The forthcoming Electoral Integrity Bill

The new Bill, comprised of a number of 2019 Conservative election manifesto promises, is likely to be debated soon.

Via Unlock Democracy I’ve been reading about some of the measures likely to be introduced.

• The end of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act
• Boundary changes that will equalise the number of voters per constituency
• First Past the Post system of voting to be used for all elections in England and for UK General Elections
• Mandatory photo ID to be presented at polling stations in order to vote
• British expats to retain voting rights past the current 15-year limit
• Voting age to remain at 18-years old

As one might sadly expect, most of these measures aren’t just anti-democratic, they’re designed to increase voter representation for traditional Tory voters (expat extensions) while suppressing those for Labour (voter ID).

At the same time as the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform has convinced nearly 200 local Labour Party groups to commit to campaigning for proportional representation at the national level the Tories are forcing first-past-the-post on local elections — making the situation there even less democratic.

Given the Conservative majority it seems unlikely there will be any way to stop this. The irony is not lost on me, and many others, that so often the only way to improve democratic accountability is to win using the existing system which is already the thing biased against positive change. It’s looking like, at least for the foreseeable future, that that’s going to get worse rather than better.