Representation of the People Bill

Debate between Danny Kruger and Emily Thornberry

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry]

No, I have only got two minutes. Come on!

People should just pay their taxes and get involved. New clause 86 proposes that a donor would have to be a total citizen. It is not enough to come back to Britain and go, “Oh well, I’m here now. I’m going to pay a little bit of tax because there are various tax dodges and I can do that.” No, they have to be here paying their full whack of taxes, and then they can make donations to political parties. If they care so much about Britain and about democracy, they should come here and be a full citizen, in my opinion.

My new clause 84 relates to descriptions on ballot papers. At the moment, instead of having just “the Labour party” on the ballot paper, it is possible to have “the Labour party, the party of equality and fairness”—fair enough. However, at the last local elections, the Greens registered candidates with the Electoral Commission as “first choice candidate” or “lead candidate”, so that, in an election with three votes, there was an instruction on the ballot paper as to who someone should vote for. That is an abuse, and it should be stopped. That is what that new clause is about.

New clause 87 is about ballot papers always being in alphabetical order. I speak as a T. My constituents had to look very hard to find me, and fortunately they did, but when we vote in alphabetical order, the Ts are at the far end—and there were hardly any of us. It is definitely an advantage to be at the beginning of the alphabet. Why do we not have the Australian system, and just randomise it?

There is so much more that we could do. Although there are rumours that a group may discuss how much more we can do, will there really be enough legislative time to bring forward another Bill that will deal with the many problems we have?

My predecessor, 180 years ago, was the MP for Finsbury, Thomas Slingsby Duncombe. He brought in the massive Chartist petition—3.3 million people wanting to be allowed to vote. So many people had signed it that they had to take the doors off the Chamber to get all the bits of paper through. Presumably it did not go into the Bag behind the Chair, but there was that much enthusiasm—that was what democracy was about. I do not want to be an MP for Finsbury who sits back complacently and allows our democracy to be undermined. We have to fight back.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Reform)]

The Bill contains a lot of useful tightening of electoral law, and we are having a very important debate this afternoon. It is important that we think about how we police donations from abroad and from home. I pay tribute to the remarks made by the hon. Members for Hexham (Joe Morris) and for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali) about the impact of algorithms, social media and deepfakes. There are clearly threats to our democracy from technology that the Bill does not closely address.

Let us face it: the Bill is not concerned with those questions. The claim is made that the Bill will defend democracy, but it is actually a flagrantly partisan attempt to kneecap Reform UK. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy)—always reliable—who made clear exactly what the Bill is about and who it is aimed at. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Walthamstow, too, for pointing out that the Bill exempts from any suggestion of a restriction donations by trade unions, which have given £17 million to the Labour party in the last five years, £10 million of that at the last election. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] They are delighted; they welcome it. Of course they are happy with that sort of support. This is partisan and highly partial legislation.

I put on record my resentment and outrage on behalf of the people who have generously given to Reform UK, whom the Minister called “malign actors”. I wonder who she is referring to. She is talking about individuals, British citizens, who have made money and are choosing to donate it in support of political causes that they believe in, as is their right.