Earlier this week there was a vote in Parliament on the mandatory voter ID scheme which the Government is looking to introduce. I am wholeheartedly against this new scheme and do not support the Elections Bill. It will suppress votes and cost millions.
While on the surface, it seems like a good policy, the reality means everyone has to have photo ID. In the West Midlands alone, over 150,000 people do not have a passport and even fewer people have a driver's licence. Nationally, this accounts for more than 3.5 million people who would become ineligible.
These new measures which the Government wish to introduce will politically silence more than a fifth of people in the West Midlands and is a dangerous precedent to set against our democratic rights. It will see the elderly, low income and Black, Asian and ethnic minority voters all at risk of losing their right to vote without photo ID.
For those that wish to vote and need to get ID, it will mean that they will have to pay either £85 for a passport or £43 for a driver’s licence. No one should have to pay to be eligible to vote. That is not British democracy.
Moreover, voter fraud is not an issue that needs addressing in this way. At the last general election in Birmingham there were zero cases of voter fraud. Nationally, of the 59 million votes cast, which was considered a high turnout, 1 case of voter fraud was found to have taken place.
To enforce this voter ID scheme, it will cost the Government £120 million over ten years. It seems unbelievable to start paying millions for every election, at a time when the Government can’t seem to find the money to give our nurses a pay rise or fund services to tackle actual crime.
Practically, this Elections Bill means millions of voters will either have their democratic right to vote taken away or be forced to pay up for photo ID all for a scheme which isn’t needed in the first place.
By imposing these measures, the Conservatives are reversing decades of democratic progress and they urgently need to rethink this pointless policy.