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Tory Ex-Minister Complains Voter Suppression Plan Backfired in Response to "Labour Plans" [1]
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Date: 2023-05-16
The Rt.Hon. Jacob Rees-Mogg listening closely to a debate.**
The general principle is that if you want to skew the vote older and more conservative, you suppress voter turnout. If you want to skew the electorate more liberal, you extend the ballot to previously. Unfortunately the Tories’ cunning plan to demand voter ID backfired in the English local elections earlier in May The Labour party have been considering their manifesto for the next General Election for approval at their Fall Conference. This is likely to include proposals to extend the ballot.
Broadly, anyone over 18 years old who resides in the UK can vote providing they are a British citizen or a citizen of another Commonwealth country or the Irish Republic*. The Labour Party’s policy has long been to reduce the qualifying age to 16. That is almost certain to be in the Manifesto but there have been reports in the right-wing press that early drafts supposedly included extending it to resident EU citizens who are not Irish or Cypriot (Commonwealth citizens)
The Labour proposals will be presented as extending the votes to people with an interest in the future of the country and on the principle of “no taxation without representation.” It just so happens that the proposal would skew the electorate in their favor. In the same way therefore that the Tories justified voter ID on the basis of “preventing fraud”. The first rule of Jerrymandering is “Don’t mention the Gerrymandering”!
The right-wing Tory Brexiteers have been holding a series of meetings in London to bring back Boris promote their policies. The now backbencher and Tory grandee, the Right Honorable Jacob Rees-Mogg gave his reaction to the Labour proposal. “Lord Snooty” or “the Member for the 18th Century” as he is variously known is the son of a Tory newspaper editor who got a peerage in 1988 and who sent his son to Eton. There Jacob acquired an affinity for Latin (his 7th child is named Septimus!), a fake upper class accent that’s posher than the King’s, glasses to perch on the end of his nose to look down at people through and the social and political atitudes his nicknames imply. He was the one who steered the legislation demanding voter ID through the Commons.
Naturally the idea of giving the vote to Johnny Foreigner upset Jacob so at a meeting he slammed the proposals as Jerrymandering. Jacob was even more sore that in the May local elections, the Tory plan to suppress the vote had backfired. to the extent of the Conservatives losing the Council that includes his constituency. Unfortunately he forgot the second rule of Jerrymandering; “Attack others for it but don’t confess your own”. (Emphases mine)
He told delegates Labour's idea was "particularly silly," adding: "Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding that their clever scheme comes back to bite them, as dare I say we found by insisting on voter ID for elections. "We found the people who didn't have ID were elderly and they by and large voted Conservative, so we made it hard for our own voters and we upset a system that worked perfectly well. "It was done on trust, and the system worked. If there's any problem in our system, it's with postal votes, which don't require voter ID." Mr Rees-Mogg was Commons leader in Boris Johnson's cabinet - a role in which he was responsible for shepherding the legislation to introduce voter ID through the House of Commons.
He made it sound like he’d been attacked by a gang of senile delinquents who knocked his top hat off. Perhaps those who had expected to retire at age 65 this year were upset by his government raising the qualifying age to 66 from April. The bus service run by the previous Tory council was so poor in rural areas most elderly rely on family, friends or neighbors to take them shopping — so don’t apply for a free bus pass which would identify them. They could have applied for a special voter ID but that was badly publicised because of government cuts.
Poor Jacob, his own cunning plan to win the council and subsequent elections backfired. One would need a heart of stone not to laugh.
* Reciprocol voting arragements for Irish citizens resident in the UK and UK citizens resident in the Irish Republic date back to the Irish Free State Act in the 1920s and the survived the subsequent declaration of the Republic. In the case of the Republic IIRC voting is not allowed by British for the Irish legislature but Irish can vote in Westminster elections. When in the EU, the UK permitted those citizens to vote in local elections only. To further complicate matters, Cypriots can vote in all elections despite being part of the EU because Cyprus in also in the Commonwealth.
British living abroad can vote for 5 years after leaving and are registered to vote at their last UK address. This disenfnchised those Britons who had lived in the EU for over 5 years from voting in the Brexit referendum.
** The accoustics in the House of Commons can be poor so the microphones are fed to little round loudspeakers set into the decorative band abouve the green leather.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/16/2169581/-Tory-Ex-Minister-Complains-Voter-Suppression-Plan-Backfired-in-Response-to-Labour-Plans
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