Wanted: A Coherent, Meaningful 'British Citizens Only' Franchise
The diverse franchises throughout the UK demonstrate the incoherence of the British State. Alistair McConnachie explains how we must fix it. (Graphic by Grok.)
Google AI says: "Coherence" means the quality of having all parts fit together in a clear, logical, and consistent way to form a unified whole.
Therefore, to cohere something is to fit together something, to form a unified whole.
For example, a car engine coheres because all its parts are working together in a clear, logical and consistent manner to further the end of moving the vehicle.
Politically, we should be looking for the British State to cohere – to fit together to form a unified whole – which requires all its parts to have a clear, logical, and consistent quality and purpose which effectively and safely drives the State forward.
One would have thought that for something as elemental to our democracy as "who gets to vote and who gets to stand" it would be one simple and clear rule for all.
Not so!
The diverse franchises throughout Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the UK as a whole, are further evidence of the absolute incoherence of the British State on elements which one would expect to be fundamental to its functioning and to its continued existence as a coherent political body!
This does not surprise us because the more we examine what we would have presumed would be the basic fundamentals of the British State, the more we realise they don't actually exist – which, to be frank, explains a lot of how we've ended up where we are!
RECENT EVENTS IN HOLYROOD
For example, this week, Thursday 12 Nov 2026, the Scottish Parliament amended its "Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Act 2025" to enable Commonwealth citizens with "limited leave to remain" (ie people on temporary visas) to stand as candidates at Local and Holyrood elections. They already had the right to vote, but the 2025 Act had forgotten to enable them to stand also.
The Conservatives used this as an opportunity to argue (quite rightly) that anybody with limited leave to remain should not be allowed to stand.
But, as we say below, we need to go much, much further. Lots of people need to lose the right to vote in Britain!
Let us explain.
BACKGROUND to the INCOHERENT FRANCHISES
David Cameron devolved the franchise for the Holyrood elections as part of his Scotland Act 2016. This Act was his massive consolation prize which he gifted to the SNP for losing the UK Membership Referendum of 2014. Complete unnecessary foolishness.
Naturally, the SNP (along with the "Greens" – with Labour and the Lib Dems backing them) used this new power to open up the franchise for Local and Holyrood elections to literally everyone who is "legally resident" in Scotland – whether a British Citizen or not.
Practically, that translates as everyone with a pulse over the age of 16 (who is not an asylum seeker or a particular kind of criminal) can vote in Scottish Local and Devolved elections. (For now, you have to be 18 or over to stand.)
WHAT WE ADVOCATE – A CLEAR, COHERENT FRANCHISE for ALL PARTS of the UK: BRITISH CITIZENS ONLY
A Force For Good advocates that we remove the vote (and the right to stand for election) from all people who are not British Citizens, at every election – and that we have one Franchise: "British Citizens Only" for all elections throughout the UK.
WHY WE BELIEVE THIS – A CITIZENSHIP-BASED NATION
We base our position upon the fundamental Principle of National Citizenship – which is, for us, a crucial organising principle of society.
Unfortunately, this is not a principle upon which Scotland is currently constructed, nor is it one respected by the majority of MSPs in Holyrood.
Many of the MSPs – including the SNP – don't really have a proper national theory of Scotland or Britain.
Many of them don't really believe in "Nation States" or "National Citizenship" nor any kind of exercise of "National Democracy" which would flow from these principles. Rather, they consider these ideas to be "problematic" (that is, "potentially fascistic" in their minds).
Their theory of society – such as it is – is merely something resembling "Scotland as a borderless living space for anyone in the world". At best it is, for them, merely an economic area to be exploited; at worst a charitable drop-off port for the world's poor.
They have no respect for the concept of a specific "citizenship" of "the nation" or for the privileges – such as the right to vote and to stand for election – which would flow naturally from those ideals.
Here's the thing.
Voting privileges are crucial to the existence and direction of a country. Who gets to vote determines whose opinions steer the country. Who gets to vote determines who gets to choose how the country will develop. Who gets to vote determines where the country ends up.
By giving the right to vote to anyone who happens simply to be living here, they are undermining one of the most essential rights of the National Citizen, the democratic right to control the direction of our society via the ballot box. They are giving those who are not seriously invested in the country, exactly the same "say" over the future of our country as those of us who are seriously invested and whose long-term futures depend upon it.
The immensity of this responsibility means that only British Citizens should have the vote.
To give this responsibility to anyone who just happens to be living here at this moment in time, and who could be gone tomorrow, is to devalue the concept of National Citizenship.
And consider this, in this Remembrance period, we often hear it said that our forebears "died for our democracy" in WW2.
Well, if that was the case, then the least we should expect in their memory is a coherent, joined-up, citizenship-based franchise – not literally the inconsistent "free for all" which we have at present.
That would be a meaningful franchise, properly reflecting their sacrifice, ensuring that they did not fight and die in vain.
We should not give away the precious right to vote to millions of people who are not invested in the nation as British Citizens.
WHAT WE MUST DO – TOWARDS a COHERENT, MEANINGFUL FRANCHISE
We must completely re-set the utterly incoherent diverse franchises that exist throughout the UK – none of which are joined-up and consistent with the idea of a sovereign citizenship-based nation – whether of Scotland or of Britain.
We must make the franchise coherent and meaningful again.
This means that the vote – and the ability to stand for election – must be removed from:
a) In all elections throughout the UK (Local, Devolved and General [and all Referendums]): Commonwealth Citizens who are not British Citizens. Hundreds of thousands of Indians, Pakistanis and Nigerians, for example, get to vote in every election in their area from the moment they arrive here. How can that be right?
b) In Scottish and Welsh Local and Devolved elections [and all Referendums]: All additional "Legally Resident" non-Citizens.
We explain further what needs to be done in Chapters 15 and 16 of our book "Protect our Country: Policies to Stop Mass Immigration" and also on our website here "Only British Citizens Should have the Vote".
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