Jeremy Corbyn has strongly condemned government plans to pass legislation requiring voters to present photo ID at polling stations, calling them “clearly discriminatory”.
Among the proposals set out in the Queen’s speech on Monday were “steps to protect the integrity of democracy and the electoral system in the United Kingdom”.
Johnson’s spokesman confirmed the government’s intention to introduce a requirement for voters to present photo identification, a move that was condemned by many Labour MPs.
The former Labour leader Ed Miliband called the move “voter suppression” and Labour’s Angela Eagle raised the issue in the House of Commons as MPs debated the Queen’s speech, calling it “an attempt by the Conservative party to suppress voting, and is designed deliberately to hit the poorest hardest”.
Ed Miliband
(@Ed_Miliband)Photo ID to vote without any evidence of a problem such an obvious US voter suppression move…plus in small print of briefing document making people re-apply for postal votes every three years….more bureaucracy to disenfranchise more people, particularly older voters.
Corbyn pointed out that 11 million people in the UK did not have any form of photo ID, such as a passport or driving licence.
Speaking on Monday night before a visit to the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, south London, the Labour leader said: “These plans are clearly discriminatory and a blatant attempt by the Tories to suppress voters, deny people their democratic rights and rig the result of the next general election.
“The people that the Tories are trying to stop voting will be disproportionately from ethnic minority backgrounds and they will disproportionately be working class voters of all ethnicities.
The prime minister’s official spokesman gave a robust defence of the proposals, however, insisting: “International election observers have repeatedly called for the introduction of ID in polling stations in Great Britain, saying its absence is a security risk.”
He was referring to recommendations by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); its analysis of the 2010 and 2015 general elections suggested the government should give “serious consideration” to introducing “a more robust mechanism for identification of voters”.
The watchdog did not specifically call for photo ID, however. “Existing national and local government-issued cards could be considered for this purpose and voters could be obligated to sign the voters’ list before being issued a ballot paper,” it said.
Analysis by the Electoral Commission found that there was just one conviction for voter personation – the offence photo ID would be aiming to prevent – in 2017.
After observing the 2017 general election, the OSCE made five recommendations, none of which concerned the need for voters to prove their identity. The main one called for “annual limits on the amount a single permissible donor may contribute to a political party or a candidate, in order to prevent undue influence of large contributors”.
The Conservative party chair, James Cleverly, accused Corbyn of “sowing the seeds of division”, adding: “If anything, tougher checks against electoral fraud will protect the democratic rights of all communities.”
