Voter ID

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. It might come as no surprise, but I disagree with most of the comments made by the previous contributor, the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson). Voter fraud is an issue that the Tories have obsessed about for a long time without ever having proof that it is an issue that needs additional legislation and voter ID to resolve. Giving one example of one conviction does not actually underline the need to bring in such widespread legislation, which will indeed lead to voter suppression. Even the pilot trials that were undertaken proved that many people did not have ID with them, and even when they might have accessed ID, many did not return to vote and a lot of folk were effectively disfranchised. The Electoral Commission has admitted that it does not have enough evidence to draw strong conclusions from the results of the pilot, so again that undermines the argument for the legislation.

The Tories talk about democracy, but the Bill could disfranchise between 2 million and 4 million people from disadvantaged backgrounds or from ethnic minorities—in other words, non-Tory voters. We have already had the boundary reviews that give the Tories an advantage. We now have a Bill to put the power of calling elections solely into the hands of the Prime Minister, and now this. Those are all ploys to cling on to the levers of power. Then they are looking to extend the franchise to give Brits abroad the vote for life. Why? Because they believe there is an ex-pat cohort that will vote Tory.

In the talk about extending the franchise for life abroad, quite often we hear the example of a war veteran deprived of the vote. What they never say is that that war veteran is often stuck in a frozen overseas pension, so it would be far better to do something about that. Meanwhile, in Scotland, we extended democracy and the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds at the independence referendum—a move that was cynically opposed at the time by Labour, the Tories and Lib Dems. We have now brought that in for all elections in Scotland, and we have also extended the right to vote to refugees and foreign nationals with leave to remain. By contrast, down here, in a further bid to upset democracy and fair elections, the Tories want to curb the powers of the Electoral Commission. Their argument is that the Electoral Commission does not have sufficient powers at the moment.

The Scottish National party is the only major party not to have been fined for breaching election rules. Indeed, the Electoral Commission believes the fines that it can impose at the moment are now just seen by all three UK-wide parties as business-as-usual election expenses, so that is way bigger an issue than the 33 or 34 accusations of possible voting misrepresentation out of 34 million votes cast. Of course, clerical error quite often accounts for possible voter impersonation, so voter ID might not solve that in itself.

There is actually a far bigger issue for democracy than possible vote fraud: the attitude of the Tory Government, and how they reward chums and donors. We have a Secretary of State for Housing—he is still in place—who made an illegal planning decision that was going to save a Tory donor millions of pounds. We have the covid contracts fast-tracked to Tory donors, and the misuse of funds for the contract to Public First to undertake political polling in Scotland. It is shocking that the Good Law Project and openDemocracy—not to mention the SNP—are relying on the courts to hold the Tory Government to account.

Looking at elections, we have seen the dirty tricks and the personal data breaches by Vote Leave, which has also been subsequently quoted by the Tories, and so many people from Vote Leave migrated into advising the Tory Government. Instead of trying to disenfranchise voters, it would be better for all if the Tories created level playing fields for elections and were seen to be part of an open and transparent governance structure—not the unfortunate “them and us” set-up that we have at the moment.