I have long opposed the Conservatives plan for mandatory voter identification at elections.
This is nothing more than an attempt to manipulate the electoral process in the Tories favour. Even Jacob Rees-Mogg admitted this, saying at the National Conservatism Conference whilst lamenting that it had seemingly not worked as planned: ‘Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them, as dare I say we found by insisting on voter ID for elections.’
I called this out in the House of Commons, saying that the Conservative government had misled Parliament and lied about their intentions in forcing through this legislation.
And now we learn from a report by a parliamentary committee that rules governing voter identification led to race and disability discrimination at this year’s local elections in England. The report was even co-authored by the Conservatives own former Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland.
The truth is that mandatory voter ID at elections is discriminatory and disenfranchises people. There is simply no good reason to require people to show identification in order to vote. I called this out in my article in the Metro at https://metro.co.uk/2023/04/21/voter-id-is-just-another-way-for-the-tories-to-grab-power-18651790/.
I will continue to oppose mandatory voter identification.