Edinburgh is a truly international city and now all residents from overseas can register to vote in the Scottish Parliament elections – Angus Robertson

Edinburgh has been an international capital for as long as the city has stood.

All residents from overseas countries are now able to vote in Scottish Parliament elections (Picture: Angus Robertson)

Throughout the ages, peoples of different nationalities have made it their home and left their mark.

Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary stands at Little France where Mary Queen of Scots’ French entourage lived, Hibernian FC was established by Irish residents of Edinburgh while Italian families like the Di Rollos, Lucas, Continis and D’Angelos transformed Edinburgh’s cuisine.

Edinburgh’s Polish community is the latest significant group to make an oversized positive contribution to the city.

When I grew up in Stockbridge in the 1980s, the D’Angelo family of ice cream fame was at one end of the street with a Polish lollypop man at the other.

A community of nations

Raeburn Place was home to Golls barber shop, established by a Baltic Jew, and the Ping On restaurant by Kenny Mak, one of the trailblazers of Edinburgh’s Chinese community. The area was represented on Edinburgh City Council by Mohammed ‘Mo’ Rizvi, one of the first elected Asian representatives in the country.

Today if you turn on your television chances you will see Edinburgh University Professor Devi Sridhar, the American academic who is one of the world’s leading experts on the current pandemic.

You will also see a lot of Professor Geoff Palmer, the Jamaican-Scot who in addition to his groundbreaking scientific track-record, has done so much for human rights and racial equality. Chances are you saw them on the TV news presented by Martin Geisler, the descendent of a German immigrant to Edinburgh.

Things haven’t always been easy for newcomers but Edinburgh has continued to draw people to the city from all over the world.

Having the largest arts festival(s) in the world has helped the cultural life of Edinburgh blossom and bring additional people to visit and live here.

The city’s top-flight football and rugby teams currently have international players from: Australia, Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Fiji, France, Israel, Romania, Poland, South Africa, Sweden as well as all of the home nations.

Over the decades, different nationalities have been enfranchised as residents, including people from Commonwealth countries, Ireland and the other EU states, all of whom can vote in Scottish Parliament elections.

Newly enfranchised

For the first time, international residents not covered in those categories have been added to the electoral register and will be able to vote in the Holyrood elections next May.

The move comes after a super-majority of MSPs passed legislation on a cross-party basis in 2019, with everyone agreeing to extend the vote except the Tories.

Next week the revised 2020 register will be published and hopefully everyone who is eligible will have been included.

The last Scottish census showed that Edinburgh had 404,424 residents aged 16 and over, of whom 4,146 were Irish, 23,130 were citizens of another EU country, 12,343 were Commonwealth nationals and 15,146 from another country. It is this group that is now being registered and is being enfranchised.

We are fortunate in this country to have an efficient, effective, and non-partisan registration system. It has moved with the times, operating a rolling roll, which is updated continually and allows people to register and update their details easily in a variety of ways, including online.

If not all newly entitled voters are included, there is still be time to promote and maximise registration and electoral participation.

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