A key measure of this government’s success after its first five years will be whether we have become a more civilised and more tolerant society, with a healthier democracy with greater public confidence and engagement, free from the divisive rhetoric that failed to persuade people to support the previous administration.
We saw many measures introduced by the previous Conservative government seeking to change the rules by which elections are conducted to try and assist their return to office. A fat lot of good it did them!
Scrap useless, discriminatory photo ID rules
They introduced the most restrictive form of photo ID, without any evidence that it was necessary, going far beyond what either the Electoral Commission or the election review conducted by the former Conservative Chair Lord Pickles had recommended. Our new government needs to scrap or replace the photo ID rules. If ID is deemed necessary, the official polling card should suffice and would save £180mn over the next decade.
Ironically, the new rules, intended to gerrymander to their advantage, did not save the Conservatives. However, there were many close results where their very restrictive ID rules may have made a difference. These include Basildon and Billericay, where former Conservative chairman Richard Holden narrowly won by just 20 votes, despite being parachuted into a seat that was expected to have a 20,000+ Conservative majority.
Restore Electoral Commission independence
We need to restore and strengthen the independence of the Electoral Commission. The strategy and policy statement forced on it by the last government should be withdrawn, and never replaced.
It is a scandal that in so many constituencies, people did not have a genuine choice of MP, as the real choice lay with party machines that can foist MPs upon them. On 4 July 2024, only 30% of those who voted got the MP that they voted for. And many of that 30% were voting tactically against another party.
Ministers now on the front bench should consider that the single biggest mistake of the Blair government in 1997 was to think that they would never lose another election. This meant that those around Tony Blair saw no need to move to a fairer voting system providing real choice for voters. After two full terms, they considered that winning again with 34% of the vote was good enough.
Yet this government starts with having just received 34% of the vote.
Ensure every vote counts
The failure of those Labour governments to make progress with voting reform led directly to what was frequently referred to in the campaign as a ‘decade of chaos’. With leaders like Lord Cameron, the soon-to-be Baroness May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak we clearly did not achieve the stable government that was supposed to be the main justification for the first past the post system.
We need to do everything we can to ensure that every vote counts. A post-election survey by ‘More in Common’ suggested that 400,000 voters were turned away at polling stations two weeks ago, never to return, because they did not have the requisite ID.
For each one of them, there were probably several people on the registers who did not go in the first place because of the new rules. This was a factor in the turnout being the lowest for 20 years.
Fix voter registration and engage young people
But a bigger scandal is that, according to the Electoral Commission, up to eight million people were not correctly included on the voting registers. This means that almost all of them will have been unable to vote, even though legally entitled to do so.
Most people think that the process of registration is automatic. It is not, but it should be, and it is pleasing that the new government is introducing automatic voter registration.
Finally, to improve our democracy, we must engage more with young people. Proper civic education is vital, and we should allow them to vote in the first election after their 16th birthday to encourage their participation and respect for democracy.
During the campaign, I canvassed several 17-year-olds, frustrated that they had no say in the election. If the next election is in 2029, then they will be almost 23 before being able to vote in a general election.
That is too late.
