Principles of Democracy and the Rights of the Electorate

Alan Brown Excerpts

Thursday 26th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

If Members will forgive me, I will make a little more progress, and then I will give way to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown).

We are working to reduce intimidation around the ballot box, and intimidation of those in public life. I am sure the whole House will agree that the latter is a deeply worrying trend that we must reverse. Indeed, earlier this year the Government legislated to prevent candidates in local elections from having to declare their addresses on the ballot paper. We have consulted on, and committed ourselves to, a new electoral offence to prevent people from intimidating candidates and campaigners.

However—and this, really, is the essence of the debate—more important than the preparations for an election are the consequences of that election. One seismic democratic event has dominated our proceedings since I was elected to the House in 2015, and that, of course, is our referendum on membership of the European Union. It was something that we had promised in the manifesto on which I was elected, and I well recall the deep scepticism of voters that we would ever deliver on it. Frankly, I do not blame the voters. Other parties had been promising referendums for years: Labour in 2005, the Liberal Democrats in 2008, and the Greens in 2010. In fact, one way or another, every major political party in Britain fought an election between 2005 and 2015 with a pledge to hold a referendum on our relationship with Europe.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Earlier, the Minister talked about how the Government had been extending the franchise. One of the consequences of the in-out EU referendum was an issue involving the franchise: the UK Government did not think that EU citizens were worthy of a vote. In Scotland, in the 2014 referendum, we did give EU citizens a vote, because we recognised the value of their contribution. What message does the Minister think is being sent out by not giving those EU citizens a vote?

[Oliver Dowden]

As the hon. Gentleman well knows, the parliamentary franchise that was applied to the referendum was the same parliamentary franchise that applies in other elections, because there was not a case for changing it.