A guest blog by HM Consul Timothy Fisher, British Consulate-General Istanbul
100 years ago my great grandmother was protesting on the streets of London with other Suffragettes campaigning for the right for women to vote in Britain. It was a time when the right to vote was a hot political topic. A century later, voting remains as important as ever, as the UK prepares for a referendum on membership of the European Union before the end of 2017, possibly as soon as this year. If you qualify and register, your vote will count.
So what does it take? If you are a British national who has been registered to vote in the UK in the last 15 years, you can apply to register online and it only takes a few minutes. You will need your National Insurance number and date of birth and have your passport to hand if you have one. You can still register without a national insurance number but you may need to provide some more information to show who you are.
To encourage you to register, the Ambassador in Ankara, Richard Moore and our Istanbul Consul General, Leigh Turner are each offering one lucky registered British national in Turkey an afternoon tea in the splendid Ambassador’s residence in Ankara and in the magnificent Pera House, Istanbul, built as the British Embassy to the Ottoman Empire in 1844. For a chance of winning, tweet a picture of yourself registering to vote to @HMConsulTurkey before 29th February and I will enter your name in the draw.
My personal view is that voting is a privilege and a responsibility and we owe it to those who campaigned and suffered to get the vote, like my great grandmother, to exercise that right. So please do register to vote at www.gov.uk/register-to-vote.
Follow Leigh Turner on Twitter @LeighTurnerFCO