Our History
Migrant Democracy Project was officially established in September 2022 with the mission to increase migrants’ democratic participation in the UK.
Before Migrant Democracy Project existed as an organisation, our co-founders Lara Parizotto and Alex Bulat had been working on the Our Home Our Vote campaign to get migrant residents registered to vote and to get all residents the right to vote in the UK. This campaign was first hosted by the3million in partnership with POMOC.
In 2020, Lara and Alex started the Our Home Our Vote campaign with a series of informative videos on democratic participation, voter eligibility and political education.
In 2021, when the Elections Bill, now Act, was first announced, Lara and Alex saw the opportunity to campaign for votes for all. The Bill proposed to remove the rights of some EU citizens to vote in local elections. Those EU citizens who entered the UK from 2021 onwards would lose their automatic right to vote in local elections. The point was clear. It was time to campaign to defend and extend the right to vote to ALL residents.
Our Successes
Amendment for votes for all residents: Labour MP, and at the time Shadow Democracy Minister, Alex Norris tabled an amendment to the Elections Bill calling for all those with settled status to have the right to vote in Parliamentary elections.
Keir Starmer says Yes to votes for all: Our co-founder Lara asked now Prime Minister Keir Starmer if he supported votes for all residents at the Labour Party conference in 2021. He said Yes in 2021. We now need to make it a reality today.
Amendment for votes in local elections: Lord Shipley tabled an amendment calling for the right to vote in local elections to be given to all those liable to pay council tax.
Although the Act passed without these amendments, we keep coming back to these wins to show you, our community, and politicians that votes for all is possible. Our political wins have not stopped since. In the 2024 General Election, we saw votes for all added to the manifestos of both the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party.
Our work continued.
Over the years, we have registered 100s of people to vote, continue to campaign for votes for all, and have seen our leaders getting organised and elected. You can join our work now:
The Solution:
We register eligible migrants to vote and inform communities about UK politics and their democratic rights.
The Solution:
We are campaigning for the right to vote to be extended to all residents, regardless of where they were born.
The Solution:
Through our MPower Programmes we are getting migrants elected to bring our lived experience to politics and better represent our communities.