BOVF attended the inaugural meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Citizens' Rights in January 2025, and its second meeting in July 2025.
An APPG is an informal cross-party group of parliamentarians with a shared interest in a subject. It has no formal power, which is precisely what makes it useful to an organisation like ours: it is a standing forum where the concerns of British citizens abroad can be put to members of several parties at once, without any of it being a party matter.
What we take into the room
The value of the branch structure shows up here. What our country coordinators hear in Bangkok, Milan, Singapore and Nairobi is not anecdote by the time it reaches Westminster — it is a pattern, gathered from a dozen countries, about which problems recur and which are specific to a jurisdiction.
Over these two meetings we raised the registration gap, the 52% postal ballot return rate, frozen pensions, and the family visa rules that keep British citizens from returning home with their spouses and children.
Working with others
We do this alongside our partners New Europeans UK and Unlock Democracy, and we take part in the joint Overseas Constituencies campaign with Labour International, Lib Dems Abroad and Overseas, Bremain in Spain and Brexpats – Hear Our Voice.
That last list spans organisations aligned with different parties, which is deliberate. BOVF is non-partisan and intends to remain so. Our issues are about the machinery of citizenship — whether a pension uprates, whether a ballot arrives, whether a family can come home — and none of them belong to a party.
In April 2025 we also met Tom Brake of Unlock Democracy to discuss the democratic reform agenda and where overseas voters fit within it.
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