Keir Starmer has said it “feels wrong” not to allow EU citizens who live and pay tax in the UK not to have the right to vote in general elections.
While the Labour leader said there was “no settled policy”, he confirmed in an interview on LBC radio that the party was “looking at some of the voting issues”.
The prospect could enfranchise about 5 million EU citizens over the age of 18 living in the UK with settled status.
Starmer has said it does not pass the “common sense test” that settled migrants who have worked in the UK for decades do not have full voting rights.
He said: “The thinking behind it is if someone’s been here say 10, 20, 30 years, contributing to this economy, contributing to the community, they ought to be able to vote.
“Let me bring it alive – I’ve knocked on a lot of doors in the last few years, and you go to doors sometimes in a general election and you’re met with someone who says ‘look, I’m an EU citizen, I’ve been living here for 30 years, I’m married to a Brit.
“‘My kids were raised and brought up here, they’re now working in the UK, we’re all working in lots of community projects but I can’t vote.’
“That feels wrong, and something ought to be done about it,” he told LBC presenter Nick Ferrari.
Some non-British residents, Irish and Commonwealth citizens already have the right to vote in all elections in the UK as a result of historic ties within the UK.
Extending that right to vote in general elections to other migrants has prompted criticism within Conservative party ranks and supporters.
The Daily Mail in its front page on Monday declared Starmer was intending to “use EU citizens to ‘rig’ polls”, while the Tory party chair, Greg Hands, accused Labour of “laying the groundwork to drag the UK back into the EU by stealth”.
He told the Telegraph: “This is an attempt to rig the electorate to rejoin the EU.
The right to vote in parliamentary elections and choose the next UK Government is rightly restricted to British citizens and those with the closest historical links to our country.”
The opposition leader said Labour was also considering expanding the voting franchise to allow 16- and 17-year-olds and settled migrants to cast a ballot.
Allowing teenagers aged 16 and over to vote was also “not such an outlandish idea”, he said.
Starmer added: “These are some of the ideas that are going into the mix, but they’re not policy – we’re just looking at them.”
