she would still need those papers, to even marry him though. i went through it all being a Canadian marrying an Englishman. easier going to UK than him coming to Canada let me tell you. the US is even harder. doesn't matter a lick about her marriage without the paperwork. i think she missed the deadline when on the show last year or year before.


well any part of the UK should be able to vote. I know a lot of people went on line and voted for Idol as well, or phoned. it's all about money.

I'm sure they can't either. It's quite right that only UK nationals can vote.

you sound a bit prejudiced

Why is it prejudiced? If, say, Simona hadn't been married to someone from the UK, should Romanian people have been able to vote for her in it? Should they have anyway - she was still from Romania?

In Ireland many people do have the UK channels like BBC and ITV. so it would make sense if they are allowed to vote. Why are they given the channels but not allowed to vote esp. nowadays when a lot of shows have phone in to vote.

Don't think so, just practical.

So if they get a tv channel they can vote??/

Why stop at tv shows? why not general elections? I'd love to have vote in the US presidential elections (hilary btw)

Damn right!

/off topic

i know the dialling code and i could have called i am sure. you can`t vote on line though, so it isnt like idol at all.

You forget we did have a vote in x factor once.

I was giving my opinion but hey if you want to ignorant to scoff at that then go ahead.
And comparing a tv show to a election?

Hey it's all entertainment!!!

lol
i agree-no comparison whatsoever there.

uk people can vote for american and canadian shows all the day long

It would be amusing to see someone from abroad legally challenge for the right to vote in a UK tv reality competition.

The thing about EU law (speaking as a lawyer) is that they would probably stand a decent chance of winning.

Without being funny.

EU law is essentially a vehicle (trojan horse to some) for the political aim of harmonisation, and as such the EU judiciary is not generally minded to interpret discrimination on national grounds in a narrow way.

Not strictly true Liza. All competitions on TV in the Republic have a Phone Number for Northern Ireland viewers to vote with. ROI viewers can vote in X Factor afaik.

I'm not sure about this, but I assume people in the Republic of Ireland can receive the BBC signal, but don't pay the licence fee.

If this is the case, then there is no way they should be allowed to vote in UK competitions run by the BBC .

Surely non-UK nationals can vote, at least if they are currently in the UK. How could they prevent it?

When it comes to Ireland what difference does it make whether they are allowed to vote or not?

We don't pay your license Fee, but most of us view through Cable and Sky, and part of our subscription fee's are paid to the BBC.

I live in Ireland and accept the fact I can't vote because I don't pay the license fee (althoug I do believe that may have been a deciding factor for Jessie tonight).

However, I think it depends on how you view the West end. It and Broadway are the centres of MT...the west end being the centre of Europe. It is not just the centre of the UK. Therefore non-nationals should def be allowed to apply and it would be nice to vote.....but it may end up a little like the Eurovision

oh i didn't realize you couldn't vote. this would be a factor perhaps.

Hey in the words of the Great Tommy Tiernan, why take over all these Countries and give out when the follow you home!!

Wrong.

Under EU rules you can derogate away from that if the job requires a command or skill of the home country's language.
Since that is the case with Musicals, and English is essential to the job, the BBC do not have to abide by the orignal EU rules.

Football is different because language isn't as essential to being a good football player.

That's why Irish contestants are eligible for these shows.

Americans, Australians, etc wouldn't be because they are not part of the EU even though they can speak English (Even assuming they had the accent down)

what if they have permanent resident status and or are citizens? they could go audition

I assume so as long as you had EU citizenship to go along with resident or citizen status. Then you would be covered by the EU rules and they could not deny you the right to audition (assuming you had a command of the English language and perhaps the accent)

I'm not positive though if permanent resident status give you EU citizenship or not though. I would think you would need UK citizenship to qualify for EU citizenship. (Of course if you say got Polish citizenship (which gives you EU citizenship), they still couldn't prevent you from auditioning assuming you had command of the English accent).

*

With Football, I know that they will give you UK citizenship if one of your GrandParents was a UK national. That's how Canadian Owen Hargreaves is allowed to play on the English National team. I think he was also eligible for the Welsh and Scottish teams as well since one of his grandparents were also welsh and scottish citizens. Of course when he choose the England National team he was no longer eligible to play for Wales or Scotland.