The Conservative Party manifesto contains the following chilling paragraph:
The British public deserves to have confidence in our democracy. We will legislate to ensure that a form of identification must be presented before voting, to reform postal voting and to improve other aspects of the elections process to ensure that our elections are the most secure in the world. We will retain the traditional method of voting by pencil and paper, and tackle every aspect of electoral fraud.
Three things. First there are only two forms of photo ID in the UK. They are passports and driving licences.
Second, both cost money.
Third, neither is necessary to live in the UK.
It is estimated that maybe 3.5 million people now on the electoral roll do not have photo ID. And the Tory plan is that they will not be allowed to vote as a result.
This is staggering: it is a direct attack on the universal mandate. It most certainly will mean taxation without representation. It will, unsurprisingly benefit the Tories since most of those without ID are on lower incomes.
And it won't change electoral fraud because there is almost no recorded electoral fraud in the UK. There was in Northern Ireland, where photo ID has helped eliminate it, I agree. but there the photo ID is free. And unless that is to be replicated in the rest of the UK this is not just a non starter, it's a full and open assault on democracy itself.
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I see the Tories are following in the well-trodden footsteps of their venomous cousins, the Republicans, using alleged “voter fraud” as an excuse for massive voter suppression.
It’s worked wonders for the Republican Sect (no longer a Party, but a fundamentalist cult), with the trifecta of White House, Senate and House of Representatives in Republican control, but also around 70% of Governorships and State Legislatures. Indeed, I think up to 30+ States now have a State trifecta of Governor, State Senate and State House.
And nothing to do with “the voice of the people” and everything to do with classic Tammany Hall gerrymandering.
The Tories really DO yearn for a “show” democracy such as obtained in the Soviet Union.
Agree entirely, Andrew. This is straight from the US Republican playbook where it’s been extremely effective at almost every level of US democracy at restricting voting of groups who have typically voted democrat. Given the known links between Tory politicians and US right wing republicans it’s no surprise.
Republican Party is more like organized crime syndicate with a political veneer just like the Conservative Party, the Conservative Party tried to use the poll tax to disenfranchise the poor under Thatcher.
There is electoral fraud. Or is that not what the Tories were doing last election?
i)I personally would like to see a national register because it is possilbe under this system for someone to have more than one vote even potentially 650 votes & returning officers can only check against there own register
ii) for every vote that party or independent would get that amount of money each year & no other way of getting money,(unions,business can’t pay taking money out of politics) it will cost just £1 per voter per year in tax,so 35m voters just £35m out 66m pop would be 0.53p per year in reality.
iii) All lobbying must be done openly in parliament & anyone later going to work for such companies would not be allowed
iv) ID should be given freely to everyone who has to register for the national database that can be checked against land register,home ownership,medial records vehicle registration & NI number but even then given a personal code to vote which changes every election.
Absolutely spot on!
I’m 71 poor health therefore no longer travel = no passport. Unlikely I will pass health test so no driving licence by September.
Am I still able to define democracy? You betcha!
Do I have the right to vote? YES I DO MRS MAY!
It doesn’t say photo ID, it just says identification.
That’s not how anyone has interpreted it
Indeed, I suppose if you want to criticise the Tories for allegedly trying to rig democracy then you will interpret it any way you like.
“…improve other aspects of the elections process to ensure that our elections are the most secure in the world.”
That means electronic voting, mark my words. Greg (cash for questions) Palast has written a lot about how it’s made a marked impact on poor American voters.
Having worked in Democratic Services I’ve seen this first hand doing the following jobs:
i) knocking on doors registering people to vote who haven’t returned their postal form
ii) running polling stations as presiding officer
iii) counting votes
I have to say that having done the above our system is terribly outdated and is wide open to electoral fraud. There is very little way of detecting it, and I don’t know whether any actual pro-active work is done to try to detect and combat it. There is very little to stop someone registering additional voters at an address.
You say that there is no electoral fraud, but because our system is so hopelessly outdated, we don’t really know that. It’s just far too antiquated a system. It’s about as out of date and unfit for purpose as the FPTP electoral system is.
Where I live now, in the Netherlands, on polling day you can vote at every polling station in the country, not just one that you get assigned to vote at. There are polling stations set up at Train Stations and public places, where you can just casually stroll along to. Big queue at one polling station, no problem, go to the one closer to home later on..
The voting system in the UK is no where near being able to have that level of sophistication and user friendliness. It’s all done as if we’re still living 100 years ago.
That said, I am against anything which attempts to disenfranchise people from voting. So I am against the government insisting on you having a form of ID which is currently not a statutory requirement and which will act as a voting tax for people who don’t currently hold them. I guess I blame Labour’s overzealous handling of the ID cards idea for making that more difficult.
I think it’s crass that people who have a secure government gateway account can’t use it to vote
Agree..
Good point Richard
Moderately recently, I got from London to Dublin on a bus pass – apparently it was indeed counted as “government-issued photo-ID”.
Weird!
I bet my rail card is not…
Couldn’t they just use the national insurance card as I’d, not sure if they still send them out however
There is a real risk of duplicate NI numbers
They are not proof of identity
Risk of duplicate NI numbers? How so? Does the ‘system’ really not check??
They are unfortunately quite commonplace
So are duplicate tax numbers
George Osborne binned NI cards to save approx. £1 million.
Duplicate NI numbers aren’t that common, although people using the same one is!
Duplicate UTRs are more common
Working Dead is imo quite right. We could rely on NI numbers. There might be one duplication in a million. Not enough to statistically influence anything.
They’re not like the 10 digit “unique”taxpayer references which turn out to be duplicated more often than not!
The number is not duplicated
The issue us people with more than one number
Couple this with the fact the Tories can spend, perfectly legally, infinite sums on Facebook to persuade swing voters to Vote Tory and they’ll have all future elections in the bag. Now is indeed the time of the apocalypse, when veils are drawn back and real intentions laid bare. They don’t seek any democratic mandate, just the power to do what they want. Who knew? 🙂
Even if the ID’s are given out for free (what will that cost?), won’t that then become a rerun of Tony Blair’s infamous “national ID card” that was so roundly criticized when they attempted to impose it?
It has always surprised me that I can go to my polling booth and give my name without any check whatever. If that name is on the electoral register, it is crossed out and anyone else trying to vote with that name cannot do so. If you are on the electoral register you are always sent a voting card to your registered address. If the identification requirement was simply that you had to present that card at the polling station in order to be able to vote it would probably be compatible with what the Tory manifesto has said.
I apologise for suggesting that anything in the Tory manifesto is other than rubbish but, just this once, there may be something in it. The assumption that the identification has to be photo ID is not explicit in the manifesto from the saintly Theresa.
I accept that
But authorities greate than me (the Electoral TReform Soceity, for example) think photo ID is what is being suggested as I read it
The Electoral Reform Society is not an authority, it is a pressure group.
A pretty well respected one
Philip, you can be an authority without being an Authority. If you want to nitpick, so can others.
The polling card may not be considered as I/D, though bringing that along seems a perfectly reasonable requirement to me.
I suspect the Tories ideally want people to bring a passport or driving licence, which is what you have to produce if you have to pick up something from the post office for instance. I guess the argument will be if you can do that, then why should it be a major headache to bring one along when you vote.
Which is fine if you have one…….
Precisely
You can just show a credit or debit card with your name on it at our local Royal Mail delivery office when collecting an undelivered package. Does the Post Office really require photo ID for some reason?
Regardless, it always amazes me how so many Tories look across the Atlantic and see some sort of a faultless utopia which should be aped. Perhaps they are just enamoured of their appalling electoral system which is even worse than ours and can be easily gamed to work against the interests of the poor and vulnerable!
They’re enamoured of the Republican’s ability to rig the system in their favour. Voter suppression, gerrymandering and weird and wonderful ways of voting.
I gather from reading blogs written by people who assist the disadvantaged with their social security forms the procedures involved in getting a passport would prove too much for many. I imagine they’d find it far easier to avoid the subject of voting altogether, which is no doubt the idea behind this. This of course ignores the inescapable fact that in many cases social security payments aren’t nearly enough to cover the basic costs of living, let alone the additional cost of a passport. Introducing this measure would slowly but surely remove the ability to vote from the majority of the unemployed, whether they were sick, out of work, whatever as after a spell of unemployment they’d simply forever be unable to afford it. Lose your job, lose your ability to address your problems through the ballot box too.
Well, then, why not the next step of requiring proof of identity to claim benefits? You could in effect make identify cards mandatory.
You can see the arguments in favour now: we can’t afford to give benefits to people who can’t prove they are entitled to them; it would cut fraud; proof of identity is already required to vote; it is no harder than the current forms; etc, etc.
I was expecting that. Their mentors are the Republican Party of the US.
I feel like we are facing a coup.
If we could have a progressive alliance which could be elected with a manifesto for PR, then the Tories would never be able to rule by themselves again.
“I feel like we are facing a coup.”
Please let me know when you aim to put up the barriers and declare the new democratic progressive alliance open for business.
How long before this turns into the South African ‘Pass Laws’?
Richard
Thanks for pointing this out. I’m horrified. Its a way of going back to the late c19th when only those with property could vote.
Someone, however needs to be talking to the younger people in bedsits etc & explaining that they should use their vote before its taken away. Back in the old days Labour activists would do that. Now they just seem to tweet pictures of themselves looking socially indignant.
The proposals to ensure those who are not eligible for free health care pay in advance for all but emergency treatment, and are billed for emergency treate,net will e tail everyone who uses the health service have to present ID to prove they are eligible. I can’t see us last g ,king without compulsory ID cards. If not driving licesnces or passports.
There at at least 15 ways to Fake a Democracy – we are calling for civil disobedience and protest actions:
https://risingupuk.wordpress.com
https://risingup.org.uk/pledge/i-will-protest-against-our-fake-democracy-around-june-8th-2017
Gail xx
Ps film “cumming” soon
Gail, thanks for this. I have just skimmed your first post, which even so strikes me as a complete rebuttal to those who, like Philip Strauss, seek to characterise Tory attempts to rig the electoral system in their favour as being merely “alleged”.
No way, chum, there’s no “alleged” about it! The Tories have been repeatedly caught with their hands in the till, even if the CPS decided not to prosecute (almost certainly because they were following their criteria of acceptance, which asks for a high chance if a successful prosecution: when the Tories have already – as your post points out – suborned most of the elements likely to be called upon in such a prosecution. Just think of our Neanderthal, knuckle-dragging tabloid Press!)
I wish your project every success, in rge cause of the common good and the good of us all, concepts which the modern Tory and Republican sects/criminal conspiracies/call them what you like seem to regard as risible and outmoded.
Gail
Is it OK if I place a link on the progressivepulse.org website?
Unfortunately our liberal demeanour in the UK has been abused. Brexit being a reflection of a revolt against this excess liberalism, in that case un sansanctioned and uncontrolled immigration.
The voting abuse illustrated in tower hamlets and the former mayor and health tourism shows why we need identification procedures.
If they are free I have no problem
How could a “liberal demeanour” be abused? By people coming up & shouting “be more conservative &/or socialist you swine”?
How was voting abuse illustrated in a former mayor? Which mayor ? Where? How tattooed can one mayor be?
You leave me wondering Gareth, but God love you
“The Conservative Party manifesto contains the following chilling paragraph:
We will legislate to ensure that a form of identification must be presented before voting…”
You are so right Richard!
It is chilling.
I am chilled because I am aware that the following countries ALREADY require proof of ID before voting.
Canada
France
Holland
Belgium
Germany,
Italy
Libya
Greece
Brazil
Argentina
Australia
Brazil
Mexico
several states in the USA such as Wisconsin
And many others. People may say that this makes it alright or that you are just making a fuss because it’s the Tories suggesting the measure but they are wrong and you are right, because of reasons.
I made it clear that if the proof required was free and easily available I had not problem
But it is not
You are deliberately misstating what I said
Would I trust you with democracy as a result? You know the answer to that
A fingerprint database would sort out voting fraud.
The data can be completely anonymous-it would only be used to see if any identity had been previously used.
Probably too expensive, but maybe not with fingerprint readers at £10 on ebay.
This is deeply intrusive
No way!
How would it be intrusive?
The database would hold only the information: “this set of prints belongs to an individual who is allowed to vote in UK elections”. There need be no name at all attached to the prints.
It relies completely on the fact that all prints are unique.
Individual identities are redundant.
I dont imagine for a moment that this will ever happen but the instant `big brother` reaction is strange.
Mating the system with geographically based politics might be problematic – but hey, this is a back of an envelope thing.
And technically there will always be anomalies (as noted below)
Oh come on! A finger print database for everyone is massively controlling and illiberal
I went to visit a friend in the USA a couple of years ago. Homeland security demanded a full palm scan, including finger prints. As a blood disorder has left me with quite badly damaged hands and no fingerprints, I spent about 20 minutes trying to give them enough to use, at which point they gave up and let me through.
And now you want to deny me my vote!
60 million plus required to register their fingerprints.
That won’t work.
Those that don’t vote, won’t register.
So legislation forcing it will be required.
Once it is required for voting, it will rapidly be required for everything else.
It will be very easy to exclude individuals/groups/genders.
A dystopian nightmare.
Nothing is anonymous if held on computer.
Who is going to operate the database?
The government?
The same government that wasted tens of billions on a computer system that everyone told them wouldn’t work…
Maybe give the contract to crapita. The same mob who misplaced several hundred thousand medical records?
“there is almost no recorded electoral fraud in the UK”
Interesting.
There are almost no recorded cases of the sort of tax fraud you claim is being committed on a massive scale using non-compliant companies at Companies House.
In fact every time you are asked to name a single such case, you fall silent.
Because as I continually point out no effort is being put into finding them
D B Fletcher
I could understand your anger if you felt Richard & various left-wing activists were manufacturing outrage over this “alleged” fraud.
Unfortunately, it is mostly being reported by contributors, mostly not left-wing, on accountancy web who say their clients, who try t do the right thing, cannot compete with the guys who set up company A, pay no VAT, deduce tax & NICs from the workforce but don’t pay it over, close it, set up company B (noted for its boogie-woogie bugle boy), & then C, D, E, Fetc
If, as you seem to imply, this isn’t happening in real life why do people talk so much about it on accounting.web?
If anyone were in any doubt as to the malign intentions of the Tory juggernaut, I call in evidence the following from the Electoral Reform Society – SO much more that a organisation of “special pleading”, as someone posted earlier, but rather one answer to Juvenal’s question
“at quis custodiet ipsoe custodes” = “who will regulate the regulators”?
http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/blog/conservatives-just-pledged-take-our-democracy-back-decades
They really ARE beneath, and beyond, contempt.
Polling card is a suitable form of identifying oneself – at the moment you identify by just stating your name and it has to be on the electoral roll for that polling station. Or you could create a national ID database, which is common across Europe, but as in Scandinavia there is no requirement to carry one (which is intrusive), nor even to have the ID Card (it can be voluntary), it’s important to have such a database to draw upon and to allocate ID numbers to everyone (in Finland it’s your birthdate plus 4 numbers / letters, given the UK population it’s enough to have 5 letters / numbers afterwards and you can quote your ID number when you arrive at a polling station.
It was important for the NHS to have a patient database too, and as we have seen this is as secure as a piece of cheese dropped into a fondue set (sorry about the 1970s joke!).
If the Tories couldn’t be bothered keeping patient data secure – who the h*** does not update the security of a Windows platform and ditch XP anyway – I’m guessing they’d be looking for some enterprising corporate to provide “private cloud based services” for that one!
It’s all about money
Or rather the deliberate lack of it
This mess up is deliberate, not chance
The referendum (for good or ill) has nevertheless IMHO reinvigorated people’s (myself included) engagement in politics today. I believe we “will” find ways to make it easier for everyone to place their vote (regardless of any hurdles), I’m an optimist. Where there is a will there’s a way to turn this into everyone’s advantage eventually.
Thought I’d share this timely and timeless ‘song&video’ (a friend of mine is in there).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7goTsUIx6M
Do share 🙂
Good song