Conservatives at home want votes from abroad

Because the UK general election on 6 May is expected to be a close race, and because many of the Britons living overseas are believed to be Tory supporters, the Conservative Party wants their votes.

"[Of] the 13 million Britons abroad at the last general election, just 18,000 voted, which is a miserable amount," Paul Gordon, a university teacher who is a member of the Madrid branch of Conservatives Abroad, told the Financial Times.

This Sunday, he will be outside an English-speaking Catholic church in Madrid as part of the campaign to build a "virtual constituency" of overseas Tory voters. Gordon is trying to persuade some of the hundreds of thousands of Britons resident in Spain to vote.

Spanish statistics show that 700,000 Britons have registered with the authorities as residents, although the real number is thought to be higher. Many live on the Costa del Sol, the Costa Blanca and the Costa Brava. The Conservatives estimate that 70 to 80 per cent of the Britons living in Spain are "Tory-inclined". The Labour government reduced the foreign residence time limit — beyond which citizens are no longer permitted to vote — from 20 years to 15, and want to reduce it further still.