Should EU nationals be able to vote in Britain? | Nigel Farage clashes with Sir Vince Cable

And joined by Sir Vince Cable, former leader of that party. Vince, for decades your party has argued for proportionality in our voting system, and it's something that I agree with entirely. Where do you stand on the idea that 16-year-olds should be able to vote? Yeah, of course they should vote. Really? I'm not strongly in favour of it. We've argued it for many years, got nothing to do with tactical calculations about how many of them would vote for us. I think what we discovered in Scotland, actually, that their voting patterns weren't greatly different from older people. But the reason why it's right, I mean, it's not merely that, you know, we want young people to be politically engaged, but that when we're becoming older as a society, there's a much heavier weight on the opinions of older people who, naturally enough, want to spend money on health and care rather than education and training, which is the basis of our.

So, one-off-14? Well, you can argue about whether silly is I'm perfectly happy to have that debate. Or 12? Or. You could, I mean, let's. I would say. But at the moment, we're talking about 16 to 18. Should you be able. OK.

Should you be able to stand for Parliament aged 16? I don't see why not. Part of the empowerment of younger people, giving younger people a bigger stake in society. As I said, you know, we've got an imbalance in the way we spend our resources. You know, younger people have enormous disadvantage in the sense that. What is it? Let me make the point. We're a generation. Yeah.

We've got enormous advantages in the property market, for example, you know, in keeping health policies high. Sure. Younger people find it very difficult to get any kind of stable, secure, cheap accommodation. So that voice needs to be heard. And that means, in my view, giving younger people a bigger political stake. If we could just standardise all of this, you know, if you can't buy a pint of beer or a packet of cigarettes, then, you know, you shouldn't be able to vote. So let's standardise it all at one age, because it's rather confusing.

Foreign nationals, potentially, to have the vote, doesn't happen anywhere else in Europe, doesn't happen in America, doesn't happen anywhere. Should it happen here? Yes, and it already does. As Darren has just indicated. With some of the Commonwealth, yeah. Yes, and lots of Commonwealth citizens and people of Irish nationality. And let's not forget that some years ago, the Conservative government then was extended the franchise, the British residence, living overseas. For a limited.

For a time-limited period. Yes, indeed. But they don't pay taxes here, and they have the vote. And you could argue that there's some political space in it. But ultimately, it was reasonable. And they have their pensions frozen and all the rest of it. OK, but we've been fairly liberal in extending the franchise.

But, I mean, no other country in Europe would give foreign nationals a vote. Why on earth should we? I think part of your philosophy is that we should do our own thing and not just copy other countries. No, we should do our own thing. Well, yeah, but actually, you know, reciprocity might be quite a nice thing, and I could work on that basis. But, I mean. I don't think you might have welcomed this, actually, because, you know, if you look at the position of, you know, Polish and other East Europeans. Oh, yeah.

They're very conservative. A lot of them could have just gone back to Poland and walked away. Yeah. Some of them have committed themselves to this country. They've taken stetal status. They're now part of our society. They're paying their taxes.

Why don't we welcome their inclusions? I welcome people like that that have come here, obeyed the law, worked hard, paid their taxes. I welcome them applying for British citizenship, going through the process. I think, otherwise, you devalue what a British passport is. I don't think so. They have stetal status. A lot of them, the vast majority of them, will duly apply for British citizenship with the extra rights and entitlements that that involves. But in the meantime, we're talking about residents, people who've been here a period of time, who've paid their taxes.

A few weeks, perhaps. I'm not in favour of it. I don't know what the political consequences will be. I think you're making an assumption. No, no, no. They're all going to vote Labour. No, no, actually, I think this is.

No, with EU citizens, I'm not. I agree with you. I think a lot of EU citizens from Poland were probably bigger Brexiteers than I am. But it just seems. Certainly, aspiration. But it certainly does devalue, I think, what being a British citizen is. Vince, proportion of representation.

You know, the Labour Party conference voted for it. Stammer is very equivocal about it. But the Lib Dems did really well in the local elections. There's no question about that. They were great results. If you were to find yourself in a position, you know, come next year of possibly being, as you were back in 2010, the important number of seats, what's the priority? Is it proportional representation, or is it getting closer back to the European Union? What's the number one thing for the Liberal Democrats? Well, I'm not speaking to them. Like, you are retired from the leadership, I don't expect.

I think the priority, actually, would be giving the country stable government, as we did back in 2010. Now, OK, if other parties want our support, probably not coalition, but the support for a stable long-term government, what would be the priority? I think working towards better relations with Europe is certainly a priority, but, you know, we're not going to rejoin in the next few years, let's be realistic about that. Electrical reform. But is it still that important? Electrical reform, which can take different forms, and up and over different time periods, local, national, government, different ways of doing it. From our point of view, that certainly would be, has been, essential negotiating issue. 10 years ago, you had the opportunity, when Nick Clay was deputy prime minister, we finished up with a referendum on a form of voting that wasn't proportional, it was preferential. It was a disaster, wasn't it? It was a bad call, and it didn't.

It was a very bad call. Just give us quickly, when it comes to proportional representation, what sort of form of PR would you like to see? Well, it was all set out, you know, the Labour government, they commissioned Roe Jenkins to give a report. I remember. AV Plus. AV Plus, which has the advantages of the British system, it has constituencies, and it has a top-up system to create proportionality. It works well enough in Germany, to say different views about Scotland, but it provides more proportional voting, and to my view, it's both stable and a success. On that, we agree.

Wholeheartedly.

GB news