The ballot box: Parliament will shortly vote on legislation that will restrict the number of people being able to use one of these by 3.5 million.

The Conservative government – and its drones in Parliament – will this week vote to support a new Voter Restriction Bill that is designed to remove 3.5 million of you from the Electoral Register.

The plan will cost £120 million over the next 10 years but Tories will consider that to be money well-spent because it will keep them in power; the millions who are likely to be deprived the vote are all poor people who would be more likely to vote for a different party.

Of course, they’re not calling it the Voter Restriction Bill – that would be too obvious.

No, it’s the Elections Bill – which makes it seem perfectly reasonable, doesn’t it?

But the plan is to introduce a rule forcing voters to produce an accepted form of identification when they visit a polling station, ostensibly to reduce electoral fraud by impersonating other people.

But do you know how many people were convicted of voter impersonation at the 2019 election? I’ll tell you:

One.

So use your common sense. Do you really think the Tories are spending £120 million of your money and stopping 3.5 million people from being able to vote, just to stop one person committing a crime?

Or do you think they’re really spending the money simply to stop 3.5 million people – probably including you – from being able to vote?

Tories hate democracy. They long for a return to the days of Rotten Boroughs, when it was possible to buy a seat in Parliament, if you were rich enough.

Perhaps astonishingly, the government has been caught contradicting itself on the matter – supporting the demand for voters to show ID in a response to a petition against it, while admitting that the Electoral Commission has found such a move would disenfranchise 3.5 million people in a response to a different petition.

Here’s the proof: In a reply to a petition calling for ministers to scrap plans to force all voters to show ID – the Government said: “Showing identification to prove who you are is something people of all walks of life already do every day. It is a reasonable and proportionate approach to extend this practice to voting and to give the public confidence that their vote is theirs, and theirs alone. Everyone who is eligible to vote will continue to be able to do so.”

But responding to an e-petition calling for social media users to be verified by showing ID when setting up accounts, the same government stated: “Users without ID, or users who are reliant on ID from family members, would experience a serious restriction of their…experience, freedom of expression and rights. Research from the Electoral Commission suggests that there are 3.5 million people in the UK who do not currently have access to a valid photo ID.”

QED.

Here’s the evidence on the cost:

The Mirror article also contains information on convictions for voter impersonation between 2014 and 2019: three.

And it has a comment from Dr Jess Garland of the Electoral Reform Society, who said the new Bill contains no provisions at all to bring in the nine million people currently missing from the Electoral Register.

Nine million?

And they want to knock 3.5 million off with this new law.

So that means 12.5 million people won’t be allowed to vote in the 2024 (or whenever) election. And 14.5 million of the population are too young to vote.

So out of a population of 68 million, 27 million won’t be able to vote. That leaves 41 million – and the Tories are banking on enough of those people being Conservatives to keep them in power for the next few decades.

See how it works?

Oh, and let’s have a quick word for the naysayers who’ll claim the government will spend a huge amount of money providing the wherewithal for people to get the photo ID they’ll need to vote: it requires two things from the general public that they may not have – the awareness that such a service is available and the willpower to get up and sort it out.

Sadly, many people won’t do anything about it – either because they are too busy or too lazy, I’m sorry to admit – and we have no reason to believe any effort will be made to publicise this service? Did you know the Tories were planning to give your medical information to private businesses before This Site told you?

What a lousy situation, especially when you think about the current purge of the Labour Party by red Tory Keir Starmer. It’s as Matt Thomas states below (although I think he meant to refer to the electoral, rather than “electrical” register:

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

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