Email
July 19
Dear Sir
As you may imagine, I need to respond to the letter by David R. Burrage in response to mine. He is of course correct in that expats who have the green A4 residency certificate or its successor, the green card, do not need a TIE, though I recently changed my certificate to the TIE for the reasons that he has mentioned; it is a far more useful card. I made the error, which I normally try to avoid, by directly reacting to the comment by Mr. Laird and not looking at the wider picture as context is vital when giving advice. In his letter, Mr. Laird states that independent Scots may not be able to obtain a TIE because this is only available to former EU members when this is not the case, as evidenced by my quick online check. It is specifically available to citizens from outside of the EU.
Again regarding the right to vote, Mr. Burrage is correct in that it is not purely residency based as I know full well having voted in UK elections whilst living in Spain so expats in Spain can vote in UK elections until they have lived here for 15 years, a right I lost some time ago. I was sympathising with Mr. Laird in that as a Scotsman living in Spain, he may not be able, to vote on an independence referendum if this is residency based as he seemed to imply
I am happy to hear that Mr. Burrage and his associates have been working hard to remove the 15-year rule and further by his reassurance that I will get a vote in the next election. I must have missed this news announcement.
I can’t quite see the context of his last paragraph in which he states that: “I did not get to fight in the 1956 Suez debacle, solely because of the intervention of the USA.” Was he happy about this or annoyed because the intervention of the USA prevented him from getting involved? I was a little too young at that time but in the decade afterwards started my 10-year career with the Royal Navy, where we were happy to support the USA during the Cold War.
Regards
Graham Shelton
