starmer has an idea. LOL

The right to stand for elected office is one I would suggest. Also the right to be appointed to to House of Lords for as long as it exists as an appointed chamber. And perhaps top positions in the police, armed forces, civil service, and secret services should be reserved for UK citizens, though for that I would also prefer a much longer residency period to be eligible than I would expect for merely voting. Personally I would extend the privilege of citizenship still further by reserving majority ownership of all British based media - TV, radio, and press, both national and local, to British citizens.

Anyway, thank you. Amongst all the usual and wholly predictable low level guff, you rock up with an intelligent and thoughtful question, even though you probably disagree with me more broadly. Which is rather refreshing.

If you need it to vote and it costs £1400 thats an awful lot of money for the right to vote which you'd be up in arms about if you were asked to pay it. The right to vote should rest on residency rather than nationality. In my previous response to Pacifico I set out what should come with citizenship and accept that there should be a charge for this, though I still think £1400 is excessive. But I dont think the right to vote should depend upon citizenship but upon who lives here and is building a life here making this country their home.

Your whole argument is based on your own claim about how other people would react to paying £1400 to vote .
Its all been constructed between your ears and your ears have been listening to your shoulder chip.
Only adult UK citizens should be able to vote . People born within the criteria to be given UK citizenship at birth are lucky . The rest should acquire UK citizenship by the proper channels and pay the appropriate cost.

Double standards. UK residents such as yourself should get the vote for free, but UK residents born elsewhere should have to pay for the privilege? Well I disagree. I think residency here, committing to this country by living and working here, paying eligible UK taxes whilst here, using UK services here, contributing to the nation whilst here should confer the right to vote without having to pay a fortune to do so. That you think otherwise suggests a distrust of Johnny Foreigner of a rathe primitive kind, an excessive exaltation of the idea if citizenship, and a fear that they might vote in what you regard as the wrong way. As such you will never persuade me when you are so transparent.

You are in the habit of attacking me for something I never said but choose to imagine I said.

I never said that there should not be a charge for citizenship, though I have said that I think £1400 to be a bit excessive.

What I have said is that the right to vote should depend upon residency. You should not need to buy citizenship to get it.

Oh come on, pull the other one. Charging extortionate fees for voting is so obviously an attempt to restrict it to the better off who are more likely to vote the way you want them to.

You might possibly be kidding yourself but you aint kidding me. And if you think charging people large sums to vote if elected would actually be an election winner you are clearly far more stupid than I thought you were.

Do you seriously believe that the mass of voters out there would ever vote for a party promising to make them pay £1400 to ever vote again if elected. What kind of idiots are ever going to vote to pay such a sum for something they can currently do for free as of right? You might be a big enough idiot to vote for that, but you are deluded if you think the silent majority wants such a charge. But them you are probably on a wind up because you surely know hardly anyone would vote for that. If your party proposed merely to charge a tenner for voting it would guarantee defeat.

This wind up of a non starter is utterly unworthy of further debate. It is never going to happen.

I actually work long hours most of the time so calling me a feckless layabout merely betrays your malice and ignorance. But it was only ever a matter of time for a bottom feeder like you, lol. And totally fails to hit the mark as an accurate insult might. But you are too stupid to work that one out clearly.

And you wouldnt understand the notion of fairness if it fell on you from a great height. Your motives are too obviously selfish for that. It is fair if it suits you and not if it doesn't. People like you do not even understand the concept of fairness so try to imagine it is many things that it isnt. Sometimes you almost think like your average sociopath.