I have spoken out against the Tory Voter ID scheme on numerous occasions, pointing out that it disproportionately disadvantages the younger voter, ethnic minority voters, those who are not employed.
Tory Ministers insist this is necessary to prevent personation, that is folk pretending to be someone else to vote. However Electoral Commission data shows this is simply not an issue. They are seemingly intent on fixing a problem which does not exist in reality.
One might ask why they are really doing this, and this question was put to the UK Government again this week. Astonishingly, the Minister now said it was to deal with the threat of international actors becoming involved. So, she was suggesting that international actors would be pretending to be random voters, and I have to say she was not clear on how this would possibly work, never mind why. She did not like me pushing her on this, but I will keep doing it. Democracy should be easy to access, for all our benefit.
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