general elections – unlike if she lived in Scotland or Wales. “Voting is important for me,” Raissa says. “You are allowed to vote from 16 in Brazil, and I remember how proud I was to vote for the first time. The second I turned 16, I registered to vote.
“Now, in Northern Ireland, I’m one of the directors of a campaign fighting for childcare reform. I’m constantly in the Parliament. But when it was my time to vote, I couldn’t. People in power are making decisions for me, but I can’t vote.”
Community worker Riada Kullani, 41, fled Albania 11 years ago for a new life in Stockton-on-Tees. She now holds British citizenship, but still remembers being turned away from the ballot box. “When I was turned away at the polling station, I felt discriminated against and very angry,” she says. “You feel hopeless. You have the right to work and pay taxes, yet you can’t choose your own MP, it isn’t right.”
Lara Parizotto, Executive Director of Migrant Democracy Project, says the UK’s missing voters are distorting democracy. “The scale of missing migrant votes has the potential to change election results in constituencies across the UK,” Lara says. “Constituencies where migrant residents are going to have to live with the consequences of policies – from immigration to housing, transport to healthcare – implemented by politicians they had no option to vote for.”
A report last year from the Migrant Democracy Project, ‘What If Everyone Could Vote’ experienced what the campaign described as a “racist and xenophobic backlash” – just for asking for the same rights as Scotland and Wales. Meanwhile others – especially in the wake of Nigel Farage’s dog-whistle about “British born voters” following his party’s failure to win the Gorton and Denton by-election – want to push franchise in the opposite direction.
A month ago, Sir Gavin Williamson, Conservative MP for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge tabled an amendment to the Representation of the People Bill to remove the right of Commonwealth citizens to vote in general and local government elections in England.
It’s easy to see why when the 2024 election results saw a “large rise in the number of very marginal seats” according to a report from the House of Commons library. Nearly one in five seats – 115 in total – was won on a margin of five per cent or less. Boston and Skegness went to Reform in 2024 by only 2,010 votes – in a seat where MDP found 12,821 residents without the right to vote. While Labour held onto Hendon by only 15 votes – a constituency with 25,156 migrant residents without the right to vote.
Analysis of tightly contested wards in the council elections, shows 3,044 disenfranchised voters in Havering, 5,956 in Bromley and 3,263 in Bexley.
At the Votes for All rally this week one woman shared a personal story. “My name is Manuela Perteghella,” she said, addressing the rally. “I am originally from Italy, and I came to the UK when I was 19 to study, and I stayed. I was allowed to vote in local elections, but I was not allowed to vote in the Brexit referendum. For me, that was quite a shock. Not to be able to have a say on such an important matter that affected our lives.”
Manuela is now the Liberal Democrat MP for Stratford-on-Avon, and the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Citizens’ Rights. “We need to defend and strengthen democracy and that means extending voting rights to the people of this British Isle,” she said. “And the people are us.”
In just two weeks’ time, on May 7, Daniela – who is now studying Scots Law with Spanish at Dundee University – will finally be able to vote in the Scottish Parliamentary elections. She wants the law changed so that next time she can vote in a general election too.
