Members of the UK Labour Party met in Bangkok on Tuesday 25 April, 2017 to launch the Thailand Labour International Group. We have members across the country in Bangkok, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Pathum Thani, and Phuket.

With the General Election due on 8 June in the UK, minds were focused on maximizing the vote among expatriates in Thailand. This entails encouraging everyone eligible to register to vote if they haven’t done so already and organising a postal or proxy vote.

Targets for this campaign include expatriate retirees and Britons in the teaching community. We will be working with material and support from Labour International head office.

In addition we discussed issues for submission to the Labour Party manifesto such as the 15-year rule on voting eligibility, discrimination suffered by expats in Thailand because their UK pension is frozen, and the fact that now they are denied access to free treatment under the NHS.