Did you know expats will be able to vote in the EU referendum?

Are you British? If yes, then read on.

I’m sure everyone in Macedonia is aware of the elections due here this year. I’d like to take a moment to mention the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union due to take place in the UK by the end of 2017.

The actual date of the referendum is yet to be agreed, but did you know that many British people living in Macedonia will be eligible to vote in the referendum when it takes place.

The first step is to register as an overseas elector. To qualify, you must have been registered to vote in the UK in the last 15 years. You will also need to know your National Insurance number and date of birth, and have your passport to hand if you have one. If you don’t have a National Insurance number you can still register, but you may have to supply more information to show who you are.

If you were too young when you left the UK to have been registered, then you can register as an overseas voter if your parents (or guardians) were registered in the UK in the last 15 years.

By the time of the 2015 general election there were almost 106,000 overseas electors on the register, three times the number that were on the register before the last election in 2010. We would like to see that number rise further.

You don’t have to wait until the date of the referendum is announced. The sooner you get registered to vote, the more time you’ll have to arrange for a method of absent voting.

You can now register online to vote at www.gov.uk/register-to-vote – it takes less than five minutes and once that’s done you can choose to vote via one of three methods. You can vote either by post; by proxy (you designate someone you trust to vote on your behalf in the UK); or if you happen to be in the UK at the time of the referendum, in person at a polling station in your constituency.

It should be easier to vote by post for this referendum as the timetable for postal votes has been extended to allow postal votes to be sent out even earlier than usual, giving you a bit more time to receive, complete, and return your ballot pack to the UK.

So don’t delay – be prepared to have your say when the time comes. The last referendum on this issue was 40 years ago. So if you miss this chance, it might be some time before another comes along.

Paul Edwards, Deputy Head of Mission, British Embassy Skopje